Best input device photo

[seebart]

Sponsored by:

Voters have a chance at winning an Infinity ErgoDox from Input Club!

Winner:
The nominees for the Best input device photo category were:

• HaaTa's Robotron K7673.09
• HaaTa's McClellan AN/UGC-129 Teletypewriter Keyboard
• Orpheo's Wey Technology MK06
• ctzn_voyager's Atreus
• snuci's Canon Cat

The Wingnut, as voted for by the keyboard community, goes to...

Spoiler:

HaaTa's Robotron K7673.09
HaaTa's Robotron K7673.09 is a classic example of late 1980s East German computer hardware, including the К573РФ2 which was a soviet clone of the Intel C2716 EPROM (datasheet). These typically have a label covering them when programmed. You can remove it and blast the chip with UV light to reset the chip and re-program.

Runners-up:

Spoiler:

2nd place: snuci's Canon Cat

The Canon Cat was famously developed by Jef Raskin, of Apple Macintosh fame. While the Canon Cat is a more powerful word processor than most, it’s most exciting characteristic is the utilization of a new (for the time) user interface known as the Humane Interface. I have to admit, the first thing I did was use the Leap functionality (the two keys used below the space bar). For more information on the Humane Interface, please see this Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface.

More pics on on my site at: http://vintagecomputer.ca/canon-cat/. Wikipedia has a very good page on the Canon Cat so if you are looking for more information, take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Cat. Here are some pics of the keyboard with SMK Inverse Cross Mount key switches. You will notice the (Caps) Lock key has purple marker on the rim. I'm not sure why because it is not locking in any way.

3rd place: HaaTa's McClellan AN/UGC-129 Teletypewriter Keyboard

Built in 1994 it uses *really* heavy Key Tronic Magnetic Reed Switches (2nd variant). And has these really cool stealth lamp indicators (probably for low-light environments).Like XMIT's recent hall effect keyboards it also has the pcb epoxy trick for water-resistance.

. . . AFAIK is was used in military aircraft large enough to have a communications officer.

Honorable mentions:

Spoiler:

ctzn_voyager's Atreus
The Atreus is a small, innovative mechanical keyboard that accounts for the shape of the human hand. It combines the comfort of a split ergonomic keyboard with a small form factor. The DIY kit contains all the parts and detailed instructions you need to put together your own unique, handmade mechanical keyboard.

Orpheo's Wey Technology MK06

Made by the swiss company Wey Technology, actually made in germany by GMK, the switches are PCB Cherry MX clears with diodes. The keycaps are all double shots except for some pad printed ones (all the colored keys are DS).
You can enter the configuration inside de keyboard with a key combination for the macros binding,keyboard buzzer configuration, backligthing of the LCD, mouse and audio configuration. Another combination will enter the firmware configuration when there is a lot of settings like the keyboard protocol, I/O routing etc...
The keyboard only work in combination with the Modular box that comes with it which is like a KVM, fully configurable.

Congratulations to all participants and thanks for making the 2016 DTAs extraordinary!

[seebart]

Congratulations to HaaTa on winning best input device photo!

[HaaTa]

Turns out taking 10's of thousands of keyboard photos is good practice

A couple other photos of the stunningly beautiful Soviet UV-erase IC.
DSC06841
DSC06840


A good camera and proper lighting definitely helps (something I've been starting to use over the last year). This is where I started...
Untitled
(yes, that's my hairy leg in the corner... )

[vivalarevolución]

Great photo, deserving winner.

[OutragedPudding]

Lots of great photographers in this category that I didn't know about. A lot of the nice pictures are of older keyboards that I wouldn't find anywhere else but on DT. It makes me want to use this site even more

[Wodan]

This category should run monthly with an annual photo of the year award picked from the monthly winners. Too many great pictures!