deskthority

Does anybody recognise these keyswitches? I've found them in use on various different computers from the USSR, and it'd be nice to know if they were ever used on Western keyboards, or if they're purely a Soviet design.

For full disclosure, I sell vintage computer gear, although have avoided advertising my listings on this site and instead used deskthority for my own learning and sharing information about USSR gear - so feel free not to answer if you recognise the switch but don't want to help keyboard sales.

Do you have any info on the keyboard ? From the "ID your keyswitch" guide, it doesn't seem to be ever seen. Lucky you !

Though, maybe the guide hasn't been updated and it is in the wiki, but under a part numbre of a keyboard name or something like that, so do you have any of them ?

Also, if it isn't ID and nobody ever saw it, maybe you should give more info about it for it to be added to be the wiki Linear ? Stiff ? More pictures of the keyboard ?

That black bar looks like a magnet, so I would assume Magnetic Reed or Hall Effect. I just scanned through the wiki but could not find a matching entry either.

It's a keyboard from a smart terminal "ТС-7063" in Russian, or "TS-7063" in English. The full name of the keyboard in Russian is "ТС-7063.02.А003.01" or "TS-7063.02.A003.01" in English. It feels like a very nice linear switch (although personally I prefer clicky keyboards).

Even information in Russian seems to be scarce, the most I can gather is that these keyboards connected to a smart terminal, which in turn connected to one of the ЕС (YE-S) series of mainframes.

I'm hesitant to pull them apart to see if it's a slider over membrane or dome, or a board mounted slider, as the factory seals are still in place.

Here's a picture of one of the NOS keyboards.

those look a bit like RAFI's Hall Effect switches

[wiki]File:RAFI-RS76C-assembled.jpg[/wiki]

except the slider is wider at the end of it

Yeah those do look a bit like RAFI but that's something else. Where are our experts for Soviet stuff...do we even have experts for that?

The mounts look almost the same, but I'd need dimensions to check if the keycaps would be compatible.

As for former Soviet stuff I normally have piles of Soviet computers lieing around, I may not be an expert, but any former Soviet pictures can be forwarded to me and I'll try and identify them.

Generally, keyboards in the Eastern Bloc used switches specific to that region. IZOT made clones of Cherry M8 and M9, but for the most part the switches were Bloc-specific, such as IZOT reed and Tesla Hall effect. These look like something RAFI-inspired. You may find something interesting written on the bottom of the switch if you de-solder one.

I've found a couple of Soviet computers which have used MX clones, and even a Soviet "made" keyboard, stamped as made in the USSR using Cherry MY switches, which was clearly a Cherry G80. Never got to the bottom of if they got a license to make them or just had a batch made with "made in the USSR" stamped into the plastic.

Identifying Soviet ZX-Spectrum clones' keyswitches can be a nightmare. The hall effect and magnetic reed seem to be most commonly used, but almost always of differing designs and incompatible.

More "serious" computers tended to have more interesting switches (PDP-11 micros, IBM clones, etc), although you still find the oddball "switch" like this. (The keyboard pictured below is horrible to use by the way, although you could probably guess that from the picture alone).