Stuff you just bought

[Redmaus]

DCA Irmakey/3270 keyboard

Vintage cherry MX clear "soft click" switches (very early click-jacket), and some superblacks.
They lack the cam found on other early cherry click switches. I gotta take one of these apart and document!

Some nice, but thin, dye sub pbt caps.
Build quality is pretty solid, with a metal backplate, metal mounting plate, and fairly decent plastic case.

Neat! I have one too, the heavier blacks are definitely a curious feature. Didn't know what switches it had until now, I only knew they looked like clears but clearly not as they are clicky switches.

[jawarara]

I'll open it up tonight and get some pics.

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[Khers]

Ah, must not be the same one. The one I found had skcl greens and was on eBay.

Nice get!

Image

I picked up the C.Itoh/CIE Terminals with greens on ebay . The caps are in outstanding condition. They are doubleshot, medium thickness and I think ABS (based on weight, sound and smoothness of the sides). No sign of yellowing. They are pretty steeply sculpted and have fairly flat tops (maybe slightly spherical).

Really not sure what to do with it. The layout is super weird. As is, it's not usable with anything (I'd have to reverse engineer the protocol which uses a 1/4" "headphone" jack). But it's in such good condition, I'd hate to rape it for the caps and switches. What would you do with it?

Interesting to see that two superficially so similar keyboards differ as much as they do; mine came with Alps spring over membrane and dyesub pbt. I did what e3e did and combined the alphas with some ANSI mods off of a sgi-keyboard. Quite a nice combo if you ask me. Even if the mods are cylindrical.

[snacksthecat]

I'm the guy who sniped this the other day. I'm not sure what I was expecting but typing on it is unlike anything I've ever tried. Really cool switch. The spacebar though... Holy moly.

[zrrion]

Interesting that j k l and skip, as well as a s d and f all have homing dishes.
You can also tell someone with long nails was going a lot of numerical input with it based on the wear from the numpad keys. What a cool board

[PlacaFromHell]

I will be taking this beauty tomorrow.

[Redmaus]

I'm the guy who sniped this the other day. I'm not sure what I was expecting but typing on it is unlike anything I've ever tried. Really cool switch. The spacebar though... Holy moly.

You planning on converting it snacks?

I will be taking this beauty tomorrow.

I see the bars near the arrow cluster... Orange alps?

[PlacaFromHell]

I'm the guy who sniped this the other day. I'm not sure what I was expecting but typing on it is unlike anything I've ever tried. Really cool switch. The spacebar though... Holy moly.

You planning on converting it snacks?

I will be taking this beauty tomorrow.

I see the bars near the arrow cluster... Orange alps?

Maybe. I want to put my early white Alps in this thing Best Alps keyboard ever. If they are oranges I may only replace the top part of the switch instead of desoldering.

[John Doe]

Got this yesterday, it's using AT protocol which means a series of AT->ps/2->USB adapters could bring it to modern life, but with limitation of the keyboard part.

For traceball functionality, I have no idea yet. Maybe someone here could do a favour?

Spoiler:

Blud MX Cherry switches

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[John Doe]

Append one.

Spoiler:

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[dcopellino]

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Just bought these stickers. I have so much free time in these sad weeks of quarantine, I decided to give a try to these sticker so that I can fix some bad keyboard layouts..... You, as "mother keyboard" couldn't imagine unpleasantness of hitting a & for a (as it's happening to me on my last purchase, as seen on the pic.

[John Doe]

IMG_20200318_143618.jpg
Just bought these stickers. I have so much free time in these sad weeks of quarantine, I decided to give a try to these sticker so that I can fix some bad keyboard layouts..... You, as "mother keyboard" couldn't imagine unpleasantness of hitting a & for a (as it's happening to me on my last purchase, as seen on the pic.

That's good idea, but obviously have to spend enough time on that, and patience. hahaha.

Btw, may i ask how much you spend on the 5001? I'm looking for one but no idea yet.

[dcopellino]

It won't take all that time. At the end it's a matter of 5/8 keys. Accented vowels moreover some numb keys on older layouts as in this case that costed me more of fees and shipping than the item itself. I think that a fair budget for a 5001 variant A (the oldest with separate keys for calculator on/off) may be around 90/110$ even on feebay. Ask redmouse for it.

[Darkshado]

For traceball functionality, I have no idea yet. Maybe someone here could do a favour?

I think the last time I used a serial mouse was with Windows 3.1, but, assuming it's a "regular" serial mouse, the drivers are still available in Windows 10.

Get a working serial port (many serial to USB adapters out there, stay away from cheap clones), open Device Manager, Detect hardware changes.

This video demonstrates it on Windows 8 and comments say the procedure is the same on 10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA9fQQ_f7NE

[dcopellino]

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Hi, I just bought an ibm p70. What do you think of it? Not a BS but quite valuable according to chyros words https://youtu.be/L60SP-hAaMw
Looking forward to put my hands on it and fiddle around the wire so that I can give it a ps/2 plug.

[dcopellino]

Screenshot_20200323_085905.jpg
Hi, I just bought an ibm p70. What do you think of it? Not a BS but quite valuable according to chyros words https://youtu.be/L60SP-hAaMw
Looking forward to put my hands on it and fiddle around the wire so that I can give it a ps/2 plug.

I got it! It arrived yesterday, but I unboxed only few minutes ago, to discover there wasn't the cable.....
I contacted on eBay the seller who told me would ship it next week...
Anyway, a really intriguing feeling typing on it. WhiteAlps BS (?), They are so clicky and reactive, more than a cherry MX blue, so to speak saying a bullshit.

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In the pic I am trying to rearm the space-bar after a total keycaps' washing.

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When I removed it, I noticed a single return spring on the left side, so I decided to put a quite similar one more on.
Now, its sound and steadiness is incomparable. No wobbles at all. Check it out...
[youtube]https://youtu.be/uldoEq9ZnSg[/youtube]

Art the end, for curiosity's sake I tried to put a double shot keycap coming from a 5001 focus (white Alps clicky keycap?) on my new ibm p70, and guess what??!?

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It fits flawlessly.

[John Doe]

Nice keyboard, and the seller agreed you could buy the kbd but leave host there?

[dcopellino]

Yes he did.... Am I so much guilty?

Thanks to God, people from South of Italy are so generous and kind. The seller disassembled the case in order to send me the missing cable....
Thanks so much Donato

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Ps. Any solution to fix the frayed cable once it arrives?

[dcopellino]

All well that's end well. Thank to consideringquiet post and all the community.
For fried cable I will consider sugru....

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[snacksthecat]

Bought these two things around the same time recently. Today, out of necessity, they got mashed together to make something that I probably could have purchased for very cheap. Instead I have an overpriced pet tripod flashlight that might just come to life if I'm not careful.

[ddrfraser1]

Bought this fella off a guy in Alaska. I was disappointed that A, it didn't have double shot keycaps like a lot of them do and B, it had a plastic plate instead of metal. Oh well. The other thing is that even after giving it a good clean and lubing the sliders with krytox 1514 vpf oil, it still feels scratchy even though that lube has worked well for other rubber dome sliders I'm thinking I might try again with teflon grease unless someone else has any suggestions.

[ddrfraser1]

All well that's end well. Thank to consideringquiet post and all the community.
For fried cable I will consider sugru....
IMG_20200402_124907.jpg

Oh man, I would love to try one of those.

[Keybug]

Something that I probably could have purchased for very cheap.

Yep - these are 13€. Still, this thing tends to fall over unless you stand it on a small metal plate or something - and yours is waaay cooler!

[Keybug]

While on the subject of useful gear, I discovered these neat magnetic cable wrappers. Very quick to apply and remove. My desk and keyboard shelf is now a lot tidier!

[ddrfraser1]

"hell yeah"

[John Doe]

Glad to find this, alps white.

Spoiler:

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[zrrion]

Finally have a proper topre board (type heaven) and I can now officially confirm that all of the proto topre caps I have are compatible with modern topre.

The previous owner painted the top case black and the paint isn't lasting though so if anyone has any ideas about removing the paint without marring the plastic let me know.

[kelvinhall05]

Interesting, maybe I should sell my prototopre caps

[snacksthecat]

I bought two of these thingies the other day. They're off-camera flash extension cables. They were very inexpensive and surprisingly good quality. So I promptly ripped the head off of one of them! Well really more like cut the tail off but the other way sounds more dramatic.



Why did I do this? I had been looking for a way to synchronize my camera and my motorized pan/tilt camera head such that the camera takes a photo, head moves, camera takes a photo, head moves, etc. This is for making timelapse videos where the camera moves as time progresses. I have an intervalometer already to control the camera, but needed a way to trigger the motorized head between shots.

The only way I could come up with for interfacing with the camera this way was to take advantage of the fact that every time a picture is snapped, the camera sends a pulse to the hot shoe to trigger external flash. I could also go through some low level USB connection but that would be biting off way more than I can chew.

So back to the cable, I cut the tail end off and wired in the female end of a 3.5mm audio cable. I did this so the cable could come apart or even be extended by adding another length of audio cable if needed.



Then I wired the male end of the audio cable to a teensy microcontroller. I also wired a 7-pin DIN cable to the teensy, since this is what connects to the motorized head. Cover the whole thing in heat-shrink, write a little arduino sketch, and you get this:

It doesn't look like much but it's exactly what I needed!

Also, I know that I could put the whole thing in the hands of the microcontroller and let it trigger the camera shutter as well. I actually was doing exactly that before I make this contraption. But the intervalometer has nice features like ability to change exposure, do HDR shooting, etc.

[n3oNx]

My latest purchase...

Next step cleaning...