Ortek MCK-201FX - ALPS White - DIN5

[Muska17]

Hello,

I found an Ortek MCK-201FX at my grand-parents :



https://imgur.com/xdCdjBX

It has ALPS White mechanics. The connector is a DIN5. I have a few questions about this product :

- is the presence of the joystick native ? The cable goes inside the case. I didn't check but it seems it is sold directly on the PCB.
- what is the piece of metal above the Num Lock LED ? Some kind of connector ?

Is this keyboard likely to interest some vintage keyboard enthusiast ?

[Maledicted]

I don't think any of that is factory. I haven't seen any pictures of one like that and can't imagine why Ortek would wire a black and red joystick into a beige keyboard. That metal piece looks like it is threaded and held on with a nut as well? Somebody probably drilled a hole for it. You should take it apart and get a closer look at how it is wired up.

Are your grandparents still with us, would one of them happen to know its story?

If the switches are genuine complicated Alps that are in good shape (all smooth), somebody would be interested in having it for the switches. I don't think Orteks are particularly desirable, and white Alps switches are relatively common.

[Muska17]

Thanks for your reply !

Indeed, the joystick was discernably manually soldered on the PCB. I'm not sure what the other connector is though, it seems to be soldered (manually as well) on the "*" key, and GND. It looks like an RCA connector.

My grandma gave this to me a few weeks ago with other oldies (ZIP floppy driver, about 10 sealed MS-DOS certificate of authenticity, and some other stuff). It belonged to my grandfather but he passed 20 years ago, so i unfortunately don't know the story of this keyboard.

The keyboard itself is really in good condition, and the keys are all smooth.

One more question though, this keyboard has a DIN 5 male connector, it is much larger than a mini-DIN we have on modern computers. How to vintage keyboard enthusiast get these working on modern computers ?

[Maledicted]

What part of the board is the joystick wired up to? All very interesting.

Most 5-pin din keyboards use either the IBM XT or AT protocols. Some don't always copy it exactly but I did find an old thread where somebody just soldered a PS/2 cable to a MCK-201FX, so it is probably AT. The easiest thing to do in that case if you're not going down the rabbit hole any further would be to get an AT to PS/2 adapter and PS/2 to USB adapter on Amazon. You could just use it with a PS/2 port if you have a desktop computer that has one, but the modern ones don't always necessarily follow the protocol exactly and Windows can be a pain in that regard as well.

If you think you might want to get more vintage boards down the road, you could buy or build a Soarer's converter that will work with most XT or AT boards.

Any of these with a 5-pin din connector should work.

Building one with a Pro Micro is cheaper and it is easier to change the firmware down the road if you so desired. TMK and QMK both have their own converters that can be flashed to any other Teensy/Pro Micro-based device.

Here's the thread here from the man that started it all with Soarer's own converter.

If you take a closer look at the switch housings, you should be able to discern exactly what switches are in there, if you're curious. Ortek is documented to have used complicated Alps, but also some clones in a similar board.

It is great that you have something that's not only quirky and custom with a family history, but also with some of the better keyboard switches ever designed for a keyboard in a still-usable layout. If you're going to leave it out a lot, you might want to cover it when it isn't in use. Alps switches have a tendency to be extremely sensitive to dust.

[Muska17]

Thanks for your reply this is highly interesting to me. I'm almost positive i have a DIN 5 female to mini-DIN 6 adapter at my parents, we have an old computer with an old keyboard and i remember having to put this adapter as a kid.

Here are a few more pictures of the keyboard. I opened it this morning to share a more detailed overview with you.

Here is a clearer top view of the keyboard and the DIN 5 connector :



This is a clearer view of the weird "RCA"-likeconnector :



Here is a picture of the back of the keyboard :



Here is a picture of the front side of the PCB, with the keys :



Most likely the keyboard firmware runs on the DIP MCU (i forgot to take a picture of the reference) ?

Here is a picture of a switch :



And here is the back of the PCB, where the weird connector was soldered (on the "*" key) :



And here is where the joystick was soldered :



We can see that it is soldered on the arrows, and the enter key. We can't see it on the picture, but the longest cable is soldered on space.

For now i simply removed this joystick because i don't have any use of it and it is just taking room for no use.

[Maledicted]

I don't know a whole lot about how joysticks work, but since they're analogue I don't think wiring one up to the arrow keys like that would work anyway, even if it were connected properly to the corresponding rows and columns.

Maybe there was some external button connected to the jack that was wired to the asterisk key? I wonder what the intended purpose was.

The picture of the switch is too dark to make much out, but it looks like it might be a 4 tab clone switch and not actual Alps, which seems to correspond with what the FX designation usually meant.



Ortek used a few different kinds of clones in their similar boards.

[CaesarAZealad]

I don't know a whole lot about how joysticks work, but since they're analogue I don't think wiring one up to the arrow keys like that would work anyway, even if it were connected properly to the corresponding rows and columns.

Maybe there was some external button connected to the jack that was wired to the asterisk key? I wonder what the intended purpose was.

The picture of the switch is too dark to make much out, but it looks like it might be a 4 tab clone switch and not actual Alps, which seems to correspond with what the FX designation usually meant.

(Attachment Link)

Ortek used a few different kinds of clones in their similar boards.

If I had a genie and one wish I'd wish that there was a revision of alps that had 4 tabs just to completely **** with this easy way to identify genuine switches.

[Muska17]

I don't know a whole lot about how joysticks work, but since they're analogue I don't think wiring one up to the arrow keys like that would work anyway, even if it were connected properly to the corresponding rows and columns.

Maybe there was some external button connected to the jack that was wired to the asterisk key? I wonder what the intended purpose was.

The picture of the switch is too dark to make much out, but it looks like it might be a 4 tab clone switch and not actual Alps, which seems to correspond with what the FX designation usually meant.

(Attachment Link)

Ortek used a few different kinds of clones in their similar boards.

I confirm what you supposed, this keyboard indeed has the 4 tab clone switches.

As for the joystick (getting out of topic here), it is branded "Zipstick". These joystick have an Atari joystick connector and they are compatible with Atari 2600. It is interesting because i also got an Atari 2600 at my grand-parents and i'm pretty sure this joystick was intended to be played on it at the time.

Most likely my grand-father cut off the connector to have the joystick soldered on this keyboard later when he got into computers.

Anyway, this joystick is not an analog one, it consists in 6 switches :



I still need to check what is the other connector all about.

[Maledicted]

Ah, so it might have actually worked. Was he a gamer? I haven't played a lot of old DOS games, but I think the num pad was used a lot in old games so asterisk might have just been a key he needed and his joystick didn't have enough buttons. Would especially make sense with games made before the release of the Model M with the modern layouts.

[ander]

What a fun 'n' funny find (or FFF, as we say in the MK world).

Vintage White Alpses are great switches, as satisfyingly clickety as you'll ever find. (People make a big fuss about Alps Blues—but personally I think there's a certain hysteria to that, just because they're not seen nearly as often... It reminds me of the Tulip Mania of the 17th century. )

[Maledicted]

What a fun 'n' funny find (or FFF, as we say in the MK world).

Vintage White Alpses are great switches, as satisfyingly clickety as you'll ever find. (People make a big fuss about Alps Blues—but personally I think there's a certain hysteria to that, just because they're not seen nearly as often... It reminds me of the Tulip Mania of the 17th century. )

I have a lot of SKCM white boards and it doesn't seem like any two sound or feel the same as each other. Some are almost identical to SKCM blues ... others are quite different. There were rolling changes to the design throughout their production and I have read that Alps was producing them in various factories concurrently.

I think that's where part of the confusion and disagreement stems from. Some SKCM white boards are indistinguishable from SKCM blue if you were blindfolded and some are very different.