Hall Effect Keyboard Information

FlipTheSwitch · 22 Nov 2016, 00:52

Hello
I picked up a DIY keyboard from the late 70's from a guy who built it for his DIY Apple II Computer. I posted it on Reddit a bit ago, and found out that they are Honeywell Hall Effect switches, spherical double-shot caps, and someone mentioned you guys are the ones to ask about it. I cleaned it up and took some pictures, you can view them here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3s9vzqujqnwk ... Yae4a?dl=0

If anyone has any further useful information please let me know. I would also like to sell it sometime, so if anyone has any idea how much it might be worth that would be great. I will probably post it either here or /r/mechmarket.

Thanks for any help!

WASD_Greg · 22 Nov 2016, 01:11

Great find. This looks very heavy. Is the case made entirely of steel? Do you know how heavy exactly it is?

HaaTa · 22 Nov 2016, 02:17

It looks to be some sort of Cortron ITW magnetic valve keyboard. The prototype label is pretty cool. The switches had already been around a while (Licon, the predecessor to Cortron also used ITW magnetic valve switches).

wiki/ITW_magnetic_valve

I have quite a few keyboards with these switches in my collection.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/triplehaa ... 4784659215
https://www.flickr.com/photos/triplehaa ... 9942882484

XMIT · 22 Nov 2016, 02:34

I'd like to take a closer look but it looks like Dropbox is giving Error 500s at the moment. Without looking closely I'll agree with HaaTa for now.

XMIT · 22 Nov 2016, 02:37

Yep, definitely magnetic valve as HaaTa noted. Even more amazing is that this is hand wired. Wow.

FlipTheSwitch · 22 Nov 2016, 03:24

@WASD_Greg I *think* it is aluminum, I am estimating only about 5 pounds, not nearly as heavy as it looks. The Apple II computers I bought it with were in diy steel enclosures, and oh man, they were heavy.

@HaaTa Great information, thank you so much, I haven't heard of these switches before. Your keyboards are really nice!

@XMIT Yeah the diy skills are really amazing, the wiring would have been intense.

Something I really like about this board is that all of the switches on the right were never wired up, so the switches have never even been used. I think this could be a really cool project for someone with the time, unfortunately that isn't me at the moment. I would like to find the right person and the right price to give this board a new life, I just know so little about this stuff and I have more projects and life commitments than I know what to do with as it is.

Thank you all for your feedback, I really appreciate it!

snuci · 22 Nov 2016, 03:44

FlipTheSwitch wrote: @WASD_Greg I *think* it is aluminum, I am estimating only about 5 pounds, not nearly as heavy as it looks. The Apple II computers I bought it with were in diy steel enclosures, and oh man, they were heavy.

Being a vintage computer guy, I just love the homemade hobby construction of stuff like this. I would guess the aluminum was hand cut to match the keyboard key switches. I have a few things that were hand made or re-purposed to act as a computer enclosure.

If you are ever interested in selling one of the Apple IIs in the DIY steel enclosures, PM me. That stuff is just awesome. My favourite hand-made item (and fitting for this forum) is this: keyboards-f2/vintage-home-made-keyboard-t11844.html It's not hand wired but it is a terminal with keyboard.

FlipTheSwitch · 22 Nov 2016, 04:06

Yeah, he said he hand cut and drilled everything, really some cool stuff from a diy perspective. Unfortunately I took the computers apart and sadly had to ditch the enclosures during a move. They were extremely cumbersome, and essentially just boxes, not nice and curvy like the keyboard. I still have the 2 motherboards, both are fully loaded, one is an official Apple board, and a second is a full clone, pcb and everything. They need some cleanup, but I will sell those a some point. I essentially took in his lifelong diy electronics hobby stuff, and I use many things of his in my own projects every day.