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geekhack Marketplace => Great Finds => Topic started by: Parak on Mon, 06 December 2010, 19:00:02

Title: CompuColor II
Post by: Parak on Mon, 06 December 2010, 19:00:02

It is very colorful. (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140487218634)

Title: CompuColor II
Post by: mr_a500 on Mon, 06 December 2010, 19:02:53

Bah! $92 shipping! I don't think I'll be getting it.

I posted some pictures of the Compucolor here (http://geekhack.org/showpost.php?p=237592&postcount=26).

Title: CompuColor II
Post by: msiegel on Mon, 06 December 2010, 20:15:41

:lol: half the enter key says Enter, and the other half says Return

Title: CompuColor II
Post by: quadibloc on Tue, 07 December 2010, 00:15:59

It is a thing of beauty, and a rarity. But it has missing keys, and you need special formatted floppies to use it.

Title: CompuColor II
Post by: msiegel on Tue, 07 December 2010, 00:24:23

it resembles your layout diagrams

Title: CompuColor II
Post by: quadibloc on Tue, 07 December 2010, 02:53:50

Quote from: msiegel;258476

it resembles your layout diagrams

It should resemble this one in particular...

(http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/images/cck.gif)

Title: CompuColor II
Post by: microsoft windows on Tue, 07 December 2010, 16:30:36

How do you make those lay-out diagrams?

Title: CompuColor II
Post by: quadibloc on Wed, 08 December 2010, 00:28:43

Quote from: microsoft windows;259080

How do you make those lay-out diagrams?

I saved the copy of Paintbrush that came with Windows 3.1 when I upgraded. It lets me conveniently draw a key, and then copy it with a transparent background - so that I can make a whole row of keys.

I can fill the keys with a color like yellow - or fill the whole screen with light cyan outside the keys, and then set light cyan as the background color - to put one row of keys in front of the other.

And Zoom In lets me draw the characters written on the keys dot by dot. Naturally, I copy as much as I can from other similar layout diagrams I've done, saving working drawings, so that I don't need to do the QWERTY part twice if I'm not changing the style.

Then I finally use another paint program to, 1) change the drawing to a .GIF, and 2) change the 16 colors from the Windows ones to those appropriate for the keyboard.

I use internet-safe colors, as if anybody still used 256 color mode when surfing nowadays.

Title: CompuColor II
Post by: Sam on Wed, 08 December 2010, 01:53:17

That's a nice looking board, though a shame it's missing several keys.  Looks like it'll go for big bucks being it's already at $123.50 with only 3 bids.  Guess I'll have to live without owning one of these.  Back when these were new, I remember looking at the ads and wishing I had one.

Title: CompuColor II
Post by: Sam on Wed, 08 December 2010, 02:34:20

Quote from: mr_a500;258332

Bah! $92 shipping! I don't think I'll be getting it.

Hey, you shouldn't even be thinking of it...you said you were done buying keyboards at the moment. :)

Now trading keyboards, that's another matter.  Anything you're interested in to exchange for your DEC?

Title: CompuColor II
Post by: mr_a500 on Wed, 08 December 2010, 08:42:03

Ha! Yeah, I can't really buy any more keyboards right now. I wasn't really thinking of buying it. I think it's a bit ugly.

I'm not trading that DEC. Nobody's taking that one from me! (http://b.imagehost.org/0703/Machine_20Gun_20Smiley.gif)

I've got a couple Apple Extended II keyboards I'd happily trade for a Sun 1, Victor 9000, Wicat 150, Memotech MTX512 or Burroughs Icon. :wink: