Sperry / Univac Hall Effect Keyboard, Tenkeyless

ohaimark · 30 Jul 2017, 01:35

Post cleaning:

Before cleaning + tear down:

E3E · 30 Jul 2017, 01:47

Beautiful. Hand-drawn traces, such a relic of the past. Super cool and pretty little board.

ohaimark · 30 Jul 2017, 01:50

I'm selling it to XMIT because... XMIT keycap.

(He also has a spare keycap that might fit the keyboard properly, and I want to see it in a complete state.)

Daniel Beardsmore · 30 Jul 2017, 02:10

These seem to be marked R4∀3…, as though someone's inserted the "A" character of the heat stamp upside down. A 'V' type is not known. I'm guessing, R4A3E. I can't read the last character, but as those are three-terminal, E is likely.

XMIT · 30 Jul 2017, 02:56

Man I can't believe it was two years ago already that I found the companion Cortron board!

photos-f62/retr0bright-a-cautionary-tale-t10065.html

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This was the board that inspired my avatar.

This was also the first board that I bleached. The case came out great! The yellowed legends on the key caps, not so much. I ended up bleaching the keys too!

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Though, these being double shots, I wonder just how deep the bleaching went, and if I could bring back the deep color of these keys with some polishing?

ohaimark told me about this board a few days ago. My jaw dropped in disbelief: I didn't know there was a Micro Switch Hall effect version of this board! It seems like it was made for me. I'm really hoping that the switches are the "hold low" variant so I can get it fully converted with NKRO. I *think* that my other, similar board has compatible key caps - we'll see!

XMIT · 30 Jul 2017, 02:58

Oh, and - #dta7. Or did you think I'd forgotten?

E3E · 30 Jul 2017, 04:19

Some pigments seem to be unstable to the point of reacting badly to hot water and such, as well as cleaning solutions. I've had certain caps, all ABS, bleach badly after putting them in an ultrasonic cleaner, including the only known documented case of SS profile caps from Signature Plastics. I'm waiting to hopefully restore those with a friend by sand blasting off the surface layer, which is where all the bleaching is.

Whether through retrobrighting or just being sensitive to heat or a cleaner, this kind of bleaching is always really unfortunate.

Also, with dark plastics, it's important to watch over them like a hawk if you retrobright them, as they have a tendency to bleach very badly pretty quickly.

ohaimark · 30 Jul 2017, 05:48

Daniel Beardsmore wrote: ↑These seem to be marked R4∀3…, as though someone's inserted the "A" character of the heat stamp upside down. A 'V' type is not known. I'm guessing, R4A3E. I can't read the last character, but as those are three-terminal, E is likely.

I'll post the switch characters before I ship it to XMIT.

XMIT · 30 Jul 2017, 14:07

E3E wrote: ↑I've had certain caps, all ABS, bleach badly after putting them in an ultrasonic cleaner, including the only known documented case of SS profile caps from Signature Plastics.

I've never seen this. Which other caps had this issue? Is your ultrasonic cleaner heated at all? Which cleaner do you have?

I run IBM and Cherry and other key caps through my ultrasonic cleaner all day long and I've never seen this.

seebart · 30 Jul 2017, 14:25

Really beautiful. And it's completed by Rosie.

Norman_ · 30 Jul 2017, 22:48

What a beauty. Love the cable strain mechanism, so simple lol

ohaimark · 31 Jul 2017, 01:05

Daniel Beardsmore wrote: ↑These seem to be marked R4∀3…, as though someone's inserted the "A" character of the heat stamp upside down. A 'V' type is not known. I'm guessing, R4A3E. I can't read the last character, but as those are three-terminal, E is likely.

Looks like we've got a new variant on our hands.

Daniel Beardsmore · 31 Jul 2017, 01:28

It felt strange that they'd get the 'A' wrong, but from the other photos it did appear to be an inverted 'A'.

Too bad some of these types aren't in the datasheet we have.