UltraTec SuperPrint 4425 Text Telephone

[whiffysole]

I recently acquired this unusual keyboard/text telephone from a Goodwill for $5 (Half off red tags day ).
It's a SuperPrint 4425 from UltraTec, which uses an interesting keyboard in it.
First let's start off with what it is. The SuperPrint 4425 is a "text telephone", which was a way for people who are hard of hearing to message people over phone lines. Pretty cool! It seems like you put the receiver on the black pads in order to communicate. This also has a thermal printer built right into it, which still works just fine! I think it's pretty fun to print out stuff on little pieces of thermal paper. The newest date I could find was 2004 surprisingly.

Now for some specs and info.

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Switches

It uses some switches that I couldn't identify at first, but after browsing around the wiki I found that this most likely uses a variation of the Taiwan Jet Axis switches. These ones are linear and have a clear/white slider. They're incredibly scratchy and heavy, and this is definitely not due to dust as this is in near perfect condition. They are PCB mount and Cherry MX mount. I have replaced one with a Gateron Yellow out of curiosity, and it works just fine.

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Keycaps

The keycaps are somewhat unusual. They seem to be pad printed ABS and are surprisingly thick, however the legends are really inconsistent. These caps have a different profile when compared to my other Cherry profile caps. When compared to the Cherry profile caps, the SuperPrint's keys are sculpted in a less angled way when compared to the Cherries. As for the feel of these caps? I think they feel pretty good. There's a light texture on top and have smooth sides with rounded corners.

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Conclusion

In my opinion this is a super fun and interesting keyboard. The switches are really crap, and the keycaps could be better, but there's no doubt that this is pretty unique. I will expand on this keyboard's features in the following video.

This is an album of some images I took.
https://imgur.com/a/FpWdl3R

[Lanrefni]

Nothing says old school like an acoustic coupler,wonder if those even work over modern lines these days.

[whiffysole]

Nothing says old school like an acoustic coupler,wonder if those even work over modern lines these days.

I'm not sure as I'm pretty unfamiliar with phone lines in general. There's a little paper slip inside that says it can only be used on analog lines.

Paper Info Card

IMG_20181218_065533.jpg (876.3 KiB) Viewed 1977 times

[abrahamstechnology]

I'll take those Jet Axises off your hands, I want to try modding them. They are one of the few MX style switches that have a space for a click leaf.

[whiffysole]

I'll take those Jet Axises off your hands, I want to try modding them. They are one of the few MX style switches that have a space for a click leaf.

PM'd.

[whiffysole]

Here's some more images to round out the details.