12 Sep
2016
12 Sep
'16
5:32 p.m.
On Tue, 13 Sep 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
Whereas my Mac mini has 3rd party RAM and both an SSD
and an HD
(upgrades from a Toshiba desktop-replacement notebook that the Mac
replaced) on a 3rd party bracket, and I'm using a Dell 5-button mouse
and an Apple Extended keyboard from '97 or so, on a 3rd-party ADB-USB
adaptor. And a pair of mismatched 2nd hand 23" LCDs.
...
And with the original '80s keyboard, it _feels_
(and sounds) like a
proper (i.e. '80s) Mac when I'm typing on it. :-)
My Mac Mini has been treated to new modern keyboard purchased at
rediculous expense upon the recommendation of my long time friend
G.L.Nerenberg II. And it says underneath "WASD Model: V2 Type: Cherry MX
Green". It is gloriously noisy!
I have an aluminum Apple keyboard in the box this keyboard came out of,
those Apple chicklet keyboard are just plain horrible.
--
Richard Loken VE6BSV, Systems Programmer - VMS : "...underneath those
Athabasca University : tuques we wear, our
Athabasca, Alberta Canada : heads are naked!"
** rlloken at telus.net ** : - Arthur Black
13 Sep
13 Sep
6:19 a.m.
On 13 September 2016 at 02:32, Richard Loken <rlloken at telus.net> wrote:
My Mac Mini has been treated to new modern keyboard
purchased at rediculous
expense upon the recommendation of my long time friend G.L.Nerenberg II.
And it says underneath "WASD Model: V2 Type: Cherry MX Green". It is
gloriously noisy!
:-)
One of the great things about vintage mechanical keyboards is that
they can be acquired very cheaply indeed. ;-)
I have an aluminum Apple keyboard in the box this
keyboard came out of,
those Apple chicklet keyboard are just plain horrible.
They're the best chicklet keyboards out there -- but I agree with you;
I really dislike using them.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)
9:16 a.m.
On 9/13/16 6:19 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
One of the great things about vintage mechanical
keyboards is that
they can be acquired very cheaply indeed. ;-)
This posting must have been trapped in a time warp since 1996 :-)
I've been working on archiving documentation and firmware from microprocessor
based CRT terminals for a couple of months, since I realized they are disappearing
the same way CRT monitors have. Besides the surviving examples looking like
they have been stored in a cow barn for 20 years, they (almost) never come with
a keyboard if it was detachable. This is bad enough that I've been thinking of
building a serial protocol converter for Televideo and Qume terminals for Wyse
keyboards, which you can still find for a painful but not absurdly high price.
Unfortunately, the guys building new Cherry keyboards fabricate new keytops for
Windows extended keyboards, and not ASCII (ie. VT-100 style) or ANSI (VT-220 style)
so unless you want to spring the cash to have 500 sets of keytops made, you can't
even make a practical replacement.
I did do the Snoopy Dance this weekend, though, when I found an Esprit at the flea
market for $20. Pics and firmware dumps up on bitsavers under hazeltine/esprit now.
9:25 a.m.
On Sep 13, 2016, at 09:16, Al Kossow <aek at
bitsavers.org> wrote:
Unfortunately, the guys building new Cherry keyboards fabricate new keytops for
Windows extended keyboards, and not ASCII (ie. VT-100 style) or ANSI (VT-220 style)
so unless you want to spring the cash to have 500 sets of keytops made, you can't
even make a practical replacement.
I've investigated making a custom mechanical keyboard upgrade for my old TRS-80 Color
Computers. Custom printing on Cherry MX keycaps is available and somewhat practical for
one-off keyboards. The limitation is that you're stuck with the keycap widths
available in each row of a sculpted Windows-like keyboard. In the case of the CoCo
keyboard I contemplated, I could not exactly match the widths of all of the non-1x1 key
caps of the original keyboard, but I was able to come up with an alternate layout that I
think would have been serviceable.
If you are not opposed to making a custom PCB to stuff with Cherry MX keyswitches, then
you have a lot of freedom. Not full freedom due to limitations of available widths in
each row, but still quite a bit.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
9:34 a.m.
On 9/13/16 9:25 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote:
If you are not opposed to making a custom PCB to stuff
with Cherry MX keyswitches, then you have a lot of freedom.
True enough. I have even bought some switches and non so great Cherry keyboards to harvest
keytops.
About 10 WY-30 keyboards in so-so condition showed up for about $7 ea, so i'll
probably just go with
that, since they seem to be the least desirable (next to WY-50) for the mechanical
collectors.
Televideo was pretty consistent with their serial keyboard protocol and voltages, Qume..
not at all.
I've identified at least 4 different styles of 4-pin connector keyboards using either
12 or 5 volt power.
Then, there is ADDS, Hazeltine, Microterm, DG, Freedom, ...
4:30 p.m.
New subject: Terminal ROMs/kbds (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...))
----- Original Message -----
From: "Al Kossow" <aek at bitsavers.org>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2016 12:34 PM
Subject: Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...)
On 9/13/16 9:25 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote:
===========================
How about Falco? I've got four or five different models/versions here; do you want me
to dump the ROMs? Doesn't seem to be much interest in Falcos but I guess I really
should scan the docs one day anyway..
They also used 4-conductor (straight-through) phone-type coiled cords, but with
non-contact inductive 'keyswitches' that move a little ferrite core between pads
on the PCB; no rotted foam or bad contacts ;-)
m
If you are not opposed to making a custom PCB to
stuff with Cherry MX keyswitches, then you have a lot of freedom.
True enough. I have even bought some switches and non so great Cherry keyboards to
harvest keytops.
About 10 WY-30 keyboards in so-so condition showed up for about $7 ea, so i'll
probably just go with
that, since they seem to be the least desirable (next to WY-50) for the mechanical
collectors.
Televideo was pretty consistent with their serial keyboard protocol and voltages, Qume..
not at all.
I've identified at least 4 different styles of 4-pin connector keyboards using either
12 or 5 volt power.
Then, there is ADDS, Hazeltine, Microterm, DG, Freedom, ...
4:41 p.m.
New subject: Terminal ROMs/kbds (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...))
On 9/13/16 4:30 PM, Mike Stein wrote:
How about Falco? I've got four or five different
models/versions here; do you want me to dump the ROMs? Doesn't seem to be much
interest in Falcos but I guess I really should scan the docs one day anyway..
They also used 4-conductor (straight-through) phone-type coiled cords, but with
non-contact inductive 'keyswitches' that move a little ferrite core between pads
on the PCB; no rotted foam or bad contacts ;-)
documenting, dumping firmware and taking pictures of the innards would be great!
I now have most of the HP 264x series dumped.
6 p.m.
New subject: Terminal ROMs/kbds (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...))
----- Original Message -----
From: "Al Kossow" <aek at bitsavers.org>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2016 7:41 PM
Subject: Re: Terminal ROMs/kbds (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in
production use...))
On 9/13/16 4:30 PM, Mike Stein wrote:
==============================
As a matter of fact I think one of them in fact emulates an HP 264-something-or-other.
Some models were also used in some DEC shops as cheap VT100 and VT220 clones.
Don't hold your breath, but it's on the list...
m
How about Falco? I've got four or five
different models/versions here; do you want me to dump the ROMs? Doesn't seem to be
much interest in Falcos but I guess I really should scan the docs one day anyway..
They also used 4-conductor (straight-through) phone-type coiled cords, but with
non-contact inductive 'keyswitches' that move a little ferrite core between pads
on the PCB; no rotted foam or bad contacts ;-)
documenting, dumping firmware and taking pictures of the innards would be great!
I now have most of the HP 264x series dumped.
12:28 p.m.
New subject: Custom mechanical keyboard PCB - Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...)
On 2016-09-13 12:25 PM, Mark J. Blair wrote:
Maybe you can get some ideas from this (somewhat tasteless) project?
https://hackaday.io/project/13210-the-fsociety-keyboard
--Toby
On Sep 13, 2016, at 09:16, Al Kossow <aek at
bitsavers.org> wrote:
Unfortunately, the guys building new Cherry keyboards fabricate new keytops for
Windows extended keyboards, and not ASCII (ie. VT-100 style) or ANSI (VT-220 style)
so unless you want to spring the cash to have 500 sets of keytops made, you can't
even make a practical replacement.
I've investigated making a custom mechanical keyboard upgrade for my old TRS-80 Color
Computers. Custom printing on Cherry MX keycaps is available and somewhat practical for
one-off keyboards. The limitation is that you're stuck with the keycap widths
available in each row of a sculpted Windows-like keyboard. In the case of the CoCo
keyboard I contemplated, I could not exactly match the widths of all of the non-1x1 key
caps of the original keyboard, but I was able to come up with an alternate layout that I
think would have been serviceable.
If you are not opposed to making a custom PCB to stuff with Cherry MX keyswitches, then
you have a lot of freedom. Not full freedom due to limitations of available widths in
each row, but still quite a bit.
10:35 a.m.
On 13 September 2016 at 18:16, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
This posting must have been trapped in a time warp
since 1996 :-)
Well, it's true, I was amassing collection since then. I have, I
think, enough Apple, IBM and DEC keyboards to last my lifetime.
I tried to adapt to the Sun layout -- as evangelised by my friend
Stephane Tsacas, who I met via this list -- mainly for a giggle. There
is stuff to like about it, but for me, the feel of the switches is
more important than the layout. I favour the classic DEC/IBM layout --
with a Compose key -- but I'm happy enough on laptop keyboards, too.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)
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9 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
aek＠bitsavers.org -
lproven＠gmail.com -
mhs.stein＠gmail.com -
nf6x＠nf6x.net -
rlloken＠telus.net -
toby＠telegraphics.com.au