Westinghouse W1642

[juryduty]

Hi gang.  I have this Westinghouse W1642 terminal keyboard that I believe was used in the airline industry.  It's a neat piece with a metal top and bottom and spherical keycaps.   The connector looks like DB-25.

The switches look like Keytronic foam and foil, is that right?

Is the protocol an RS-232 connection, or likely something else?

Can't seem to find much info on these.  I'm not sure it's of much use because the keycaps won't fit anything and it's missing some basic keys like 'Shift'.

Pictures below, thanks for any clues.







[ Specified attachment is not available ]

[ander]

I don't know anything about its mechanics, or how you might be able to get it working. IMHO, though, this is the kind of KB I'd be perfectly happy to keep in a prominent place, see regularly, and sigh in both the pleasure of its stately beauty and in regret that civilization no longer seems to know how a real KB looks. Others here may feel similarly.

[invariance]

That would be beautiful to get going, and very hard to do so as well.
Any pictures of the top side of the pcb?  What components are there?
If you can get past the protocol/interface then key remapping will get around the unusual keys like changing the enter keys to shift.
Still, usability would be awkward if not impossible.

[happylacquer]

Damn, I would probably try and throw a new controller in that thing? The switches might be clunky but the caps are gorgeous. People pay crazy money for SA caps that look just like that man.

[ander]

Aside from that one little ding, it doesn't look like it was used at all. Did you find it like that, or did you do an amazing cleaning job?