1977-ish Compucolor II Deluxe personal computer KB (not cheap)

[ander]

At $277.00 or Make Offer, it wouldn't be a casual buy—but at the very least I thought you'd enjoy seeing it:

Compucolor II Deluxe Keyboard Intelligent Systems Corp (eBay)





(Click to zoom) BTW, notice where the cursor keys are.  :?)

[chyros]

Haha that's pretty cool xD . And a cross nav on the F key row xD . Not that I'm going to buy it,but out of interest, does anyone know what switches are in it?

[ander]

I understand that boards of this vintage often just have foam-and-foil switches. But you never know, it could gave something exotic like Hall Effect or Magnetic Valve switches—or even the ultra-rare Cherry MX Periwinkle!

Amazing, isn't it, how so many people who sell keyboards are clueless about what's important to know about them? How many auction listings have you seen with three photos of the cable, for example, but not one of the back label with all the ID info? And God forbid they should take the initiative to remove one of the caps.  :?D

[chyros]

I understand that boards of this vintage often just have foam-and-foil switches. But you never know, it could gave something exotic like Hall Effect or Magnetic Valve switches—or even the ultra-rare Cherry MX Periwinkle!

Amazing, isn't it, how so many people who sell keyboards are clueless about what's important to know about them? How many auction listings have you seen with three photos of the cable, for example, but not one of the back label with all the ID info? And God forbid they should take the initiative to remove one of the caps.  :?D

Haha, very true, and it's good in a weird way too because that way they have no clue what they're selling and therefore we can get cheap deals sometime .

[Techno Trousers]

That's beautiful. A truly old school terminal keyboard. Whenever I see these, I wish more keyboards from the 50s, 60s, and 70s had survived.

[ander]

I always wonder: What was with all the colors? Did they actually mean something? Or did they just need to differentiate certain keys, and used whatever colors were handy?

[chyros]

I always wonder: What was with all the colors? Did they actually mean something? Or did they just need to differentiate certain keys, and used whatever colors were handy?

it's just to direct the operator to certain keys or certain key blocks. They're standard on video editing keyboards.

[atectatifern]

That wasn't a video editing keyboard. It's from a very early (1977) personal computer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compucolor_II.

[ander]

Thanks—I've changed the topic name accordingly.

Wow, the original version of this system used eight-track tape for storage!

Wish they'd mentioned how much it cost. It's always fun to be shocked by those figures, esp. considering they were in the funds of the time.

[Hak Foo]

Another Compucolor model used optical sense for the key mechanism-- each key was connected to a plate which blocked paths between a set of LEDs and sensors in a predictable manner.

[atectatifern]

I never saw one of the 8-track versions, but a person I knew a long time ago had one with a floppy. He was trying out these new services called The Source and MicroNet (later CompuServe). Good times--would love to have keys in those colors someday.

[SamirD]

Very cool find!  Interesting to learn about this personal computer.  I know the early days had all sorts of systems out there.