deskthority

uncletobai originally posted this, The Hal CT2100 communications terminal receives Morse code with autorange from 4 to 50 WPM. Although the seller also had the original CRT for sale I did not buy that because it would have doubled the shipping cost.
Technical specs of the terminal:
There is a lot of information about these online, there are collectors that are more interested in the terminals and the old technology rather than the keyboards. The KB-2100 uses plate mounted linear Cherry M7 tee-mount switches from 1980/81:
wiki/Cherry_M5/M6/M7

http://www.cherry.de/cid/CHERRY_turns_6 ... witch=true

Bottom and top parts of the keyboard are sturdy metal, the PCB is screwed to the top part of the case with standoffs which then slides into the bottom part.
The doubleshots are beautiful thick sphericals. I do not know what plastic it is and I am quite sceptical how one can tell.
The spacebar stabilization is unusual (to me) in that a piece of plastic with a cutout for the switch is mouted unter the plate paralell to the spacebar. The piece of plastic is held in place by two metal clips that are screwed to the plate while the metal stabs hinge onto the other side of that plastic, upon keypress that piece of plastic moves down at an angle. Quite an elaborate mechanism that works very well, the spacebar sits rock solid.
I have not really looked at the terminal in detail at this point, it's just a nice background prop for the KB pics.

The markings on the PCB read "NCG 11/81" and "D1156A 1981 HAL COMM CORP".
The keyboard sits on sturdy screw-in plastic feet. The keyboard is bulky and small at 6,5cm hight at the back, 17,5cm depth and 35,5cm width, it weighs 2070g. To get some perspective here's a nice group shot with the M0110 and the NTC 60%.
These are just a small fraction of the links I found on these:

http://www.shortwaveradio.ch/radio-e/decoder-hal-e.htm

http://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads ... rp.431281/

http://www.halcomm.com

http://www.smecc.org/rtty_ratt_radio_teletype.htm

http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/ ... t2100.html

Enjoy my typos. Cheers.

Whoooot very nice pictures!

Sure those caps are PBT?
Never seen such beautiful PBT doubleshots.

Well they are pearl white with zero yellowing. But your right I do not know that for sure 100%. Let our keycap experts tell us.

Such a nice board .

I can virtually guarantee it's ABS. Lack of yellowing is meaningless in this case because the case itself is yellow so it won't contrast with it.

The case is not yellow at all. Its light grey. Then my pictures are shit. If you see that case as "yellow" either your color balance is off or your having a bad day. Look at the picture with the M0110. The M0110 is yellowish. Either way I don't care if their PBT, ABS or whatever. There is 0% yellowing.

seebart wrote: ↑The case is not yellow at all. Its light grey. Then my pictures are shit. If you see that case as "yellow" either your color balance is off or your having a bad day. Look at the picture with the M0110. The M0110 is yellowish. Either way I don't fucking care if their PBT, ABS or whatever. There is 0% yellowing.

No, you misunderstand. What I mean is, if you have a plastic case made out of ABS and the keycaps are made out of PBT, they really stand out if the case has yellowed, so you can recognise them visually. But if your case is metal, that trick doesn't work.

I know that Chyros. Either way I don't care. The picture with the Apple keyboard says it all because that M0110 is actually somewhat yellow.

Heh. Of course there had to be a "HAL" company in Urbana, Illinois. That is where the 9000-series computers were built, according to some novels by Arthur C Clarke ...

Findecanor wrote: ↑Heh. Of course there had to be a "HAL" company in Urbana, Illinois. That is where the 9000-series computers were built, according to some novels by Arthur C Clarke ...

Right, good point. And the company still exists BTW.

http://www.halcomm.com

Surprised that the weight is "only" 2kg.

The question is whether the HAL company in Urbana existed in 1968.

fohat wrote: ↑Surprised that the weight is "only" 2kg.

Well as you can see it's pretty small. The heaviest part being the bottom and top metal parts of the case, but the bottom part is the heaviest by far. The metal plate on which the Cherry M7's sit is not very thick.

fohat wrote: ↑The question is whether the HAL company in Urbana existed in 1968.

I do not know, it would be interesting to see who snagged the name HAL from whom. I bet Arthur C Clarke was first.

Here you go fohat, judging by that I guess I was wrong:

http://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads ... rp.431281/

OK.. According to seebart's link, the precursor to "HAL Communications" was formed by former students at University of Campaign-Urbana.
According to this this article about the HAL 9000:

"HAL has been around the university as a term since the '50s," said Linda Scott, comptroller of HAL Communications Corp., an Urbana-based communications-systems company that occasionally gets phone calls from people who "want to talk to HAL."

Scott said computer technicians used to apply the nickname to their own homemade machines. "HAL is simply the three letters that precede IBM. It's been jargon around the university probably since IBM became a big name in computers."

Clarke rejects that story as his source.

"Originally, HAL was ATHENA," he said. "We had decided to have a woman's voice. But then, I think it was Stanley probably who changed it to HAL. One legend that I've been trying to stamp out is that HAL was derived from IBM, which is, of course, utter nonsense.

"As far as I know, Stanley and I cooked up the name HAL, and if we'd noticed any resemblance to IBM, we would have changed it because IBM was very helpful to us. Soon after the film came out, somebody pointed out this resemblance, and this has become part of the mythology. It's pure coincidence."

Why Urbana?

As for HAL's birthplace, "The reason I chose to put him at the University of Illinois-Urbana was that my old math professor was a professor there, George McVittie," Clarke said. "He had been my math professor at King's College, London, and he became professor of astronomy at Urbana, and that was a tribute to him."

Yeah but it says "HAL has been around the university as a term since the '50s,". A "term" does not count IMO.

And in that link of mine it reads:

HAL Devices started in 1966 as a loose partnership of 3, 4, or 5 graduate students at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois.

According to wikipedia:

Clarke completed a draft of the novel at the end of 1964 with the plan to publish in 1965 in advance of the film's release in 1966

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke

That makes it a tie or a very close call or coincidence!

Thanks for the photos with details. That switch is rare and hard to determine but my research is closer to finish.
You got the great deal with the small and lightly keyboard. Mine is heavier and bigger...

terrycherry wrote: ↑Thanks for the photos with details. That switch is rare and hard to determine but my research is closer to finish.
You got the great deal with the small and lightly keyboard. Mine is heavier and bigger...

Thanks, the switch is s Cherry M7 Tee mount for sure, we do have a fair amount of wiki-data on it.

ABS yellowing is due to the chemical composition changes that were made to comply with environmental regulations. It's the same as with automotive paint peel.

It is a statement of fact that these cannot be PBT due to the age. PBT was invented at DuPont in the early 1930's, but the first real commercial availability of compounds wasn't until 1970. Processes advanced enough for reliable mass-production like that weren't around until the late 70's or early 80's.

Here's some informational links:
https://www.polyplastics.com/en/product ... t/his.html
http://www.bpf.co.uk/plastipedia/polyme ... sters.aspx

That said; it's quite possible that's not ABS but POM, which has been around a lot longer than PBT. However, as has been mentioned, you'd need to do an actual test to say for sure.

NCG, I'm not sure who that is. Based on the logo and application, I would say to start looking at subdivisions and subsidiaries of defense contractors active in computing circa 1960-1970. It's definitely not Northrop though.

Well that's some solid information rootwyrm, thanks for that. Like I said I really don't know what plastic the keycaps are. And like you say to find out for sure one would have to do an actual test, not just "virtually guarantee" it. I can say for sure that there is 0% yellowing on these keycaps. I don't know what or who "NCG" is either and I won't waste any time searching. I also edited my post about the keycaps as soon as this came up, I like to correct my mistakes.

What I find the most interesting about these keycaps is how sharp the molding is. Usually double shots are nowhere near that clean, even with fresh tooling. It's a natural consequence of the process since you're melting plastic a second time. Normally there's gonna be bleeding and rough edges. Not so here. These are so clean, I almost mistook them for inserts. The only real bleeding is at the bonding points.

Based on a number of factors (age, likely customer, etcetera) these keycaps would have had to come from a US manufacturer. It's possible it was Cherry themselves. Other than the space-bar these would have all been extremely specific, so, the molds would only be usable for this board. That extreme crispness in the second color though.. man. We need to find someone who worked at Cherry back then and pick their brain.

rootwyrm wrote: ↑What I find the most interesting about these keycaps is how sharp the molding is. Usually double shots are nowhere near that clean, even with fresh tooling. It's a natural consequence of the process since you're melting plastic a second time. Normally there's gonna be bleeding and rough edges. Not so here. These are so clean, I almost mistook them for inserts. The only real bleeding is at the bonding points.

Based on a number of factors (age, likely customer, etcetera) these keycaps would have had to come from a US manufacturer. It's possible it was Cherry themselves. Other than the space-bar these would have all been extremely specific, so, the molds would only be usable for this board. That extreme crispness in the second color though.. man. We need to find someone who worked at Cherry back then and pick their brain.

Yes they are very clean for their age. All I know for sure is the production date on the PCB which is 1981. We have had some other Cherry M7 boards and keycaps like this one for comparison:

photos-f62/contact-systems-cs-400d-t136 ... herry%20m7

You may have seen this before rootwyrm, I had forgotten about this in the meantime. Retrete's keycaps look like mine. I love the way he built that terminal.

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=49278.50

There's nothing quite as beautiful as vintage sphericals. Le sigh.

as a ham radio operator, I ask that you please keep the terminal intact so that you can install the caps again when you get bored of them and/or find an even nicer set, as things like this are both rare as hell and cool as hell nowadays.

edit: oh, I didn't see the bit about the CRT.

Edit: this thing does radioteletype too, and that was the tuning scope. it was a full set

I am planning on keeping the terminal the way I got it. I have all the original cables, the seller I bought this from also has the original CRT, I did not get that because of shipping. I don't believe I will be able to get a nicer M7 keycaps, although Retrete's colored ones are possibly nicer.