Apple A9M0330 Keycaps

[Heist Morty]

Hey folks, Today I'd love to get some insight and opinions on a project I've had brewing in my mind for some time now, I love the look of the Apple A9M0330 keycaps, but hate the Uber lack of compatibility they have with other boards due to the rotated Alps mount on the number row, and the general lack of alps compatibility in the boards I generally favor, what would be the easiest way to craft myself a full set of these caps with cherry stems while still retaining the correct profile height for each cap? please reach out and tell me if im insane or if you can help.  attached is an image of the aforementioned caps.

[nevin]

i have one of these boards as well. one of my favorites.

as far as using or adapting these caps to mx.... good luck.

what don't you like about alps switches?

[Heist Morty]

[mention]nevin [/mention] its more a compatability issue, unless I want to use the pcb from the A9M0330, Theres basically no way to use the rotated mounts on the number keys

[nevin]

you could get a second one (for extra caps & switches), make a new plate (to change bottom row) and handwire. all alps stabs are plate mount so no issues there.

with the apple boards... the standard was to not have a standard and be "different". if you look at any of them, there is something that is not typical to the 104 standard.

if you like these caps, there was one variant of the apple IIc that had alps and very similar caps (though not exactly the same as the A9M0330, the step is a little taller as well as the overall height of the caps was a little taller compared to the A9M0330 caps)

what layout do you want to make out of this keyboard?

[Heist Morty]

Thank you for the hint on that Apple IIc! I basically just want the caps for my prime_e and the original A2S4000 model of the Apple IIc has cherry mount caps! Gonna try to snipe a broken one off ebay.

[nevin]

yes, the apple hairpin spring switches are cross mount, but they are not MX compatible. the crosses are thinner than MX

[Heist Morty]

What leads you to this conclusion? Could you provide a source to that extent?

[nevin]

it's been tried many times over, these are old boards.

you can always search "apple iic hairpin keycaps mx compatible"

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=74784.0
https://deskthority.net/wiki/Apple_IIc
https://deskthority.net/wiki/Apple_hairpin_spring

the crosses in the hairpin (and skcc) caps are bigger than the cross in the MX caps but the arms of the cross are thinner than on MX.

you might be able to find some adapters to go from alps caps to mx stems but that will add a bunch of height (and wobble) to the caps, and you're trying to fit them into an existing board (not build a board/case that would compensate for the adapters)
i doubt there have been any adapters made for the hairpin spring switches.

[Heist Morty]

Thanks for the sources, I was having trouble finding such stuff, I could only find one tangential deskthority article. What a shame. I’ll soldier ahead though

[nevin]

their wiki is great, especially for the old alps stuff.

[Heist Morty]

Yeah it seems like hand wiring with the alps caps from the a9m0330 is my best bet

[nevin]

if you want to use the IIgs board as is, Hasu has created a protocol adapter that works with apple's ADB protocol (you can change the keymap, layers, all that good stuff. it runs TMK, which QMK is a fork of). he also has another one for the older M0110/a protocol.

hasu also created the alps64 pcb, but that supports the AEK/AEKII caps (not the older boards)

if you want to change the layout, then yes, handwriting is probably the only option.
two good articles on handwiring
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=103108.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=87689.0

some other scratch building resources
http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/
http://builder.swillkb.com/
https://kbfirmware.com/

[Heist Morty]

Thanks so much. I was hoping to avoid handwiring because I’m **** at coding and have had difficulty getting QMK to even work on my pc, but this makes it much more approachable. Thanks for all the helpful responses on this!

[nevin]

here's another post to wet your whistle... (prototype board with same caps but in a M0110 style layout)
https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?t=14208

[nevin]

hasu's adapters are great. you can even build one yourself with a teensy or promicro. (....remember the pullup resistors)

if you handwire, getting the matrix correct in the firmware is the most important part.

on the kbfirmware site, you can adjust the connecting lines to replicate how you wired the board.

[nevin]

also, the prime_e can be programmed through VIA (if you haven't checked out VIA yet DO IT!)
...and it's also in the QMK configurator

[Heist Morty]

Yeah I’ve been using VIA because its much more plug and play, but when installing QMK it always fails to install all the drivers, So I’ve been trying to stick to VIA compatible PCBs

[nevin]

you're not really missing much as VIA is just a frontend for QMK

[Heist Morty]

Yeah It just limits the compatibility I have with boards, and kinda stymies my ability to program any handwired boards, I’ll figure it out though