Author Topic: Honeywell WN101  (Read 7737 times)

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Offline quadibloc

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Honeywell WN101
« on: Wed, 09 February 2011, 17:58:19 »
I happened to be in the neighborhood of a thrift shop I used to visit more often... and I ended up purchasing a keyboard for $3.00 - because it seemed to have a nice tactile feel, and when I looked at the back of it, it said that it was assembled in Mexico - so I was expecting quality construction.

It has the old-style 5-pin connector instead of the PS/2 one, so it was an oldie.

When I took it home and took a closer look, though, I was disappointed - it was one of those AT-style layouts, so the backspace key was in the wrong spot. However, it was a good keyboard. Despite being a rubber dome, when I did some web searching before this post, I see that some people even think that it's the "best keyboard ever made".

My find was a Honeywell 101WN keyboard. (I know they made a great mouse, using two conical wheels instead of a mouse ball, for optical mouse quality before they had optical mice, so I was expecting good peripherals from them.)

Offline keyb_gr

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Honeywell WN101
« Reply #1 on: Thu, 10 February 2011, 07:15:02 »
Hardware in signatures clutters Google search results. There should be a field in the profile for that (again).

This message was probably typed on a vintage G80-3000 with blues. Double-shots, baby. :D

Offline quadibloc

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Honeywell WN101
« Reply #2 on: Thu, 10 February 2011, 12:12:32 »
Point taken.

Here is a picture with several other keyboards as well:



From top to bottom, the keyboards are:

An old Model M;
A keyboard with a big Enter key, but the Backspace key in the standard position, achieved by putting the |\ key where the Windows keys would later go;
A mechanical keyboard, with switches with blue Cherry-style stems, but the switches are linear. I can always use it for gaming. The keys are double shots;
The Honeywell WN101 in question;
A made-in-Thailand original DELL QuietKey.

Now, let's look at the back of the keyboard. In the upper left, you can see the little opening for the two DIP switches, one to switch between AT and XT configuration, the other not used.



Here is a section of that image at a larger scale, showing the label on the back.



Note that it's assembled in Mexico, like my 122-key keyboard from Memorex. And, when I take a key out,



the construction reminds me of that keyboard. In one of the threads on this keyboard, someone speculated that it was a Keytronics. Instead, I'm considering the possibility that it's a MaxiSwitch keyboard. (Come to think of that, this isn't much of a stretch, since MaxiSwitch was a division of Honeywell.)

There's a post by Eunjea that has much nicer pictures of a keyboard similar to mine (although not labelled Memorex) than the ones I took of mine and posted here (if I can find them).

Oh, here's my picture of mine:

« Last Edit: Thu, 10 February 2011, 12:59:22 by quadibloc »