deskthority

So, a friend of mine sent me an email on this keyboard this morning:

https://ebay.to/3qJuhoh





Surprised I missed it, as I regularly view Convergent Technologies items on eBay

So, I'm curious...did this happen to go to anyone here?

What grabs me about this auction description is that the person listing seems to have a firm grasp on the collectability of certain keyboards, more importantly than anything about the machine that it could be from. Which I'm not used to seeing (but then again, I'm not a keyboard collector per se...)

My interest in this keyboard is only because I own 4 machines that it plugs into...the Convergent "AWS" Workstation (pre-NGEN), and Burroughs B-20, which is the Burroughs equivalent of the same machine, again, manufactured by Convergent Technologies, just branded for Burroughs.

http://mightyframe.blogspot.com/2017/03 ... ation.html

As far as I know, I'm the only one who is reporting to attempt to restore any of these vintage of Convergent AWS workstations.

So, the reason I bring it up here, is, not only to learn everyone's perspective here, but to remark that I have several of these keyboards myself. The only thing is that I don't have an equal matching number of keyboards vs machines. Instead, I have more machines than keyboards, so I am short a few, but that's OK. (Yes, my web page linked above states that I don't have a keyboard, but I got a few when I acquired several more of these machines the following year...)

As I've stated here before on other posts, my main goal is to restore and preserve systems as a whole, and I do have at least 2 or 3 keyboards to the 4 or 5 AWS workstations that I have. So as long as I have enough keyboards to get 2 or 3 full systems working (which I do), that is sufficient for me.

BTW, I haven't gotten any to work yet, it's been a crazy year for sure, for everyone!

Anyway, I'm just curious enough to track where this Convergent AWS keyboard might end up, in who's collection, and what it means to them. All good stuff!

Thanks, all!

Best,
AJ

https://linustechtips.com/profile/774696-army_greywolf/

Pretty sure this guy got it.

kelvinhall05 wrote: ↑

12 Dec 2020, 02:33

https://linustechtips.com/profile/774696-army_greywolf/

Pretty sure this guy got it.

"This one is being sold, its a convergent technologies logic scan hall effect keyboard. The visual 300 is the same thing, no pictures just yet. I have it completely apart in about 600 pieces. I am going to do the plastic polish on the switch plastics to reverse some of the scarring from dirt embedding into the switches. I really REALLY want to turn that one into the ultimate daily driver with custom wood key caps. I am looking for someone that lasers keycaps so I can have them made."

Deskthority users are often keyboard collectors first, but we try to avoid cannibalizing old boards, especially older ones (though we may invasively modify them to work with modern systems). Of course these systems are so rare and these boards are so neat that I can understand why people would use them with modern systems. The Mechmarket demand for harvesting vInTAgE BlaCks is disappointing especially since so many protocols can be converted.

Replacing the original keycaps with lasered wood though

I have one from some time ago (viewtopic.php?p=457497#p457497). There's a lot to like going on there.

Everyone, thank you, this is EXACTLY the information and prospective I was hoping to gain here! I knew this network went far and wide, and I'm so thankful for it, and all of you.

I'm wondering if https://linustechtips.com/profile/774696-army_greywolf/ is actually the seller, not the buyer in this case. I'm basing this on his handle having a very compatible theme with the ebay seller https://www.ebay.com/usr/wisconsinitadllc on the auction I started this thread with (Army Greywolf compared and Veteran Owned recycling), combined with his leading statement "This one is being sold" as opposed to "this one is one I intend to buy". That and the post was prior to auction end. And actually, seems to be just shortly after auction listing creation date.

Anyway, this is great info. I'm so thrilled to begin to get an understanding on how these keyboards garner and interest and are being used while being orphaned from their original host machines. That's not a bad thing, because I know full well that in so many cases, these machines have been destroyed and/or parted out, and the keyboards would be left to be destroyed in not appreciated in this way, so I see it like 2 sides of the same coin. One side, the keyboard gets used with the few surviving machines. On the other, it gets appreciated in a whole new way and environment. Very cool.

What I ALSO think is cool is that work has been done in this community to reverse engineer how these keyboards operate. Which, is research that I don't need to start from scratch myself, AND, makes it a lot easier for me to learn how to do the inverse...making a more readily available (modern) keyboard to interface with these machines as I restore them, for the machines that are missing keyboards.

Really cool.

I'll keep following this. You all have now pointed me in a direction where I see there is much for me to learn.

Best everyone,
AJ