80's Honeywell hall effect keyboard w/ 4B3E switches
Posted: 23 Jun 2020, 01:53
Recently I had the opportunity to pick up six early 80's Honeywell terminals, each which came with an extremely nice keyboard in Honeywell's infamous white and gray color scheme. The terminal + keyboard design itself is one of my favorites in existence, due to the sharp lines and the 'secret laboratory' colors, as I like to call it. These terminals somewhat fit that description, as they were actually removed from the CDC in Georgia during the late 90's, and have been in storage since.
There are dozens of different variants of the keyboard and terminal, whether it be switches, navcluster design, numpad implementation and more. The keyboards that I got were all the same except for one keyboard, which used 4B3E switches on every key on the top right except the latching switches, while the other boards used the extremely stiff 4B6E switches for these keys.
It seems like the most popular variant of this keyboard was a similar looking board with a numpad and larger navcluster, along with two red keys, seen in taek's post from 2017. That board also used 4B3S switches instead. Personally, I like the gray, white, and black color scheme better. It also appears that the design of the keyboards I own is pretty rare, I've looked pretty hard through Google and I haven't been able to find pictures of a similar layout.
I know the 4B3E switches are held up on a pedestal, and now I can see why. They are extremely smooth, although they are a little stiff at 70g. Overall, they are very nice.
Switches:
4B3E (all main keys),
4B6E (x2 on top right, very stiff),
5B3E (x2 latching switches, on 'local' and 'caps lock' keys)
4B1D (right shift)
4N1E (there's a few of these ones, they are just stabilizers)
Keycaps:
Extremely thick SA-esque keycaps. In the caps lock row, some keys have a divot in them for an unkown reason
Terminal Pictures:
Keyboard Pictures:
Interior Keyboard Pictures:
Keycap Pictures:
Thanks for reading! I should also ask, does anyone know how to convert this thing? It uses standard 24 pin RS232 connections.
There are dozens of different variants of the keyboard and terminal, whether it be switches, navcluster design, numpad implementation and more. The keyboards that I got were all the same except for one keyboard, which used 4B3E switches on every key on the top right except the latching switches, while the other boards used the extremely stiff 4B6E switches for these keys.
It seems like the most popular variant of this keyboard was a similar looking board with a numpad and larger navcluster, along with two red keys, seen in taek's post from 2017. That board also used 4B3S switches instead. Personally, I like the gray, white, and black color scheme better. It also appears that the design of the keyboards I own is pretty rare, I've looked pretty hard through Google and I haven't been able to find pictures of a similar layout.
I know the 4B3E switches are held up on a pedestal, and now I can see why. They are extremely smooth, although they are a little stiff at 70g. Overall, they are very nice.
Switches:
4B3E (all main keys),
4B6E (x2 on top right, very stiff),
5B3E (x2 latching switches, on 'local' and 'caps lock' keys)
4B1D (right shift)
4N1E (there's a few of these ones, they are just stabilizers)
Keycaps:
Extremely thick SA-esque keycaps. In the caps lock row, some keys have a divot in them for an unkown reason
Terminal Pictures:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Thanks for reading! I should also ask, does anyone know how to convert this thing? It uses standard 24 pin RS232 connections.