deskthority

My own pictures now:

Weeeeeeeeeeird, that's for sure…

It´s Weeeeeeeeeeird and it´s mine! The layout is clear. The seller had NO clue, said it was apple.

The big cap "DÜ" could be for "Datenübertragung", "send data" button.

"Seebart´s eBay trawling shall commence..."

I like the huge 0 at the end of the numrow, among many, many other oddities of this screwball keyboard. Look at the handmade controller! This could be a long forgotten kit keyboard, or even a one-off. The metal case is a nice touch, I wonder how heavy it is.

Wow, I love it. A proper wannabe 327x! Very nice condition. Seems a little Robotron-ish, but the ones I've seen don't have plates like that. I wonder what the switches are...

I did not pay much, the caps alone could be interesting. Directional keys on the left?!?

I wonder how heavy it is.

Looks "heavish".

I wonder what the switches are...

I´ll do a disassembly post when it gets here.

The keys on the left look like tabs. All very well, though there are up and down tabs too.

Hmm. Makes me wonder. Anyone ever seen a board with arrow keys for 3 dimensions!?

And here was I thinking it was something like page up/down.
Mind you, I was also thinking that LA1 sounds like an early DEC printer...

I just found this interesting link while looking for info´s on my mystery board:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/

look at these:

http://www.johnmirandaphoto.com/dec.htm

update; my strange friend has arrived! The caps look like cherry mount. The switches feel smooth with a bump and a click and a looong travel. The whole keyboard weights about 5 kg. There are no stabilizers. I'm pretty sure this whole keyboard was someone's "home project". There is no label or any sign of production numbers anywhere.

Looking vintage and indeed bespoke, to me. How many contacts do those switches have? If it's more than 2 per switch, things are getting interesting…

nope two contacts per switch! Is it a cherry switch?

Cherry M5 maybe? But where's the logo?

http://deskthority.net/wiki/Cherry_M5

I can't see any logo anywhere. They look slightly different than M5, then again I have never seen any of these switches for real!

The caps are real nice! Serving suggestion: vintage doubleshots. [emoji3]

It reminds me a great deal of a Siemens Telex machine but my googling has not found an exact match. Perhaps it could have been made for military communications.

I couldn't find anything either.

Yeah, I'm not familiar with these switches

The keycaps remind me of the Siemens as well (but not quite the same): https://www.flickr.com/photos/triplehaa ... 870068864/

The switches sorta remind me of Clare Pendar, but likely not: http://www.visualux.com/catalogues/kswitch.pdf

Mind desoldering and dismantling one of the switches?

The keycaps are not cherry mount like I thought by the way.

Mind desoldering and dismantling one of the switches?

No I don´t mind, I just don´t have the time right now.

The switches sorta remind me of Clare Pendar

I´m pretty sure those are the same switches. They look very similair, right down to that slightly angeled top part! Thanks for the links.

I'm not convinced. Similar, but not similar enough for me.

I'm not convinced. Similar, but not similar enough for me.

good thing we have a comprehensive Clare-Pendar Keyboard+Switch Teardown+History at DT, but that seems to be a different switch than mine.

http://deskthority.net/photos-f62/clare ... t7594.html

https://www.flickr.com/photos/123564336 ... 167003373/

The pdf in the link from HaaTa has some good illustrations, but its still not clear, I agree with you Daniel Beardsmore.I still find that angeled top stem very distinctive.I have not seen any other switches with that feature.

some of you might remember this odd keyboard that I bought for a couple of Euros last year. I decided to take another look at it today, specifically at the switch.
The switches are hinged on a metal plate and quite easy to remove. A few switches were not wired. I took those out for the pictures.

The switch itself has two clips /lashes at the top that need to be bent outward and that´s it. No soldering. Easy dissasembly much like my Micro Switch linears.
I had quite a difficult time shooting the switch. As you can see the switch consists of four parts. I lined the parts up on the picture the way the part's are assembled. The switch is clicky with a bump.I'm keen to know what we are looking at here, if any of you have an idea I'd appreciate sharing. After HaaTa posted that pdf in this thread my initial thought was it's a Clare Pendar series SF switch but that's a wild guess. The dimensions of the switch housing are quite close to those in the pdf.

Where did you get it from?

Did the seller tell you something about it?

I bought it on ebay last october. No, the seller could not tell me anything.

Hmm this is very interesting indeed. It does share some similarities to those Clare Pendar switches. So far I have only come across (or seen here) Clare Pendars reed switches. These are definitely more similar to the SF switch in their catalog. The hand wired "hobby" look goes well with the times and availability of Clare Pendar back then. Is there any chance you could take a few pictures of what the space bar looks like? I know they have a really specific stabilizer design I have seen on 2 of there keyboards so far: http://deskthority.net/photos-f62/harri ... t8764.html

the spacebar stabilizer design looks unspecific to me, certainly not like those examples of mr_a500!

Unfortunately nothing of value to add identification-wise, but I'm really starting to like the looks of the keyboard. Was there a decision on if this was made by a company or homebrew. I also think its pretty cool when something that can't be identified turns up.

The hand wired controller hints it may have been a private project. Someone suggested it might have been in military use. It's a wierd one allright, the layout alone. Clare Pendar SF is the closest I have come to identifying these switches.I'm not sure what I'll do with it at this point. I'd like to build a new custom metal case in a smaller TKL format since the numerical section is detachable. A stainless steel case would look great with those black doubleshots!

Ah, detachable numpad. Smart! I wish more fullsize keyboards were like that.



How do these mystery switches feel? What are they closest to? Do they need a good lube?