Brother Type-A-Graph [proto-topre]
Posted: 08 Dec 2020, 07:36
Ordered this a while ago but just got it recently as the seller had to quarantine themselves and they couldn't exactly get to it to ship it. Can't hold that against them but it is frustrating.
Anyhow, its pretty normal proto-topre. It is the dome over PCB variety with the PCB housing a bit more in the way of brains than normal as it has to a display and a writing mechanism to run. The switches feel good, nice and snappy, but the rubber mat leads to more much than you would get if it used membranes and a back plate so they don't really feel "mechanical". The feeling does communicate a decent amount of quality though, my only gripe is the keycap texture is rough enough to not have be shiny, but is not actually coarse enough to feel rough, they feel smooth even though they don't look it.
The arrow keys have shorter stems on the caps and shorter domes. They are are closer to buttons than they are proper keys I think. Similarly the small buttons on the sides aren't keys either even though they are on the same dome sheet. The slider of the arrow keys is simply rotated 90 degrees inside the housing to get the arrows to point the way they do as otherwise they would all point the same way since they all have the same caps. It is honestly a great solution and makes sure you can't put the arrows in the wrong place.
And for the main event, the caps. This board is, AFAIK, unique among brother proto-topre stuff as it has blue sublegends. To my knowledge you can get them with green subs on typewriters, or if you get a sears branded typewriter you can get it with red, but nothing has blue subs until you get to typewriters with PBT caps that have a blue ALT, but that isn't doubleshot so who cares. There might be a rebrand floting around somewhere that has blue, Xerox would be a goon candidate as I know they exist but I haven't seen any that didn't have PBT caps. Also notable is that this board does not use stepped caps on the left hand side of the alpha cluster. Even brother typewriters that don't have lock lights or extra keys on the left still have that 1/4u step there. Not the Type-A-Graph, but it doesn't have normal left side mods anyway so you still can't get anywhere close to being able to use these on a modern board. It does get you a 7u spacebar and an ISO enter, as well as a 1.75u right shift though, so it gives you more options than you would get from brother typewriters. (someone please make a custom with brother caps that uses a 3u tall ISO enter) and unless I can locate an ANSI enter for this sculpt it is the closest to modern that you will likely get without doing cap surgery to remove the 1/4u step or just designing a clone set yourself.
Especially interesting here is the tripleshot space bar. I was 99% certain when I ordered this that the space bar would be pad printed and finding this was pretty unexpected. No idea why brother did it this way but damn if it isn't cool. I'm not aware of too many doubleshot space bars (ABS model M space bars are double shot to use a different plastic for the slider) let alone any that are tripleshot save this one. Please let me know of any >1 shot spacebars that are out there.
As for the printing mechanism, it doesn't have one. It has a writing mechanism. A 4 cartridge revolver holds mini ball point pens for this thing to write with and it looks really cool. They are all dried out though so I can't show any of the cool writing off. I'm pretty sure the cartridges can be opened and filled with new ink but I have not tried yet because in the process of taking this apart to get pictures of the guts I've angered the machine spirit and now the screen doesn't work.
It still tries to write but without ink that doesn't do much, and I imagine all the functions still work but I can't tell since it doesn't have ink and I can't see what I'm doing on the screen. I'll have to get another one to see if I can figure it out, hopefully a sears one with the red legends. Hopefully i can get this working at some point though since the picture on the box shows off a really cool graph and I would love to get this making something like that myself.
Anyhow, its pretty normal proto-topre. It is the dome over PCB variety with the PCB housing a bit more in the way of brains than normal as it has to a display and a writing mechanism to run. The switches feel good, nice and snappy, but the rubber mat leads to more much than you would get if it used membranes and a back plate so they don't really feel "mechanical". The feeling does communicate a decent amount of quality though, my only gripe is the keycap texture is rough enough to not have be shiny, but is not actually coarse enough to feel rough, they feel smooth even though they don't look it.
The arrow keys have shorter stems on the caps and shorter domes. They are are closer to buttons than they are proper keys I think. Similarly the small buttons on the sides aren't keys either even though they are on the same dome sheet. The slider of the arrow keys is simply rotated 90 degrees inside the housing to get the arrows to point the way they do as otherwise they would all point the same way since they all have the same caps. It is honestly a great solution and makes sure you can't put the arrows in the wrong place.
And for the main event, the caps. This board is, AFAIK, unique among brother proto-topre stuff as it has blue sublegends. To my knowledge you can get them with green subs on typewriters, or if you get a sears branded typewriter you can get it with red, but nothing has blue subs until you get to typewriters with PBT caps that have a blue ALT, but that isn't doubleshot so who cares. There might be a rebrand floting around somewhere that has blue, Xerox would be a goon candidate as I know they exist but I haven't seen any that didn't have PBT caps. Also notable is that this board does not use stepped caps on the left hand side of the alpha cluster. Even brother typewriters that don't have lock lights or extra keys on the left still have that 1/4u step there. Not the Type-A-Graph, but it doesn't have normal left side mods anyway so you still can't get anywhere close to being able to use these on a modern board. It does get you a 7u spacebar and an ISO enter, as well as a 1.75u right shift though, so it gives you more options than you would get from brother typewriters. (someone please make a custom with brother caps that uses a 3u tall ISO enter) and unless I can locate an ANSI enter for this sculpt it is the closest to modern that you will likely get without doing cap surgery to remove the 1/4u step or just designing a clone set yourself.
Especially interesting here is the tripleshot space bar. I was 99% certain when I ordered this that the space bar would be pad printed and finding this was pretty unexpected. No idea why brother did it this way but damn if it isn't cool. I'm not aware of too many doubleshot space bars (ABS model M space bars are double shot to use a different plastic for the slider) let alone any that are tripleshot save this one. Please let me know of any >1 shot spacebars that are out there.
As for the printing mechanism, it doesn't have one. It has a writing mechanism. A 4 cartridge revolver holds mini ball point pens for this thing to write with and it looks really cool. They are all dried out though so I can't show any of the cool writing off. I'm pretty sure the cartridges can be opened and filled with new ink but I have not tried yet because in the process of taking this apart to get pictures of the guts I've angered the machine spirit and now the screen doesn't work.
It still tries to write but without ink that doesn't do much, and I imagine all the functions still work but I can't tell since it doesn't have ink and I can't see what I'm doing on the screen. I'll have to get another one to see if I can figure it out, hopefully a sears one with the red legends. Hopefully i can get this working at some point though since the picture on the box shows off a really cool graph and I would love to get this making something like that myself.