IDENTIFY THE KEYBOARD thread

[elecplus]

An OLD Cherry G80, made in W. Germany! Can anyone make out the exact PN? Black MX with double shots. 5-pin DIN connector, fully tested.

IMG_5851.JPG (241.57 KiB) Viewed 6342 times

IMG_5853.JPG (575.72 KiB) Viewed 6342 times

[scottc]

Looks like G80-0832H/04. Very nice! Probably one of the first in the G80 series. Looks like a rare and unique board. Not sure of the worth though as it's quite impractical and I haven't seen one on sale before.

Edit: wiki/Cherry_G80-0832

[elecplus]

How is it so impractical? Works fine with an Orihalcon cable.
Smooth as butter to type on. Much different than the vintage Wyse MX blacks!

[elecplus]

So H = PBT, but these are double shots? Or that lettering scheme does not apply here?

[mike52787]

I would be interested in buying that board, looks pretty cool

[Daniel Beardsmore]

H = hock something spritz goose .... high pressure injection moulding. It doesn't actually translate to double-shot moulding, but it could be understood to mean that the legends are injection moulded. So they're either ABS or Tenite, and likely ABS. I'm not sure which switches were used with Tenite keycaps, but maybe just the classic tall switches (M1–7).

(With apologies to the Germans.)

[elecplus]

So, can anybody give me some idea what this G80-0832/H04 is worth?
And will somebody who buys it please update the wiki page?

[ohaimark]

I'd put it between $170 and $220.

[mike52787]

holy shit, shows you what I know about vintage cherry boards. sorry cindy for the low offer!

[citrojohn]

Now we've got the keyboard sorted out, a little Offtopicthority: the "high-pressure spritzgoose" reminds me irresistibly of Konrad Lorenz's goose tea-party, recounted in his book King Solomon's Ring. In his early days as a biologist Lorenz kept some semi-tame geese, and his old father once brought the geese into his study and fed them bread as they stood on the beautiful Persian carpet; the unfamiliar surroundings stressed the geese. Now, geese have a small chamber (the caecum) in which the tougher bits of vegetation are broken down, and normally the bright green contents are "evacuated" once to about five ordinary defecations; however, when a goose is stressed the chamber is evacuated over and over...
Twenty-something Eleven years after the goose tea-party, Lorenz's father and most of the geese were dead, but the beautiful Persian carpet was just beginning to lose its green stains!
(Edit: additions in green... it seemed appropriate. )

[Daniel Beardsmore]

https://auctions.c.yimg.jp/images.aucti ... n31182.jpg
https://auctions.c.yimg.jp/images.aucti ... b31182.jpg
https://auctions.c.yimg.jp/images.aucti ... y31182.jpg

I'm sorry to call on you all again, but I really can't figure this one out...

I got a reply back from Tai-Hao in the wee hours: this is TH-5539-8, the type we didn't have a picture for:

TH5539-8 APC type.jpg (267.41 KiB) Viewed 6197 times

That image is called "TH5539-8 APC type.jpg", suggesting APC switches.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Now we've got the keyboard sorted out, a little Offtopicthority: the "high-pressure spritzgoose" reminds me irresistibly of Konrad Lorenz's goose tea-party …

That wasn't quite what I was expecting from deliberately misspelling German …

holy shit, shows you what I know about vintage cherry boards. sorry cindy for the low offer!

$170 and $220 seems to me like a completely ludicrous price. Combined with the beyond insane used switch prices in China, has everyone gone completely mad?

[seebart]

H = hock something spritz goose .... high pressure injection moulding. It doesn't actually translate to double-shot moulding, but it could be understood to mean that the legends are injection moulded. So they're either ABS or Tenite, and likely ABS. I'm not sure which switches were used with Tenite keycaps, but maybe just the classic tall switches (M1–7).

(With apologies to the Germans.)

Hochdruck Spritzguss. Not to be confused with Sublimationsdruck. Look someone even added a "Ein Alps-SKBM-Grey-Taster für Tastaturen." to the German keyboard wikipedia page:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tastatur# ... --_top.jpg

Is that one of our images?

Anyhoo, look at these beefy Cherry MX illustrations:

Spoiler:

mx-silent-red.png (2.02 MiB) Viewed 6190 times

http://blog.cherry.de/en/wissensartikel ... eberblick/

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I thought it was guß, but apparently not (gießen, but not guß …) but obviously I wasn't being serious. I mean, it says what it stands for on the wiki! That Alps photo is mine (it even says so on the page you linked) and it's a horrible photo — I've tried to take a better shot of that switch, but I didn't have a lot of luck and I need to try again sometime.

[seebart]

That "Ein Alps-SKBM-Grey-Taster für Tastaturen." is fine, that's not what I meant. There was a spelling reform in Germany not too long ago that was rolled back in retarded confusion which involved amongst other things the supplementation of "ss" for "ß".

Love that TH-5539-8 picture BTW!

[subcat]

"TK-80" is the only clue I have for this one.

https://auctions.c.yimg.jp/images.aucti ... g16073.jpg
https://auctions.c.yimg.jp/images.aucti ... n16073.jpg

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Love that TH-5539-8 picture BTW! :maverick:

It gets a lot more interesting than that …

[seebart]

Right, I wonder if that image was also "stolen"?.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Nope, I was sent it by Tai-Hao — it's an old catalogue that was recently rediscovered.

"TK-80" is the only clue I have for this one.

https://auctions.c.yimg.jp/images.aucti ... g16073.jpg
https://auctions.c.yimg.jp/images.aucti ... n16073.jpg

Oooh. Looks like Tokai MM9 series:

http://mousefan.telcontar.net/image/gold.htm

[seebart]

Possibly the EXIF data needs to be verified.

Of course there's no one here who delets it...

[subcat]

Nope, I was sent it by Tai-Hao — it's an old catalogue that was recently rediscovered.

"TK-80" is the only clue I have for this one.

https://auctions.c.yimg.jp/images.aucti ... g16073.jpg
https://auctions.c.yimg.jp/images.aucti ... n16073.jpg

Oooh. Looks like Tokai MM9 series:

http://mousefan.telcontar.net/image/gold.htm

Thanks, the undersides of the switches look very similar! Is it worth picking up for the sake of some English information, do you think?

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Thanks, the undersides of the switches look very similar! Is it worth picking up for the sake of some English information, do you think?

I always have a certain reluctance to add switch types to the wiki that I feel aren't meant for keyboards (even if some keypad or other device used them), but generally I add them anyway, and in time they do tend to show up in a keyboard. MM9 has never been seen in a full keyboard, so if these really are MM9 switches (and the "TK" suggests they are) it will be the first ever full keyboard using them.

So yes, definitely worth having!

It's a very, very odd switch, and to this day no-one's ever worked out how they operate. Most of them (MM9 and clones) are sealed shut, but there are one or two clone types that can be opened safely (Sanwa and/or Hori if I remember correctly — I have some of the TKC range and a bunch of different clones).

[Mr.Nobody]

Identify these bad boys...




Is this AT&T compatible with PC?

[subcat]

The 2nd one is Fujitsu Leaf Spring - I found a keyboard with one at a recycling centre recently. Nice finds!

[Chyros]

Futaba clicky switch
Fujitsu leaf spring 3rd generation
Amstrad spring over membrane (ultra awful)

[Mr.Nobody]

Thanks Subcat and Chyros,

And does this one interest you?

[Ail]

101 SX is supposedly the version with genuine ALPS versus the FX with clones according to the Wiki.

[Chyros]

Ah, the MCK-101, always liked that board, although I don't have one myself.

[Engicoder]

It feels very cheap in the flesh (er...plastic) I guess the plastic switch mounting plate turned me off.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Amstrad spring over membrane (ultra awful)

Oh come on Chyros, don't tell me you buy into all our Great British Propaganda!

It's what I'm calling [wiki]Matsushita prong over membrane[/wiki] — I noticed on Jacob#1's Amstrad keyboard a very small [wiki]Matsushita[/wiki] logo (the old diamond thingy). It's like (helical) spring over membrane except the pressure spring is just a bit of plastic. Chiller Gorilla: how low can you go?

Also used in some Acorn Archimedes keyboards. There's a really old prototype Archimedes A500 keyboard that I can't identify:

http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org ... /A500.html

The legends are Japanese style, but the machine is buried in some museum now and we'll never find out what it is.