Vintage Topre with cyrillic caps: Victor Data Systems KB-920

[Johh]

I took the pics as soon as I got home, and also posted them on the Conical discords #daily-showoff channel.

I must admit I'm not familiar what I've got, as I'm more in to customs than vintage boards.

I found very little, some mentions of Topre OEM'd to VDS on the saberkeebs deskthority backup, a discussion on the deskthority forums which more or less linked to a GH post https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=70321.0

At the Conical discord, I got some conflicting advice on what to do / not what to do. Open it, don't open it. Keep the sensing assembly as is, crack open the PCB and plate. Clean it, don't clean it.

My intention so far is to open the case and document the internals. I have an Epson V800, so I could make flat scans of the components in decent resolution. Furthermore, I was asked to get the case 3D scanned which I alse intend to do.

If anyone has more info, please share!

If you want any other scans, measurements, pictures or other stuff of the board, let me know!

I bought it from a local auction site: https://www.osta.ee/haruldane-retro-klaviatuur-252528307.html

[Johh]

[CoolPenguin1]

This looks sick. Could you take a picture of the type of connector it uses?

[keekeen]

Didn't know this existed. Always nice to see more Topre stuff.

Thank you for documenting and sharing! 

[Johh]

This looks sick. Could you take a picture of the type of connector it uses?

8-pin DIN?

[CoolPenguin1]

Yeah it looks like mDIN-8.
Sadly I don't think the protocol for these mDIN-8 Topre boards has been converted yet.

[Johh]

I decided to open up the PCB to scan the other side of the PCB too.
Glad that I did, as the what was sandwiched between the plate and PCB weren't just the domes






Wash wash wash


Clean and dry dome

[Johh]

I also noticed that the 2u's had lube on them.

I believe it was either from factory or applied AGES ago... as was left was no more than white goop. It felt thin, sticky, tacky, and dry -- like the less viscous gumtack one might use to temporarily hang pictures.







In the above image I highlighted the lubricant.

[Johh]

It seems previous images linked from Discord have been deleted, so here they are reuploaded to imgur