commodore 64 keys on cherry switches?

[armenws]

Hi guys

I was just wondering if anyone knew the possibilities / difficulties of trying to mod commodore 64 keys to fit a filco keyboard. I bought the filco off another proud member of this site and I came across the C64 keyboard on ebay at a fair price.

I love the old spherical key caps. My main concern is that they may not fit widthwise or heighthwise, even if I can mod the stems to fit. Also I'm assuming return/space/restore/alt etc may not work out but maybe I can do the letter keys. I'll keep this thread posted on my progress but I'd love to hear if this has been attempted before...

[Findecanor]

There was some old Commodore PET keyboard that had cross-shaped stems.. I dunno if the C64 had it.

The layout of the non-alphanumeric keys is completely different. That is the biggest problem, I think.

[keyb_gr]

Here's a few things I found:

http://symlink.dk/projects/c64key/
C-64 keyboard gets a USB interface

http://jope.fi/c64t/
C-128 keys reused on Mitsumi keyboard

What kind of mechanism did these old C-64 boards use?

[clickclack]

This was a topic a while ago, but unfortunately I can't find it at the moment.
This is what I remember and what I remember saying then (I think).

The 64's keys stems have a slightly larger cross section than the standard cherry compatible keycap, in other words the keycaps would be way too loose.
You could modify they stems to fit like how rippy suggests/illustrates or you could just modify the inner stem. Both can work, but do understand that it is one heck of an undertaking. Or as keyb_gr suggests modding the 64's keyboard to be currently compatible. Though the 64's keyboard is not all that nice to use iirc.
Food for thought, good luck on whatever you choose to do.

=)

[TexasFlood]

This was a topic a while ago, but unfortunately I can't find it at the moment.

I found a thread "Commodore 64 as a USB keyboard".  Not sure if that is what you had in mind but it has some relevant info.

Looked for a picture of C64 key caps, so far only found this one of them soaking in a jar of RetrObright, :wink:.

[Pylon]

Doesn't the new Commodore 64 remake have Cherry switches? You could use the caps off those.

[elef]

The 64's keys stems have a slightly larger cross section than the standard cherry compatible keycap, in other words the keycaps would be way too loose.

There was a post somewhere on here that said you can use a small square of sticky tape on the keystem to fix loose keycaps. As you press the keycap on, it folds the tape down on the sides of the stem. If the size difference is not too big, you could try this with the C64 caps.

[Findecanor]

Doesn't the new Commodore 64 remake have Cherry switches? You could use the caps off those.

Good luck finding anyone who would sell you them for a fair price. Nobody would buy the C64 remake for anything else than its looks.

[armenws]

thanks for the info guys.

UPDATE: this is now a keyrah thead!