Author Topic: Weird old KeyTronic boards with connected keycaps  (Read 1254 times)

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Offline Philister

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Weird old KeyTronic boards with connected keycaps
« on: Sat, 24 June 2017, 15:56:04 »
Got this last week among a stash of others. I know KeyTronic never used microswitches but still wanted to pop off a keycap from this one to see what was underneath. Well, I failed. It seems the keycaps are connected in some sort of matrix. When you pull on one, only the bottom part comes off and tilts upwards but the top part is still firmly connected to that plastic layer underneath. I've added some photos - has anyone seen this? As the board was still manufactured in the US rather than Ireland like some other ISO DIN KeyTronics I've seen, I assume it's very early production.

If anyone collects this sort of thing let me know - you can have it for shipping costs from Germany.

171494-0

171496-1

171498-2
« Last Edit: Sat, 24 June 2017, 16:02:47 by Philister »

Offline Daniel Beardsmore

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Re: Weird old KeyTronic boards with connected keycaps
« Reply #1 on: Sun, 25 June 2017, 15:48:54 »
I knew I'd seen something related in their patents, and the one that stands out is this one:

https://www.google.com/patents/US5360955

I haven't read the patent, and without seeing the insides of your keyboard it would be hard to be certain whether it's the same, but it's a starting point.
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