Inside an Atari MegaST keyboard

[arapineau]

After opening my Atari TT 030 keyboard, I decided I could have a look at its daddy: the MegaST keyboard.
This precise one comes from a Mega 2 system and is quite clean on the outside.
Also it hasn’t yellowed much, even if the lighting can make it looks like differently.

I love the aesthetic of this keyboard.





It looks professional, a bit like the Sun type 5c, yet different.
It could be a daily driver for me with a more modern layout, better switches and USB ports on the back instead of the DB9 ones.




Even the bottom case looks gorgeous with its large feet.





The whole board reeks of quality, though the 6 screws holding the case together could have used machined metal inserts.
But still, the key switches are inserted through a thick plate of steel (seems thicker than 1mm) and soldered on a PCB.
It’s no IBM model F quality but damn that’s not bad at all.






Even the lettering on the keycaps are double shot, probably ABS.
I won’t try to rub them with acetone to confirm this but it would be pretty surprising if they were double shot PBT.



Even the two PCBs looks well made, although I can’t seem to be able to separate the metal plate from the PCB without desoldering the switches,
but the windows permits the replacement of the components like those two electrolytic capacitors.






Speaking of the switches, they are… Cherry MX… black and gray, surprisingly.
I always thought the MegaST keyboard had Cherry MY but apparently I was wrong.




And here is the detachable cable. I don’t know how I will fix the duct.

[Entropia]

I never expected this keyboard to have MX black switches. I may be wrong but I think I read somewhere that this computer had a very bad keyboard.

[arapineau]

I never expected this keyboard to have MX black switches. I may be wrong but I think I read somewhere that this computer had a very bad keyboard.

You are not wrong, typing on this keyboard is awful. Despite being way more cheaply built, the TT keyboard feels wonderful in comparison.
I don't like Cherry MX too much, they are decent enough but for me that's all there is to them, but on this keyboard they feel terrible for some reason.
It's as if they are too stiff, which in itself is strange.
Maybe it has something to do with the shape of the keycaps, but MX are supposed to be very forgiving toward off center hits on the caps...
Or maybe Atari did have a discount on defective MX switches??? That would be in par with their policy at the time...

It's a shame really, because this board is really well built and pretty beautiful if you ask me. That's why I said I could use this board but with better switches and better layout.

[Entropia]

That's a shame, because it's such a beautiful computer!

[Findecanor]

I never expected this keyboard to have MX black switches. I may be wrong but I think I read somewhere that this computer had a very bad keyboard.

You may have read about the Atari STs with integrated keyboards. Those have Silitek rubber dome switches that are horribly mushy.
The keycaps on those are the same brown-on-gray doubleshot as on this keyboard except with a slightly wider cruciform mount for the Silitek sliders that are not compatible with Cherry MX.

[arapineau]

I had to fix one of the plastic supports for the stabiliser of the 0 key, so I went a bit overboard and desoldered all the switches, killed the gun of my desoldering station in the process and applied some epoxy.



The metal plate is 1.5mm thick and here is the other side of the PCB and it's new capacitors



Put things back together, did a bit of cleaning and that's it.



I don't really know what to do about the damaged cable sheath sadly.