deskthority

Please suggest nominees for the Best relic/discovery in 2013. You have to give a short motivation for each suggestion. You cannot nominate your own relics/discoveries.

Current suggestions (this list is frequently updated):

• HaaTa's Univac F-1355-00 electro-magnetic-clicky keyboard
• Muirium's Honeywell hall-effect keyboard
• Tinnie's IBM "Kishsaver" and Industrial SSK finds
• HaaTa's Cherry M11

HaaTa's obligatory nomination for the thoroughly absurd and awesome Univac F-1355-00 electro-magnetic-clicky keyboard.

Muirium for his Honeywell hall-effect keyboard.

I nominate tinnie/tinlong/tintintin/ringatintintinlong for his discovery and swift sale of a whopping 47? kishsaver keyboards



Edit: Oh and also for finding a beautiful Industrial SSK for webwit:

It's been a good year for keyboard archaeology, all right.

I also managed to get a industrial ssk for myself. Going to pick it up now.

About time you got to keep one. Just try real hard to keep saying no when people throw their money at you!

Tinnie for brining the kishsaver to so many people (at non-exploitive prices and triumphing over evil (Paypal) ).

Though I also really want a Univac now:)

I vote for Tinlong as well. I never thought I'd ever see the day where I could own a Kishsaver.

What the hell?? I only just this minute learned about the "Kishsaver" - and Tinlong discovered 47 of them and sold them to people here?!

How the hell did I miss that?

Where where you sir on the night of <I can't remember what exactly, a few weeks ago> when the incident took place? They were gone in a day, tops. And I got one! (Trapped in Hong Kong until Tinnie's PayPal problems untangle, so be it.)

I... I don't remember, officer. I swear!

I promised to nominate kps for his extremely old and weird Cherry MX switches, before subsequently discovering that he'd reposted an image from 2012 or earlier.

So that leaves HaaTa for finding the [wiki]Cherry M11[/wiki] (and it seems the M10 existed too).

I'm nearly ready to begin my front page spamming (with pics ).

But 2013 was a good year for me and keyboards. I was travelling for 4 months, and still made more discoveries than previous years. My backlog is so big, I'm not sure I'll be able to go through everything before the end of the year...

Hi-Tek relegendables for ZX81 Sinclair


Finally! I got a Fujitsu Leaf Spring Gen 1
Fujitsu N860-6131-T011 02A - Sanyo MBC-1000


The BEST slider design I have seen in a keyboard. Alps Reed Switches, a.k.a. "Super Alps"
For my custom keyboard switch, this was probably the most important discovery this year. Even if you dislike linear switches, you'll like this one.
Alps CB14182B / SCB1A163


HP 2621A/P with Stackpole switches


THE most complicated switch and case design I've seen in a keyboard. Heavy and nice too look at too
Teletype 40K 104 DAB


Fujitsu N860-2322-T002 01A (Kawaski manufacturing keyboard)


Before cleaning, this was THE WORST Fujitsu Peerless I've ever typed on. Now it's just a meh peerless without stabilizers and nice double shots (first Peerless I've seen with them).
Data General 118-5237


The keyboard that led Beardsmore (or is it Beardsless now ?) to uncover (with help from Cherry USA) the existence of the M10 and M11 switches.
This one has the really awful M11 switches (not durable at all, and prone to losing keycaps and springs if the plastic welds give).
HP 4953A Protocol Analyzer Keyboard


This...is the most complicated keyboard design I have ever seen...it took me at least 8-10 hours to reassemble this thing.
It's also well built, uses optical sensors and not terrible to type on. Unfortunately the keycaps are super brittle...
Collimation D40.592


This was also the year double action switches were discovered (likely known about earlier, just no one noted it until I started talking about it).
The Teletype above, this typewriter (with yet another odd Alps design), the next typewriter, and a few others (that are in my backlog ).
Canon AP400


Finally! Found another typewriter model with the Marquardt Butterfly switches, the closest switches I have to beamspring, and waaaaaay simpler.
Olympia ES 101

I feel like I've just been slapped across the face with a large wet trout, while simultaneously getting kidney-punched by a Siberian midget. And the worst part is that I feel like that every time I see HaaTa post pictures of amazing keyboards that I couldn't hope to find and/or afford.

He's just warming up!

I like the ZX81 keyboard replacement. The others I'll ignore right now while lying down in a fetus position and crying myself to sleep, mumbling "random-ass linear! random-ass linear!" to soothe myself.

Don't worry I have something fun planned for the first round of voting

Let me sum up what I had found this year....
10x G81-3000 HKNNO NIB
G81-8904 HPMRB NIB
13x IBM SSK
46x IBM 6019284
20x IBM 6019273
IBM 41G3600

Andddd..... a 1395682 for webwit.

I'm voting for HaaTa in the race for the HaaTa prize for Lifetime Collecting Achievement. And Tinnie for best new rising archaeologist of the year.

A neat little discovery/discussion I had a couple weeks ago. By chance, I met with an engineer that worked at George Risk Industries! He was an early member of the famous Homebrew Computer Club of the Silicon Valley.
An interesting story. Doesn't really belong on the wiki, but I'll write a post about it some time.

http://eldonberg.com




Hmm, maybe I should start a separate yearly archaeological award. My decision would be complete subjective.
But the prize: All expenses paid USB conversion
Since I need the physical keyboard, I would pay for shipping to-from location anywhere in the world. Some adapters need to be more invasive rather than just an adapter but I'll ask for consent before doing such things.

One of requirements would be that the keyboard was found that year, and that the finder/discoverer/current person with the keyboard has to nominate themselves.

Self nomination, you say? Who the Honeywell would have the cheek to do that!

HaaTa wrote:A neat little discovery/discussion I had a couple weeks ago. By chance, I met with an engineer that worked at George Risk Industries!

I hope you grilled a confirmation out of him that they bought custom batches of Futaba switches, and to see if you could get him to ID any of the other switches they sold, as GRI's own or OEM purchases ;-)

HaaTa wrote:Hmm, maybe I should start a separate yearly archaeological award. My decision would be complete subjective.
But the prize: All expenses paid USB conversion
Since I need the physical keyboard, I would pay for shipping to-from location anywhere in the world. Some adapters need to be more invasive rather than just an adapter but I'll ask for consent before doing such things.

One of requirements would be that the keyboard was found that year, and that the finder/discoverer/current person with the keyboard has to nominate themselves.

Oh I see how that works. You get people to find rare obscure keyboards, which they send to you - and you put them in your Indiana Jones-style warehouse of ancient artifacts. You then go into hiding, eventually becoming an insane recluse like in Citizen Kane. On your death bed, you'll utter the name of the one keyboard that brought you happiness in your youth, and die, dropping a snow globe (containing a mini keyboard) which shatters on the floor. Then reporters will come to the house and try to find out what that one keyboard was.

OK, go ahead then. It sounds like it'll make a good movie.

"Rosewill…"

Daniel Beardsmore wrote:

HaaTa wrote:A neat little discovery/discussion I had a couple weeks ago. By chance, I met with an engineer that worked at George Risk Industries!

I hope you grilled a confirmation out of him that they bought custom batches of Futaba switches, and to see if you could get him to ID any of the other switches they sold, as GRI's own or OEM purchases

I did grill him for information. And yes the custom Futaba switches were from Asia (that's all he can remember he only worked there for 6 months before getting fed up; it's an *interesting* story). They did have their own machines to do doubleshots though.

I do have his email if you want me to send some pics his way.

mr_a500 wrote:

HaaTa wrote:Hmm, maybe I should start a separate yearly archaeological award. My decision would be complete subjective.
But the prize: All expenses paid USB conversion
Since I need the physical keyboard, I would pay for shipping to-from location anywhere in the world. Some adapters need to be more invasive rather than just an adapter but I'll ask for consent before doing such things.

One of requirements would be that the keyboard was found that year, and that the finder/discoverer/current person with the keyboard has to nominate themselves.

Oh I see how that works. You get people to find rare obscure keyboards, which they send to you - and you put them in your Indiana Jones-style warehouse of ancient artifacts. You then go into hiding, eventually becoming an insane recluse like in Citizen Kane. On your death bed, you'll utter the name of the one keyboard that brought you happiness in your youth, and die, dropping a snow globe (containing a mini keyboard) which shatters on the floor. Then reporters will come to the house and try to find out what that one keyboard was.

OK, go ahead then. It sounds like it'll make a good movie.

Hah!

Interesting — that Data General 118-5237 appears to have a 4700-series part number, but it's the first time I've seen a Peerless keyboard that doesn't resemble the common 4700 design that most people have. There are some differences, too — including round LEDs and sliders designed to accommodate round LEDs.

Oh no, HaaTa has done it.
He's conquered the front page!

I completely forgot about these finds earlier in the year.

Fujitsu Facom 6684KC3, a first for me. A supercomputer keyboard!


A NIB Fluke Y1700 keyboard.


A Unisys keyboard (successor of Burroughs and Univac), Unisys IRT2050KBD.


I didn't discover the source of these, but was one of the first to get one and take pics. The IBM 5954339.

And for posterity.