I got this guy for $5 from an estate sale several months back. I believe it is a terminal keyboard that accompanied the Burroughs TD 700 system. I finally had a chance to clean it up today. I wanted to confirm with the experts if it is a hall effect keyboard. According to the chips, it was made in 1974.
Here are a couple photos of mine along with a photo of what I believe the system it went to looks like.
Burroughs 1974 Hall Effect Keyboard
- Redmaus
- Gotta start somewhere
- Location: Near Dallas, Texas
- Main keyboard: Unsaver | 3276 | Kingsaver
- Main mouse: Kensington Slimblade
- Favorite switch: Capacitative Buckling Spring
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That is a really nice layout. Love the gray caps as well. $5 is a steal.
- paecific.jr
- Location: United States
- Main keyboard: IBM Model F 122
- Main mouse: Logitech Performance MX
- Favorite switch: Capacitive Buckling Springs
- DT Pro Member: -
Next challenge, make it usb...
- seebart
- Offtopicthority Instigator
- Location: Germany
- Main keyboard: Rotation
- Main mouse: Steelseries Sensei
- Favorite switch: IBM capacitive buckling spring
- DT Pro Member: 0061
- Contact:
- XMIT
- [ XMIT ]
- Location: Austin, TX area
- Main keyboard: XMIT Hall Effect
- Main mouse: CST L-Trac Trackball
- Favorite switch: XMIT 60g Tactile Hall Effect
- DT Pro Member: 0093
To be fair I made that harder than it needs to be, and that's because I hate the "pulse low" type Hall sensors.
I've since decided that, for now at least, I'm just going to put that board back together and convert it as is. I had ideas to build a new PCB for it with new sensors but I'm shelving that for now. The reason here is that I want something easy that other owners of these boards can do. Getting a Teensy, hooking up a few wires, and flashing a firmware is easy "enough" even if you only get 1KRO out of it.
Now I just need to find the time to work on it.

I've since decided that, for now at least, I'm just going to put that board back together and convert it as is. I had ideas to build a new PCB for it with new sensors but I'm shelving that for now. The reason here is that I want something easy that other owners of these boards can do. Getting a Teensy, hooking up a few wires, and flashing a firmware is easy "enough" even if you only get 1KRO out of it.
Now I just need to find the time to work on it.


- seebart
- Offtopicthority Instigator
- Location: Germany
- Main keyboard: Rotation
- Main mouse: Steelseries Sensei
- Favorite switch: IBM capacitive buckling spring
- DT Pro Member: 0061
- Contact:
OK, sorry if your thread was "uncalled" for in this case XMIT.XMIT wrote: To be fair I made that harder than it needs to be, and that's because I hate the "pulse low" type Hall sensors.
I've since decided that, for now at least, I'm just going to put that board back together and convert it as is. I had ideas to build a new PCB for it with new sensors but I'm shelving that for now. The reason here is that I want something easy that other owners of these boards can do. Getting a Teensy, hooking up a few wires, and flashing a firmware is easy "enough" even if you only get 1KRO out of it.
Now I just need to find the time to work on it.![]()


- XMIT
- [ XMIT ]
- Location: Austin, TX area
- Main keyboard: XMIT Hall Effect
- Main mouse: CST L-Trac Trackball
- Favorite switch: XMIT 60g Tactile Hall Effect
- DT Pro Member: 0093
Oh no worries, please share that link "early and often". I've still got some work to do - that board has been sitting for too long now.
- Halvar
- Location: Baden, DE
- Main keyboard: IBM Model M SSK / Filco MT 2
- Favorite switch: Beam & buckling spring, Monterey, MX Brown
- DT Pro Member: 0051
Yes, I guess the main reason it has still not been done is that there is not enough interest by enough people.
There are basically two different ways that you can follow, and both are not ideal:
You can either use the original controller and the original connectors and try to emulate the original protocol. That's what Symbolics founder MMcM did. And what you get is a keyboard that in most cases has 1KRO, very few modifiers (unless you have a LISP keyboard probably
), and no key up detection.
Or you decide to replace the old controller with a modern SoC, which in most cases means you need to destroy the old controller ... and who wants to do that on a 1970s keyboard?
IBM did us a great favor when they separated the keyboard PCB from the controller PCB in their beamsprings and most of their Model Fs. Micro Switch unfortunately did not do that.
There are basically two different ways that you can follow, and both are not ideal:
You can either use the original controller and the original connectors and try to emulate the original protocol. That's what Symbolics founder MMcM did. And what you get is a keyboard that in most cases has 1KRO, very few modifiers (unless you have a LISP keyboard probably

Or you decide to replace the old controller with a modern SoC, which in most cases means you need to destroy the old controller ... and who wants to do that on a 1970s keyboard?
IBM did us a great favor when they separated the keyboard PCB from the controller PCB in their beamsprings and most of their Model Fs. Micro Switch unfortunately did not do that.
- XMIT
- [ XMIT ]
- Location: Austin, TX area
- Main keyboard: XMIT Hall Effect
- Main mouse: CST L-Trac Trackball
- Favorite switch: XMIT 60g Tactile Hall Effect
- DT Pro Member: 0093
Most of the vintage Hall boards I've seen don't have controllers at all. They just exposed the key matrix so that the CPU could do the scanning.
I'm going in the direction of replacing or circumventing the original electronics, and polling the sensors directly using the original PCB. That's the most tenable approach for the best experience for the average hobbyist. I think protocol conversion is dumb. :/
I'm going in the direction of replacing or circumventing the original electronics, and polling the sensors directly using the original PCB. That's the most tenable approach for the best experience for the average hobbyist. I think protocol conversion is dumb. :/