Commodore 900 prototype keyboard

[snuci]

I recently acquired a prototype Commodore C900 that is a Unix workstation. The keyboard is hand painted and has some interesting switches, I think but because it's a prototype, there are no markings anywhere except for Z-8000 which is the internal project name. Here are some pics:

Keyboard front

C900 - keyboard front.jpg (732.71 KiB) Viewed 2605 times

Rear of keyboard

C900 - keyboard rear.jpg (688.45 KiB) Viewed 2605 times

Keyboard metal base plate and switches

C900 - keyboard base plate.jpg (544.22 KiB) Viewed 2605 times

Rear of keyboard mechanism

C900 - keyboard mechanism rear.jpg (769.84 KiB) Viewed 2605 times

Keyboard mechanism controller

C900 - keyboard mechanism controller.jpg (784.23 KiB) Viewed 2605 times

Key switch

C900 - keyswitch.jpg (501.89 KiB) Viewed 2605 times

Function key switches

C900 - function keyswitch.jpg (541.47 KiB) Viewed 2605 times

[PlacaFromHell]

I recently acquired a prototype Commodore C900 that is a Unix workstation. The keyboard is hand painted and has some interesting switches, I think but because it's a prototype, there are no markings anywhere except for Z-8000 which is the internal project name.

Mitsumi switches Are they somehow similar to Alps switches? AEKII's come with these.

[Findecanor]

Wow! That's a piece of computing history. It is what Commodore worked on before buying Amiga, overlapping the time when Commodore's founder Jack Tramiel was forced out -- to buy Atari's computer division.
The Zilog Z-8000 was the CPU in the computer. It was a 16-bit successor to the Z-80.

The layout reminds me of both Amiga 1000 and Atari ST - especially the Mega ST keyboard which had similar function keys and used (cheaper). The Amiga 1000 keyboards also had mechanical Mitsumi switches.

Those switches do look like some variation of Mitsumi "standard mechanical" with Mitsumi mount, like the Amiga keyboards.
Some Japanese-made AEKII did have Mitsumi switches with Alps mount.