Heu 292

[margo baggins]

My girlfriend surprised me with this keyboard today



She picked it up off ebay, is a bulgarian keyboard with double shot caps, salmon alps with a green alps on the spacebar. There is no shine on the caps, and this picture makes the discoloration on the caps look worse than it is in the flesh - but the case is manky! I really like it.

[riotonthebay]

Very cool! Are the red legends printed?

[margo baggins]

Yeah the red legends are pad printed it seems.

The board is very light, no metal or plate anywhere to be seen, much lighter than any of my other boards. But the switches are real nice to type on! Quite loud.

[Lastpilot]

Those are interesting legends for the SUPER keys. Don't think I've seen that before.

[mougrim]

Very cool! Are the red legends printed?

Almost all Cyrillic legends on old keyboards are pad printed (quality ranges form crappy to mediocre). But there are some doubleshot ones on old USSR boards.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

This is a deep rabbit hole. The Podworld HEU 292 is very similar to the Keypot KPT-102:

http://kbtalking.cool3c.com/article/13939

Similar case, similar switches … See the gallery of other variants:

http://deskthority.net/wiki/KPT_switch

Clones? I don't know what went on with all these weird keyboards, but most of the weird ones seem to be Podworld. There were some from Micronorth, too.

[fuzzybaffy]

That's one hell of a girlfriend!

[Daniel Beardsmore]

salmon alps with a green alps on the spacebar

Salmon (tactile) and green (linear) would be a weird combination. This is salmon Alps: http://deskthority.net/wiki/Alps_SKCM_Salmon

You must have these:

http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=7073.0

I'm not sure what colour those are; the guy was having trouble capturing the colours in photographs.

Similar colour to salmon Alps. Green for space bar is new to me, though -- worth posting a pic of that for reference. Yellow + white exists:

http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=11248.0

That is also a Podworld HEU 292 but in a completely different case. I don't know whether the two designs had different model numbers printed on the box or anything.

At some point I'll get around to posting a wiki entry on the Podworld HEU 292.

[berserkfan]

Yeah the red legends are pad printed it seems.

The board is very light, no metal or plate anywhere to be seen, much lighter than any of my other boards. But the switches are real nice to type on! Quite loud.

Now you gotta explain Margo, what's Manky? I'm pretty sure I read lots of Dandy and Beano comics when I was a kid and have some idea of British slang, but this is the first time I've heard of Manky.

[mougrim]

Yeah the red legends are pad printed it seems.

The board is very light, no metal or plate anywhere to be seen, much lighter than any of my other boards. But the switches are real nice to type on! Quite loud.

Now you gotta explain Margo, what's Manky? I'm pretty sure I read lots of Dandy and Beano comics when I was a kid and have some idea of British slang, but this is the first time I've heard of Manky.

Well, as far as I accustomed with British slang, sir, "manky" is basically dirty, unwashed or sticky. Or all of this.

[margo baggins]

haha, manky - is, all of the above! Just means nasty/not nice/horrible/disgusting Build up of residues that are unpleasant to the eye and the hand I think best describes manky. Or people who don't wash, they are also manky.

salmon alps with a green alps on the spacebar

Salmon (tactile) and green (linear) would be a weird combination. This is salmon Alps: http://deskthority.net/wiki/Alps_SKCM_Salmon

You must have these:

http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=7073.0

I'm not sure what colour those are; the guy was having trouble capturing the colours in photographs.

Similar colour to salmon Alps. Green for space bar is new to me, though -- worth posting a pic of that for reference. Yellow + white exists:

http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=11248.0

That is also a Podworld HEU 292 but in a completely different case. I don't know whether the two designs had different model numbers printed on the box or anything.

At some point I'll get around to posting a wiki entry on the Podworld HEU 292.

Nice info's there, sir. I will get some decent pictures if the light is alright when I get home tonight. They are definitely alps clones though and not genuine alps switches. The colour is the same as those you have linked to, sort of a pinky colour. They are tactile as well to type on - as is the space bar - someone said to me that it's a "quasi" green - but I don't know what that means.