deskthority

Wanted to share some photos of this very rare and very interesting keyboard I got today.

Judging by the markings on the PCB this was made in 1988. It has vintage black switches and a linear white spacebar switch. It is the only board known to have the famous clear switch tops.

The keycaps are fairly thin and are a mix of doubleshot and engraved/infilled. You can see the caps lock switch is tripleshot (or doubleshot with another method used for the window). I don't know the material.

You can see that some of the keycaps have o-rings. All keys did have these originally, but they are just rubber.. Over time they started to disintegrate. There are no fully intact ones on this board.

Overall, very interesting keyboard. Probably the most interesting one I own. The switches are without a doubt the best linears I've used. They are perfectly smooth, lubing does not improve them.

A few pics below, the rest here : https://www.flickr.com/photos/115722906 ... 966202859/

clear switch tops.

super nice rare find photekq. Congratulations!

Those german caps, engraved! Is there one button on the top left hand side?

Nice, glad you finally got it!

Nice. Very nice. I'm quite jealous...

What will you do with it? Keep it intact, or salvage the precious switches from it?

imo something like this deserves not only to be kept but restored the best possible way. In this case there seems little restoration needed.

Yeah seebart, there is one button on the top left. It's a very rough non-MX clicky switch with a non-removable keycap. You can see it better in the flickr album I posted.

I don't think I will restore it.. It's a strange layout, and I'd have to clue where to start with converting it. The case is also HUGE, so I don't think I would use it even if it were restored. I will clean it up, but I won't do any serious restoration work.

I will probably leave the switches in the board, unless I get a special board that deserves these switches. I have a brand new 'The Cheat' custom keyboard coming to me soon, but I think that would be nicer with vintage browns or blues..

Nice find!
What system was these made for?

Welcome to the club!


However, those rubber rings are irritating me.

7bit, got any pics of yours? Is it the fully doubleshotted version? I'm curious if it was made in 1988 too, or if it's younger/older.

Isn't there a sticker on the PCB (red on white)?


The date on the PCB is most presumably the revision date not the production date.


I've got to dig mine out and have a look ...

There's no red on white sticker, but there is a sticker with 'Lebenslauf/Datum' dated 19.12.88

i found one similar to yours, with azerty layout.. did you manage to get it working?

http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/wha ... 10301.html

i was wondering if it would work with soarer's converter

sphinx wrote: ↑i found one similar to yours, with azerty layout.. did you manage to get it working?

http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/wha ... 10301.html

i was wondering if it would work with soarer's converter

Sell it to me instead!

And no, I have not attempted to get it working. I think it'd be quite a challenge.

Find a Nixdorf 6537, exchange switches (or just the clear housing because the whites are quite nice), din -> ps/2 adapter, profit.
Theoretically.