What is this? Keyboard with 1x Enter and Phone Number Pad?

[Hypersphere]

One of the DT banner images depicts a keyboard with a short right shift and 1x enter key adjacent to a numeric keypad that is arrayed like one from a telephone. What is this keyboard? Thanks.

DT-1xEnter-PhonePad.png (130.6 KiB) Viewed 2078 times

[Nuum]

I believe it's this one from Ascaii: http://deskthority.net/marketplace-f11/ ... t7724.html

[facetsesame]

It's from a variant of the ICL OPD (One Per Desk). Here's the Merlin Tonto, British Telecom's version, on display at at the National Museum of Computing, Bletchley (UK):

source: http://deskthority.net/photos-videos-f8 ... ml#p145039

DSA Retro Set by matt3o

[Hypersphere]

Thanks! This caught my eye for several reasons. The caps are attractive, and the short shift and 1x enter are like those in my remapped IBM XT.

Spoiler:

xt140422r.jpg (869.79 KiB) Viewed 2055 times

The numeric keypad in the DT banner image was the giveaway that the keyboard was telephonic.

[facetsesame]

That's a very pretty XT! Do you have any more pics? I'd be interested to see how the full layout works.

[Hypersphere]

That's a very pretty XT! Do you have any more pics? I'd be interested to see how the full layout works.

Thanks! Here is the left side of the modified XT board:

xt140422l1.jpg (867.72 KiB) Viewed 2030 times

For the moment, I am using a Hagstrom converter box to connect the XT to my Mac via USB, and I use the free program, KeyReMap4MacBook, to remap the board. The layout is a combination of Mac and HHKB. Briefly, Backspace is immediately above Return, and there is a Control to the left of the A key. The Backquote/Tilde key is Escape, with Backquote/Tilde in the Fn layer. There are two Fn keys, to the right of each Shift. The bottom row has Control - Option/Alt - Command - Space - Command - Option/Alt - Control. The default layer has active arrow keys in the NumPad and a HHKB cursor diamond in the Fn layer. The normal NumPad is accessed via NumLock and Fn + ScrollLock = Power. The replacement keycaps were harvested from a 122-key Model M or purchased from Unicomp. This layout works beautifully for me, and I love the feel of the XT switches.

[facetsesame]

You've gone to some lengths (or should I say widths) to set up that bottom row! I like the consistent use of colours for the modifiers, I take it you're not a fan of the stepped "hat" keys though. If that green enter is a Unicomp job, hats off to them, it looks great.

In my immaturity I still find irony in the use of "the original IBM PC keyboard" with Apple equipment as you and Muirium demonstrate. It's great to see what not so long ago was considered an "unusable" keyboard in cherished use like this.

[Hypersphere]

You've gone to some lengths (or should I say widths) to set up that bottom row! I like the consistent use of colours for the modifiers, I take it you're not a fan of the stepped "hat" keys though. If that green enter is a Unicomp job, hats off to them, it looks great.

In my immaturity I still find irony in the use of "the original IBM PC keyboard" with Apple equipment as you and Muirium demonstrate. It's great to see what not so long ago was considered an "unusable" keyboard in cherished use like this.

Thanks again. This was an easy mod to do, as it did not require taking the board apart -- just software remapping and placing some new keys or keycaps to coincide with the remapping. Some of the remapping ideas were inspired by Muirium.

Yes, there is a certain poetic justice in using a 30-year-old IBM PC keyboard with a current Mac Pro. Perhaps this is fitting, given that the Mac is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

It is also fitting that the enigmatic Merlin Tonto keyboard is housed in Bletchley, given that Bletchley Park was the site of the WWII codebreakers facility where, among other feats, the code to the Enigma machine was broken.

And yes, the green Enter key is from Unicomp. I have not always been pleased with some of their keycaps. For example, sometimes the font on lettered keycaps is too bold. However, I was quite pleased with their Enter key and the Fn keys. In my most recent iteration of this setup, I have used lettered (Ctrl) keycaps on the red keys and a red Enter key for color symmetry. The "Command" lettering was a bit too bold, and so now the Command keys are blanks, as are the Tab and Backspace keys. I've also replaced the pearl Backslash with a pebble Backslash for color symmetry.