Strange Cherry/WICAT terminal keyboards

[subcat]

Hi guys, I hope you're all doing well. I purchased two of these for about 23 usd each. They were pulled straight from their working environments, according to the seller. They both use Cherry MX Black switches. There are a few interesting differences between the two keyboards that I hope to cover in this post. But first, potato pictures!

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The keyboards use original doubleshot Cherry keycaps. They are lovely, and some are quite unique. This one actually has a doubleshot windowed keycap. However, the other one I have uses the regular vertical rectangle with pad printing. (Shoutout to XMIT by the way)

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They also have some neat front-printed sublegends.

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PCB info confirms it isn't a 0-series G80 like we speculated in the Telegram chat. I do wonder why the larger numpad keys haven't yellowed, too.

Now onto the differences between the two examples I got.

1. Usage of MX Grey. While KB1 (the one with the doubleshot windowed cap) used 2 MX Linear Grey switches in the left modifier cluster, KB2 used 100% MX Blacks (which incidentally are the worst switches I've ever used. KB1 is buttery smooth but KB2 had been caked in dust. They bind like crazy and you can hear the friction when actuated from the other side of the planet).
2. Stabilisers. KB1 uses plate-mount Cherry stabilisers on the enter and numpad 0. KB2 does not use any at all. This results in the following difference between the 2 enter keycaps:

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KB1 on the left.
3. PCB markings - This is what was on the PCB of KB2 edit: looks like the file was too big to upload for this pic


Overall I'm fascinated by these, and I think they were worth looking into!

[seebart]

Very nice find. The Kimtron KT-7 is rareish but not unknown.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/triplehaa ... 782097880/

http://www.retrocomputing.net/info/siti ... on/kt7-og/

[subcat]

Thanks for the links, Haata's one seems to have MX Greys in completely different spots. I wonder how that was decided by the manufacturer.

[Wodan]

What a beauty subcat!

Can I have them for desoldering?

[Puree]

What a beauty subcat!

Can I have them for desoldering?

+1

[alienman82]

removed.

[E3E]

Seems that the function row has Row 0 profile keycaps, which is pretty interesting. It makes sense with a function row integrated into the same block of the alphas like that.

Always cool to see.

[subcat]

At some stage I will be sure to take a picture of the profiles of each row

[seebart]

What a beauty subcat!

Can I have them for desoldering?

Don't do it !

[mr_a500]

I've always wondered what switches are in the earlier Wicat 150.

Wicat 150.jpg

(terminal was also available all black)

I've never seen one for sale and good photos are scarce so there's no way to find out.

[ideus]

Is the different color of the 0 and enter keys on the keypad due to yellowing? Or are those keys made of a different material?