80s mechanical switches

[Daniel Beardsmore]

8bs.org has resurfaced, and they've posted some interesting photos of the switches used in various BBC Microcomputers:

Keyswitches and keytops

My Beebs have all (but one?) had the Type 1 keyboard. (I had one with a different, much better keyboard but it appears that I gave it away, which is really sad.)

The Type 2 switch bears a curious resemblance to an old Cherry MX switch but they're not the same. I don't know how they differ from Type 4.

I'll ask 8bs to see if they can identify any of them or post some larger photos.

I don't know what the C64 had – it's said of a new C64 with PC innards, "The new Commodore 64 features genuine Cherry brand key switches, which provide a feel much better than the original". I don't know if that's because the new switches are tactile, or because the old ones were membrane.

[ch_123]

I have a Type I BBC Master keyboard lying around if you are interested in it.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Thanks for the offer. I no longer have any Masters though, only two Model Bs (Issue 4 and Issue 7) and one spare Type 1 keyboard. The latter machine is tidied away, kept as a spare for when the Issue 4 machine finally dies. It has "Issue 4 Disease" where it keeps freezing, and the mean time between freezes decreases with use (until it crashes during POST) and increases with inactivity. No-one else ever recognises this symptom, but it's my third Issue 4 machine with it, and the behaviour pattern points to a bad capacitor somewhere.

I thought I'd mentioned the nasty Master keyswitches, maybe that was in the e-mail to 8bs. Masters have a very similar switch to the B, except they all wore out. I gave a friend's brother my only Master with a fully working keyboard along with the 20 MB HDD, mouse and Quest Paint, and I don't expect to ever see it again.