Vintage home-made keyboard

mr_a500

21 Oct 2015, 02:54

snuci wrote: Rather than fill up this post with images, I'll post a few pics here and you are welcome to view a post on my website at http://vintagecomputer.ca/vintage-homemade-keyboard/

Here are some pics of he clean keyboard.

Image
That is much better. I don't see any yellowing. See Muirium, SEE!!

Now if I originally saw it like that, I would definitely had said it was Micro Switch.

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snuci
Vintage computer guy

21 Oct 2015, 03:28

mr_a500 wrote: Now if I originally saw it like that, I would definitely had said it was Micro Switch.
Hrmmm, judging by the key cap profile, I would have thought it was vintage Alps like this Alps keyboard that has a curved profile from top row to bottom row as opposed to the only other Micro Switch keyboard I have that has a flat profile. Then again, that Micro Switch keyboard is from 1975 and has different key switches.

mr_a500

21 Oct 2015, 13:02

My 1978 Micro Switch keyboard has sculpted profile.

Image

Vintage ALPS has a more angled bottom row and narrower font with rounded three.

Edit: ...but I've just seen the photo of your ALPS keyboard and it has an unusual wider font. (still has rounded three)

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snuci
Vintage computer guy

21 Oct 2015, 13:17

mr_a500 wrote: Edit: ...but I've just seen the photo of your ALPS keyboard and it has an unusual wider font. (still has rounded three)
Now i know what a rounded and flat 3 are :) I think you mentioned this before and I thought you were referring to the key cap profile previously :)

So certain keyboard manufactures have flat 3 and rounded 3's? Is that in the wiki or a post somewhere?

mr_a500

21 Oct 2015, 13:30

The flat-topped three (or "banker's three") was fairly popular on 70's keyboards, except keyboards from IBM*, Cherry, ALPS or Clare Pendar, which only ever had rounded threes. It mostly disappeared in the early-mid 80's, although Micro Switch seems to have kept it around on their sphericals for much later than the others.

It's not in the Wiki (can't log in), but I made a few posts about it here:
http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/mic ... ml#p213397

*(though there is a Micro Switch made IBM-branded keyboard with it)

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Muirium
µ

21 Oct 2015, 15:29

Yellowing has to be intense to show up on dark plastics. Alas, there's so much pale and especially white ABS out there. For richly dyed stuff, though, ABS makes a lot more sense.
mr_a500 wrote: It's not in the Wiki (can't log in)
Still suffering from the underscore are you?

andrewjoy

21 Oct 2015, 17:31

Someone is not following unicode standard :P, bad wiki.

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seebart
Offtopicthority Instigator

21 Oct 2015, 17:39

It is in our wiki and I put it in there, while I was there I told the wiki to behave or else.... :lol:

http://deskthority.net/wiki/Micro_Switch_SW-10591

andrewjoy

21 Oct 2015, 17:51

I am guessing we are using mediawiki ? I always have in the past but i have taken a liking to PMWiki Recently , nice and simple.

http://www.pmwiki.org/

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