Kroy 190: Yellow Space Invaders and a Z80

[Engicoder]

The Kroy 190 is one of the more unusual boards I picked up from XMIT's ongoing Keypocalypse. It was originally part of the Kroy 190 Lettering System, an industrial tape label printing system from the late 80's. The system consists of two parts; a keyboard unit and a tape label printer. The keyboard unit is in reality a z80 based microcomputer used to compose, edit and store text for labels. The keyboard unit can be connected to the label printer to print the labels stored in memory. There is a single line character LCD used to compose and edit the text for the labels. The keyboard unit case is made by Kroy and contains four PCB's: keyboard, single board computer, display board and power conditioning.

The keyboard PCB, plate and switches are from NMB/Hi-Tek. It uses yellow linear switches for all keys except the space bar which is a white linear. The yellow switches are very smooth and are comparable to whites; subjectively, they seem a bit lighter. The keycaps are PBT dye-subs, but have a set of pink side/front printed symbols that can be accessed by pressing the "SYMBL SHIFT" key.

The z80 board is a complete microcomputer including cpu, timer/counter, SRAM and EEPROM. It also as a number of 74 series logic chips and a serial transceiver.

Here are a few photos (more on wiki page):

[elecplus]

I am glad to see it went to a good home! I never looked closely enough to realize it has a built-in computer. Does everything still work? The non-yellowed areas above the keys used to say "Not for Classified Use". This came from military surplus in about 1998 or so.

[Engicoder]

I am glad to see it went to a good home! I never looked closely enough to realize it has a built-in computer. Does everything still work? The non-yellowed areas above the keys used to say "Not for Classified Use". This came from military surplus in about 1998 or so.

I haven't tinkered with it too much. I tried powering it up, but the leds show error. The onboard battery was dead, so once I replace that I may have more luck.

[Engicoder]

Here is a photo of the Z80 board:

[XMIT]

Well, that's exciting, I'm glad it went to a good home! I did have to replace the space bar and one of the keys in the right cluster before sending it to you. So, one of those keys may be wrong.

Keep the photos coming!

[Chyros]

Very nice review, and thanks very much for contributing to the wiki . I see it's got the same stepped keys which appear to be more or less typical for old Space Invader boards. I've never seen a Symbol Shift key before, let alone a pink one xD . Makes sense to colour-code it to the same colour as of the secondary legends, though.

[Engicoder]

Well, that's exciting, I'm glad it went to a good home! I did have to replace the space bar and one of the keys in the right cluster before sending it to you. So, one of those keys may be wrong.

Keep the photos coming!

I'm pretty sure the Esc/Break key is not original
There are more photos on the Wiki page.

[Engicoder]

Very nice review, and thanks very much for contributing to the wiki

Thanks! I really like the where the wiki is going. I am going to work on adding every board I have and do what I can to fill in other areas where I can.

[seebart]

Amazing keyboard Engicoder! Thanks for sharing, and thanks for contributing to the wiki!

[andrewjoy]

Thats so nice

I was under the impression that yellow was a spacebar switch, hmm using all MX greens (a spacebar switch) in a keyboard we where not the first .

If you ever decide you don't want the Z80 board let me know.

[seebart]

I was under the impression that yellow was a spacebar switch

Me too, but that once again shows how little we know.

[andrewjoy]

They are space invaders , they are even more confusing than alps

I tried switching my spacebar spring (yellow) with a white spring and it was too light so this is one of the switches where a spacebar switch is required

[seebart]

Well according to our wiki:

Yellow Linear; reported to be slightly lighter weight than white

http://deskthority.net/wiki/NMB_Hi-Tek

[andrewjoy]

my yellow is much heavier than white lol

[seebart]

my yellow is much heavier than white lol

NMB Hi-Tek = mysterium.

I got magenta LED ones on one of my Commodore boards:

http://deskthority.net/photos-f62/cherr ... =commodore

[andrewjoy]

That has the same stabilisers as my ADDS terminal board. They are some of the best stabilisers ever ! No rattle or anything.

[seebart]

That has the same stabilisers as my ADDS terminal board. They are some of the best stabilisers ever ! No rattle or anything.

True. With the shape of the "bar" the whole thing works really well. I have almost never seen those. Again typical for NMB Hi-Tek; brilliant and rare.

[Chyros]

There is no logic to Hi-Teks. Simply no logic at all. Abandon all attempts to categorise them by colour :p .

[seebart]

There is no logic to Hi-Teks. Simply not logic at all. Abandon all attempts to categorise them by colour :p .

Really? You seem to know more than we do! I cannot imagine that NMB Hi-Tek did not have fixed production specs. What I could imagine is that for a very unusual keyboard like Engicoder's Kroy 190 NMB Hi-Tek departed from their usual approach. Of course this is all speculation with none whatsoever facts.

[andrewjoy]

Well apart from the colour the sliders are identical ( at least the yellow and white on mine)

So possibly they where running out of white and it was a very short run for this so they just used the yellow slider

[seebart]

Well apart from the colour the sliders are identical ( at least the yellow and white on mine)

So possibly they where running out of white and it was a very short run for this so they just used the yellow slider

Possibly. But are the springs identical also?

[Engicoder]

my yellow is much heavier than white lol

I haven't spent anytime typing on the board, and my ability to subjectively determine spring constant by pressing a single key is poor. It very well could be yellows are stiffer. I need to do a more quantitative comparison. I also wonder if all the various whites used the same spring constant , so I could have been using a stiffer white variant as a comparison.

[andrewjoy]

Well apart from the colour the sliders are identical ( at least the yellow and white on mine)

So possibly they where running out of white and it was a very short run for this so they just used the yellow slider

Possibly. But are the springs identical also?

on my liner whites vs liner yellow ?

Yes very much so!

Yellow is very heavy.

[Engicoder]

I was curious, so I compared a white (one square eye linear) to the yellows from the Kroy. Here are the photos. Sorry, I don't have a proper macro...

yellow-vs-white.jpg (195.71 KiB) Viewed 4604 times

Yellow on top, White on bottom

yellow-vs-white-springs.JPG (169.55 KiB) Viewed 4604 times

Both use 0.22mm wire (measured with calipers). From the photos, they have the same number of turns, but seem to either have different finishing, or use different materials. If different alloy, could affect spring coefficient. If not, they should have very similar force curves.

[seebart]

Ah good comparison thanks.

[Chyros]

From what I've seen and heard, Hi-Tek changed the force in their switches by using LONGER springs rather than tighter ones or ones made out of a different material. So as they're the same length, it's a decent bet they have or at least are intended to have the same force.