geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: Red October on Sun, 11 October 2009, 21:52:59
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Finally! After quite a bit of waiting, I turned one up for a reasonable price, and it arrived the other day. I wasn't going to pay much for it since my intent was to see if they keycaps are able to be transplanted onto anything else to get the old=style rounded keycaps. So far, I have taken off one key and the mechanism seems unusual; there is a metal stem that protrudes up through a sort of rubber boot. The stem is only flat, so the key has only a flat hole in it, and if it were going onto another switch type, it would need to have a flat stem or have one or two pieces removed from its stem. I will post some photographs of this beast later (If you think the terminal "F"s are heavy, this will change your mind! It is enormous!). It uses a DA15 connector like a joystick, missing one pin. The missing pin makes it similar to the 5291 connector shown on KBDBabel, but I'm not sure if there is interchange here (I'd doubt it).
If anyone has any info on it I'd appreciate it, and I'll try to answer any questions anyone has about it.
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:D very interesting... are the key switches clicky?
here's the best i could quickly find:
http://picasaweb.google.com/fcs2pixel/IBMDisplaywriter#
edit:
i'm most curious whether the switches are their own unique kind... or the same kind as this (scroll down):
http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?t=7112&page=5
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They appear to be the same as the ones in that terminal keyboard. Now all I have to do is find some PC keyboard these will fit onto...
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They appear to be the same as the ones in that terminal keyboard. Now all I have to do is find some PC keyboard these will fit onto...
if the displaywriter's switches *are* the same as the 3278's, then prepare yourself for a sudden wave of interest :D
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hmmm, whats this about a rubber boot?!
red october we need pics, please :)
update, i just saw webwit's pics. Doesnt look like this will help my F-spring-transplant problem!
interesting, those are supposed to be 50-55g? the lightest yet, but again, not something I can mod into my M I think... (or connet easily to my dell laptop xD)
I wonder how much it would cost to take an M spring to a spring manufacturer and say "make this, only 15g lighter". Actually i'll want 5g increment samples from 35g to 65g, to test them out. (I'd bet 55g would be sweet on an M. I think my endurapro is down to 60g after all the greasing and silicon-spraying i've done, and its pretty sweet there too).
After which point I'd put in some bulk orders. I'm fairly sure i have enough room under my bed to store a gazillion M springs in boxes as I resell them to modders on ebay. ;)
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check out the picasa photo album above
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Are they Beam Spring switches?
(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=4492&d=1252851799)
Now all I have to do is find some PC keyboard these will fit onto...
Good luck with that... You'd be better off figuring how to make the keyboard PC compatible.
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Now all I have to do is find some PC keyboard these will fit onto...
Good luck with that... You'd be better off figuring how to make the keyboard PC compatible.
I wonder if you could substitute the PCB with a model F AT or XT one. If the pads line up, these switches should be able to make the necessary contacts.
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I think it's been established that the capacitive contacts work the opposite way on the Beam Spring - when the switch is at rest, the contacts lie on the pads, when the switch is actuated, the pad is lifted. The board detects a lack of capacitance as opposed to the presence of capacitance on a Model F.
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Oops, forgot about that. Still, nobody tried if it triggers a key.
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In theory it could work, if you swapped around the scancodes for key release with the scancodes for key down...
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The pad is not lifted but slams down like a hammer.
interesting... maybe there's hope for using a (flattened) model f pcb after all :)
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OK, here goes.
The first thing to note about this bastard is the size. It's huge -easily as wide as a 122-key keyboard and heavier than some computer systems on their own. It's far and away too tall to fit in a conventional keyboard tray, comming up over the top of the desk. The second thing is that it's definitely a typist's keyboard; easily as good as Big Blue's best typewriters (most of which I've used, except for the Executive and Composer). The action is smooth, the weigting perfect, with easier action than a model M and a more appealing click. In a word, it's awesome.
In the second photo you can see the rubber boots that exist below the keycaps. The keycaps with legends seem to be doubleshots, similar to the ones shown above. It's difficult to make out, but the stem is metal and the boot, which is thin and has degraded pretty badly, actually goes right over it.
The third photo shows the DA15 connector, which has lost its set screws somewhere in its life. My understanding is that they were very long and easy to use -either someone swiped them for something else, or they got knocked off.
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What's going on in the second picture? Is that some kind of cover for the switch?
Any disassembly pics?
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Dissasembly pics will come when I have time; I'm up to my arsehole in things to do at the moment and when I have the time this will be a project.
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I wouldn't touch that goto (http://xkcd.com/292/) key.