However I did come across a silver reed advertisements which showed something I hadn't seen before
The M44. I know next to nothing about it other than it is also called the Memorymatic. Looking it up gets me a lot of results for places trying to sell ink ribbons that they claim are compatible but the Memorymatic doesn't have a print mechanism of any kind so all those websites are only barely useful. A few of such sites listed alternate model numbers that are presumably variations. Those variations being: M44, M40, ME4, M44, and M44P. Although in the case of the M44P the P seems to indicate the chassis colour "platinum" so there are possibly a lot of variations that differ only by colour. As far as I can tell the available colours were beige, black, and silver. A black Memorymatic or a black EX44 would be incredibly nice looking machines to own. Other than the Memorymatic I have and the one in the above advertisement I haven't seen any other actual pictures though so IDK what would make them different other than the colour.
And here she is. Stupidly tall but meant to sit alongside the EX44 so that makes sense. When I found out about this I looked it up on ebay on a whim only to find a display model with the OG box so after some haggling on the price (and some weirdness in shipping) I have it in my hands.
Caps are doubleshot even, which is not what I was expecting. Though they would be pad print. Very nice surprise for sure.
Model onthe back is M44 even though M44P is on the front, P is almost certainly just for the colour.
Here's the PCB. This matches the EX44 PCB in style. The EX44 doesn't have branding on the PCB like this, but here it's way more obvious who's involved. Kashiwazaki is names and they're the current owners of the SIlver Reed brand so that makes sense. The jumper style here is pretty neat. I guess this was cheaper than doing a double sided PCB and with the dome sheet they couldn't do through hole jumpers. There's still a single th jumper across the back, but that doesn't interfere with the domes.
the cover comes off so it would be super easy for SIlver Reed to make these in several colours.
And the switches are entirely the same as those in the EX44 except the assembly is downgraded slightly. Instead of being a folded metal assembly held to the PCB with standoffs and bent tabs the PCB is just screwed into the top housing which is also the plate. It's a very sturdy plate though and doesn't really effect the key feel negatively IMO, especially since there's only 9 switches.
And here's some pictures of the box. Looks like the price was 89.95 and it was a display model at Roy Savin's TV video sales and service. Always really cool to see this sort of stuff on boxes. Way better IMO than having a pristine box. Unfortunately I don't have the manual for this device, so I have no idea what it's actually able to do or how it does that. The advertisement also shows what looks like a pull out quick reference card that I am missing entirely. As a display model that would be the first thing to break off so unless I can find pictures of it online or find another one of these then I'll probably never know what's going on with that.
Anyway, this thing is really cool. The switches are great and I would love to find more boards that have these in them as they really are a delight to type on. Much better than the SKFF that came on the more expensive EX55 line. No restoration is needed for this either, just dusted off. It is in very nice shape. I'm still not sure who made these switches though. I'll have to get around to making a case for the Penman's keyboard module and convert that as well as non-destructively convert this thing. Would make quite a nice setup.