Monotype E11L - The largest keyboard I have ever seen.

[System]

Hey! I have 2 of these massive in size interesting keyboards, They seem very rare as through my searching I'm the only one who has any of these kinds. Here's some info I have gathered from my keyboards:

- Has 186 keys in total on one board.
- Has a futura legend on the keycaps.
- Has 2 space bars.
- Not in a standard format for keyboards
- Includes every single possible key known to mankind such as umlats and double ff's for some reason.
- The key caps are replaceable by adding different card letters under the plastic pieces.
- The keys themselves are magnet and some kind of leaf spring based ( Similar to alps).
- The keyboard case is made from what it seems like solid lead and weighs about 5kg in total.

These keyboards are originally from monotype typesetting (A type of machine for making fonts) machines (Room sized) with the model of the machine being unknown for these keyboards. Because of the nature of these keyboards they have no interface to plug it into computers or any interface on them. The keys sound generally very thocky due to the case of the keyboard being solid metal.

Heres some technical specs:

- The key caps are not staggered at all but have a height of 15mm.
- Total thickness of the board is 50mm.
- Width of 5mm between keycaps
- The dimensions are 380mm by 350mm

I will add pictures to this post for you guys to bask in the glory of this monster of a keyboard. Also does anyone know what something like this would be worth to a collector of a keyboard?

[Muirium]

Typesetting is the opposite of designing fonts, it's the process of actually using them.

Monotype was one of the main systems for commercial printing. Their keyboards always looked quite like that. Here's a pre-digital 1965 model from Wikipedia:



The operator would lay out the final text, line by line, by hand on that machine, looking after all the hyphen-ations and line breaks etc. we're so used to being handled automatically on computers. It's slow, precise work. What they're actually typing winds up in metal and then on thousands of copies in the press.

Pretty cool find. They're fairly rare, as only a commercial printer would have one of these machines.

[System]

Typesetting is the opposite of designing fonts, it's the process of actually using them.

Monotype was one of the main systems for commercial printing. Their keyboards always looked quite like that. Here's a pre-digital 1965 model from Wikipedia:



The operator would lay out the final text, line by line, by hand on that machine, looking after all the hyphen-ations and line breaks etc. we're so used to being handled automatically on computers. It's slow, precise work. What they're actually typing winds up in metal and then on thousands of copies in the press.

Pretty cool find. They're fairly rare, as only a commercial printer would have one of these machines.

This one in the picture is an early model, I believe mine to be one of the last models they seemed to made before going all digital but just can't place a timeframe as nobody knows where and when it came from.

[Muirium]

Pull some caps and look at the switches then. We should be able to identify them.

[System]

Pull some caps and look at the switches then. We should be able to identify them.

The picture I've added of the internals are the furthest you can take the switches apart as the magnets and other components are sealed in plastic and metal casings. No identifying marks on the springs or internals apart from the monotype branding

[Muirium]

You mean this?



You removed the cap on the key beneath C? Show us the underside of the cap, that can help too.

[Chyros]

Most keys I know of on one keyboard is the Accom Axial; 189.

Pretty sure it's also a lot bigger.

Biggest and heaviest keyboard I know of is the Berthold mothership keyboard, though. Dwarfs even a battleship.

[Muirium]

Biggest and heaviest board I've seen was a small collection of truly massive Xerox metal chassis keyboards in storage at the Museum of Communication. I'll see if I posted pictures. The closest the Wiki has is:

wiki/Xerox_928-900451

Oh, here we go: Digibarn's got the whole system: Xerox 860 IPS



Monu-MENTAL-ly mahoosive magnificently majoritarian magnum opus Do Not Drop Will Kill keyboard. The whole exterior is metal. Makes my 3278 beamspring seem like an SSK in comparison.

Linear, of course. Rings a fair bit, as I recall, but at a profoundly deeper pitch. If the M0110 is the Ukulele, this thing's the contrabass.

Also noteworthy: the "CAT" touchpad. So futuristic!

[JP!]

Don't forget about the Alps Kanji monster with 542 keys at a staggering 11.92 kg. There are rumors of even larger keyboards from long ago in the age of dinosaurs.

viewtopic.php?t=21937

[Muirium]

Defo area champion. Looks a bit svelte on the desk, though:



Sure you aren't just one of those egregious compact keyboard posers?

[jsheradin]

Don't forget about the Alps Kanji monster with 542 keys at a staggering 11.92 kg. There are rumors of even larger keyboards from long ago in the age of dinosaurs.

viewtopic.php?t=21937

Love the ring stand holder on the top corner. Presumably it's for a lamp since there's no way a sane person could touch type on that monster.

[JP!]

Sure you aren't just one of those egregious compact keyboard posers?

Maybe...

Spoiler:

keyboard_small.jpg (190.81 KiB) Viewed 4745 times

In reality I currently have a full-size Lexmark branded Model M on my desk.

[Muirium]

Fun fact: a 12 × 4 - 1 = 47 key matrix board like that has 47! = a very large number indeed of possible combinations, if you chord hard enough. Just keep using more fingers and you can easily exceed that kanjichameleon.

Or if you're truly limited to 10, then yeah it's just 5.178 billion.

Even only 2—TWO—damn fingers, will give you 1081 effective keys, on an itty-bitty forty! 1770 on my luxuriously large HHKB here.

…there's no way a sane person could…

Where we're going, you won't need "sane."

[JP!]

Just keep using more fingers and you can easily exceed that kanjichameleon.

[System]

Don't forget about the Alps Kanji monster with 542 keys at a staggering 11.92 kg. There are rumors of even larger keyboards from long ago in the age of dinosaurs.

viewtopic.php?t=21937

A more ergonomic massive keyboard

[System]

You mean this?



You removed the cap on the key beneath C? Show us the underside of the cap, that can help too.

That's the top of the switches see the 3rd picture for the underside / spring.

[kbdfr]

All of that is nice stuff, sure, but this is a fully functional keyboard which has been my daily driver for more than 10 years:
.

.
Tipro, of course

Spoiler:

Don’t tell me you did not expect this

[Chyros]

Don't forget about the Alps Kanji monster with 542 keys at a staggering 11.92 kg. There are rumors of even larger keyboards from long ago in the age of dinosaurs.

viewtopic.php?t=21937

Oh man, how could I forget the Yamato Kanji keyboard! Truly a sight to behold!

[System]

I have also made a sound test of the monotype e11L https://youtu.be/J7DantP4Ozw just to show how it sounds.

[Lalaland124]

I have also made a sound test of the monotype e11L https://youtu.be/J7DantP4Ozw just to show how it sounds.

Damn, this sounds indeed very thoccy
Do you have any more information on the switches?

[System]

I have also made a sound test of the monotype e11L https://youtu.be/J7DantP4Ozw just to show how it sounds.

Damn, this sounds indeed very thoccy
Do you have any more information on the switches?

None at all I'm the only person with info on this model online

[SOTGO]

Most keys I know of on one keyboard is the Accom Axial; 189.

Pretty sure it's also a lot bigger.

Biggest and heaviest keyboard I know of is the Berthold mothership keyboard, though. Dwarfs even a battleship.

Don't forget the 510 key keyboard that went with the PolType-04. Marcin Wichary posted about it in one of his book updates here: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/shift-h ... t-3-190876

[BEEDELLROKEJULIANLOC]

All of that is nice stuff, sure, but this is a fully functional keyboard which has been my daily driver for more than 10 years:
.

.
Tipro, of course

Spoiler:

Don’t tell me you did not expect this

Which model of keyboard is that?

[kbdfr]

All of that is nice stuff, sure, but this is a fully functional keyboard which has been my daily driver for more than 10 years:
.

.
Tipro, of course

Spoiler:

Don’t tell me you did not expect this

Which model of keyboard is that?

Tipro is a manufacturer of modular point-of-sale equipment, including fully programmable keyboards.
This one is composed of 3 keyboard units (of their discontinued MID range), with a 8x8 matrix module on either side coupled with a (modified) staggered module in the middle.
It features Cherry MX black switches and, of course, still flawlessly works like a charm after all these years.