Amiga keyboards

[czarek]

Hi everyone - I've been reading posts on this forum for a while but just decided to register and here's my first post.
I am an Amiga user by heart. My first PC was Amiga 500 in 1992 (I was 8 years old) and I still have it. As it's a keyboard corner, I'm putting some pictures of its keyboard dissassembled:


So you can see it's rather weird combination of capacitive technology, springs and membrane switches. Interesting implementation and quite durable as it still works after 17 years of use (although last 12 years very occasional use) but even though it was my first keyboard and I learnt to type on it I can't say it's any good. It feels like typing on a grandma's springy sofa bed. It's not too soft and gets harder before you bottom out but you have to bottom out to register a keystroke. That gave me bad habits of hammering keyboard in the past.
But don't you ever think all Amiga keyboards suck. I know German made keyboards used Cherry switches. Also first A1000 keyboard used some Alps. Those were clicky and as I prefer silent keys I never liked them.
My favourite keyboards though are the ones that came with later A2000 and CDTV. Those were also capacitive, but also tactile thanks to that:

There is this kind of inverted rubber dome between a key and the switch that gives the keyboard a nice tactile feel. Also keyboard seems to be more solid made - here are the switches (you can also spot Caps Lock's LED):

And the logic board:

I also noticed that keyboards made for CDTV are a bit better than A2000, even though they look identically (apart from being black), use same technology and logic boards, both were made by Mitsumi and assembled in Malaysia.
If you want to see and hear how this boards types - here's the clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd9_UMNMhcA

[chimera15]

Really interesting, so it's like it's a rubber dome, but it uses metal contacts instead of conductive rubber?

[czarek]

The first one? It has conductive rubber - you can see those white things around springs on first photo. Springs seem to be replacing domes here.

[PRISONER 24601]

how stiff is that spacebar spring compared to the rest of them?

edit: 200th post and it was a good one!

[ch_123]

My favourite keyboards though are the ones that came with later A2000 and CDTV. Those were also capacitive, but also tactile thanks to that:

That's basically the same mechanism used in the IBM M4, and some other keyboards. We generally call it a buckling rubber sleeve around here.

[xyzzy]

I know German made keyboards used Cherry switches. Also first A1000 keyboard used some Alps. Those were clicky and as I prefer silent keys I never liked them.
...
I also noticed that keyboards made for CDTV are a bit better than A2000, even though they look identically (apart from being black), use same technology and logic boards, both were made by Mitsumi and assembled in Malaysia.

AFAIK, A1000 keyboards used some type of Cherry switches. I don't know where you got the clicky part but unless there were multiple variants of it, I remember the keys in my (and some of my friends') A1000 being light and linear.


Earlier Amiga 2000 keyboards also used (black) Cherry switches. You can recognize them easily: the function keys were the same size as a normal key (instead as 1.5x of later models), the Caps Lock had the led in the key, and there was a space between the Alt/Amiga keys and the spacebar:



There were some issues with the controller so they were quickly replaced with other models. Later Amiga 2000 keyboards (and earlier Amiga 500 as well) were also mechanical and used NMB keyswitches. You can recognize them because the left-Amiga key had the "C=" logo on it:



All other Amiga keyboards used rubber domes.

[microsoft windows]

Mmm, double-shot keys! I have a double-shot red Esc key on one of my keyboards.