deskthority

I was looking at ebay for some doubleshots and what do i find ? A Blaupunkt Btx Keyboard .... huhhh ? I asked myself Blaupunkt has made Keyboards ? Strange ! And what the hell is btx ? But hey it haves some nice looking keycaps so lets give it a try I thought. No one wanted to bid on the damaged Keyboard (3 keycaps & 1 switch missing, Strange connection cables ) so i bought it for 1€.

So I picked it up from the sellers place and found out that this Keyboard has really old Cherry Switches and doubleshots !
After some Internet search i found out what Btx realy is and that these boards where produced in 1984 (http://btxmuseum.de/Hardware/geraet.asp?id=144). This board is longer on the world than I am.

The keyboard I bought has a bunch of cables hanging on the outside connected to 2 rs232 Ports. Not quiet normal.
After opening up the case it was clearly seen that the time has done some serious damage to the keyboard.
Someone has done many scratches on the PCB and someone else did some heavy cable soldering to try to get the keyboard running, unfortunately I don't know if the soldering has made the keyboard running because my pc don't has rs232 ports.

If the case hadn't this strange layout it could be used fore some modding also some of the switches are also damaged and the working ones felt kind of not right
But all in all I am really happy with those thick old vintage cherry doubleshots



Random placing of the keycaps after the dismounting ... I wanted to go sleep


4 Sorts of keycaps ... sort of a catch em all Keyboard
Still don't get the spacebar fit into its place with the stabilization ... this thing is going to make me mad










Some IC's: And even more blury blur blur : xD my English is terrible ... pls pm me if you find some mistakes (I am sure you will find many).

Very Cool!

Actually going by pics it seems like the guy who owned it before did not try to repair it but rather convert it. It looks like he entirely changed the Matrix of the keyboard. It probably still won't be PC compatible anyway.

Those old switches are pretty cool. If you find that one of yours is broken, let me know. I happen to have a big stock of brand new ones.

You say it was made in '84, but most of the date codes on those ICs show 1979. Either the production info is incorrect or it's a different model, or those ICs had been sitting around for 5 years before being used. The Mostek shows 1980.

The top one with the sticker looks like an EPROM of some kind. The others are logic and interfacing.

Proper stuff.

Earliest mention of these Cherry switches that I can find is 1983. So probably the ICS indeed lay around for a few years. Then again, maybe not.. there is barely any reliable info on hardware this old.

sixty wrote: Those old switches are pretty cool. If you find that one of yours is broken, let me know.

I appreciate your help but I cant see anything cool in them ^^. With the resonating aluminum case (almost fits another pcb in there xD) every keystroke just sounds awful loud .... hmm maybe i make a sound-file later so everybody can hear this monster.
When i press the key it needs some force and then goes straight down to the bottom ... i don't like linear switches at all.
Also your switches look slightly different. My switches don't have the usual cross, 1 of the 4 corossparts is missing on mine.

Did I got it right that these vintage keycaps could possibly not be compatible with modern Mx Switches ? That would be a damn shame
Leopold should speed up their production. I'm still sitting here with my cherry evolution stream cheap ass ruberdomes.

Ps.: I really like the keychain Idea. Imagine one of them with my keys .. that would be so nerdy

I think they won't fit MX, the stems are too thick. Also I am a fan of linear switches, so I guess my opinion is biased on the switches

I have a keyboard with similar switches, I will show some pics when I get the time.

My 128 Tipro Keyboard arrived today. Damn these keycaps really don't fit. Now I've got to figure out how to force them on the switches
The Tipro MX black are way better than these old switches ... they don't even seam to feel anywhere equal.

And here goes the promised noise-file: sample of random hitting