24 Nov
2002
24 Nov
'02
9:25 a.m.
On Saturday, November 23, 2002, at 10:38 PM, Loboyko Steve wrote:
Just making a guess here, but I'll bet the pad
printing is less likely to wear off if it's off to one
corner. Modern keyboards ARE junky. I'll bet you can't
find any modern example of a double-shot molded keytop
keyboard.
Actually, I've been planning on building my own. I am currently
tracking down old, broken keyboards from terminals, etc. to get keytops
and switches from, and I am going to canniballize a cheap PC USB
keyboard for it's encoder chip and associated circuitry. Basically, I'm
going to build a new key matrix from real switches, to replace that
membrane and rubber disc thing modern keyboards use. I've done stuff
like this before, rewiring a very old PC keyboard to replace a broken
TRS-80 Color Computer 3 keyboard. With any luck, I'll have something
that won't wear out nearly as fast as others, and be comfortable to
type on as well. The only thing I might run into is contact bounce. I
don't know if there is anything in a USB keyboard to deal with this, as
I don't think membrane keyboards have quite the problem with contact
bounce as mechanical switches do. Any ideas?
Ian Primus
ian_primus(a)yahoo.com