deskthority

Muirium wrote: So far, we know full homerow deep dishing was a thing IBM and indeed Univac got up to in ancient times.

How do we know that? I don't see any IBM deep dish until the beam spring. (but of course it's a difficult thing to see in photos)

F&J deep dishing without bumps on this Wang 724 from 1989.
http://deskthority.net/wiki/Wang_725-37 ... ref-DT_1-1

Cherry did a lot of that, too. Always on F&J, as far as I know.


@A500: I shouldn't have used a fuzzy term like "ancient times". What I mean is that full homerow deep dishing was clearly an established thing (your Univac precedent) long before the confusing battle of the bumps!

That leaves us with the battle of F&J vs D&K.

That Wang tickles my ####. What profile / row is that alt key ?

Muirium wrote: That leaves us with the battle of F&J vs D&K.

For cylindrical? Who cares? Just kidding - but for bumps I thought I already confirmed it was Apple and D&K. For sphericals, there are no bumps - just deep dish - and F&J (never D&K) were common long before the 1980 Apple III.

seebart wrote: F&J deep dishing without bumps on this Wang 724 from 1989.

closeupkeys-profile.jpg

http://deskthority.net/wiki/Wang_725-37 ... ref-DT_1-1

Well, yeah, deep dish cylindrical without bumps is pretty common in the late 80's.

Implementation details. I'm more interested in when F&J emerged, overall, as homing markers without their neighbouring keys. Then ditto for D&K. Seems odd, even for 1980s Apple, to overturn a widespread standard on something so simple for no proprietary gain. And Jobs even nixed it!

gogusrl wrote: That Wang tickles my ####. What profile / row is that alt key ?

Concave low-profile bottom modifiers. Cupped F and J keys. Yellowed space bar.

Quoted from webwit's thread over a year ago mind.

http://deskthority.net/photos-f62/wang- ... wang%20724

Muirium wrote: Implementation details. I'm more interested in when F&J emerged, overall, as homing markers without their neighbouring keys. Then ditto for D&K.

What the hell? That's what I've been trying to find out. Have you been reading what I've been saying? (...drinking a little too much Scotch? )

You two are getting back to your old from. I could add some spice with a little seebarting. It is weekend after all.

Aye…

Nitpicky bastard.

I'm saying there's zero interesting difference between deep dish, bump, bar, or whatever kind of homing divot in function. What interests me is their location.

Well ignoring method, only Apple used D&K. Anybody else used F&J, except UNIVAC which used ASDF JKL:.

Now as for who first used F&J, I'm still trying to find out, but it was common in the 70's. As I said, it's not on any typewriter I can find and hard to see in photos. It's possible it was introduced on the first IBM beam spring in 1971, but difficult to confirm.

Edit: seebart just caused me to do "accidental seebarting"

Finding out when F&J first emerged as homing markers without their neighbouring keys is a nice research project!#

mr_a500 wrote: Edit: seebart just caused me to do "accidental seebarting"

I know, but "accidental seebarting" does not really count since no harm intended!

Here's a 1972 beam spring. Judging by the curve on that J, I'd guess that it's deep dish.



None of the 60's pre-beam spring keyboards appear to have it.

True. That's the full size version of webwit's Kishy Beam Spring. Damn that's nice. That reminds me, I'll have a look at all my old boards and see what and how the dishing is on those.

Yep, Webwit's short version of the one above, 3278 and Displaywriter have dished F and J keys, as well as the blue an grey Space Cadet (1980?),

Okay, here's a 1979 sighting of deep dished spherical F and J on a Raytheon Data Systems RHSA 6104-06/11 Terminal Keyboard:






Nice yellowing on the deep dish caps too!

Thanks to Joc for finding it.

joc wrote: These look interesting: http://www.ebay.com/itm/381451691534 I couldn't find much information about them.

We need sightings earlier than 1972. As I said, there are plenty of 70's keyboards with this (I even have a few). The point (as you said) is to find the origin.

Aye, fine then. I just wanted to get those 70s colours into the thread while I had the chance!

Seems very odd to me that IBM had this all the way back in 1972, then plumb forgot about it. My Kishsaver here is one of those finicky Model Fs without homing bumps at all. What smart bugger chose to uninvent it? Surely they didn't ask Steve over!

I'm just trying to be the new Beardsmore. This thread isn't going to Beardsmore itself, you know.

It seems like the second version of the IBM PCjr keyboard might have been the first IBM keyboard with bumps on the f and j keys. This announcement letter states that these keyboards were to start shipping by the end of November 1984 (pre Model M days). The PCjr was competing with the Apple IIc at the time.

Since we're trying to get this thread more Beardsmore I had a look at most of my older keyboards about dishing and homing bumps like I said I would. Here's the disturbing lowdown:

1976 Mico Switch: F&J deep dishing, no homing bumps
http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/mic ... o%20switch

1977 Key Tronic: no dishing, no homing bumps
http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/key ... 11875.html

1977 Mico Switch: no dishing, no homing bumps
http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/mic ... 11720.html

1978 Micro Switch: no dishing, homing bump on F but not on J (J being in the num cluster) !
http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/mic ... 11231.html

197? Siemens: no dishing, no homing bumps
http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/can ... t9048.html

197? Fujitsu Leaf Spring 1st gen.: no dishing, no homing bumps
http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/fuj ... it=fujitsu

198? Fujitsu Leaf Spring 2nd gen.: no dishing, no homing bumps

1984 IBM 3104: no dishing, no homing bumps
http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/ibm ... hilit=3104

198? IBM 5954339: no dishing, no homing bumps
http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/ibm ... ?hilit=ibm

Does this get us any closer to figuring this out? I think not! That Raytheon is awesome btw, I want one!

seebart wrote: 1978 Micro Switch: no dishing, homing bump on F but not on J (J being in the num cluster) !
http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/mic ... 11231.html

Homing bump on a 1978 spherical?? Well, I'll be a son of a...

Bizarre. You'd think something so simple and quickly addictive as homing markers would spread in no time. At least across a single manufacturer's product line. Yet IBM wasn't alone in adopting them then forgetting. Micro Switch was playing that game too? Can't say I'd have predicted this.

Seems to me that homing markers were something users got used to quickly enough. But the guys in charge of designing these keyboards were indifferent to them. Doesn't seem wise behaviour! And Steve Jobs was among them, making this basic mistake with the original Macintosh, only to be corrected as soon as he left Apple, and to change his mind at NeXT later anyway!

I can't see any pattern in this. Also intersting that my 1976 Micro Switch has F&J deep dishing while none of the others do. Surely it's got nothing to do with it being ISO German? And the 1978 Micro Switch with the homing bump on F is a strange one anyway. From the looks of it built for some industrial application? Both of you have a look at your boards then!

It looks like it was just an option that buyers could choose or not, like choosing stepped or flat, single profile or scuplted.

Just looking at my Key Tronic keyboards:

1979 No
1982 Yes
1983 No
1989 Yes

Are they all ANSI?

Yes, all ANSI.

Other keyboards (deep dish, not homing bumps):

1974 Clare Pendar - No
1974 Micro Switch - Yes (UNIVAC whole home row)
1978 Micro Switch - No
1979 Hi-Tek - Yes
1980 Licon - Yes
1980 Alps SKCC - No (but homing bump on numeric 5!)
1980 Apple (unknown maker) - No (cylindrical - no deep dish, no bumps)
1980 Futaba - No
1982 SMK - Yes
1984 SMK - Yes
1984 Maxi Switch - Yes

And of course, my two 3278 beam springs - Yes.

I still have to check other keyboards...

Well just from that I think we can safely say there is no pattern in either dishing or homing bumps. And I don't think it's layout related either. Got a link to that 74' UNIVAC? I'd like to see that sometime. I probably have seen it.

No, there's no pattern but we can still search for the origin. We just need to find high resolution photos of pre-1972 keyboards. (..which is a bit tricky)

There's a picture of my 1974 UNIVAC on page 1 of this thread. It's also in HaaTa's 1710 thread.

(How the hell do you link to specific posts again? I've done it hundreds of times, but now I've forgotten. )

A full URL ought to do it. The forum software (phpbb) automatically shortens internal urls when you use them without [tags] but I think they are all complete longhand behind the scenes. http://www…