G80-3850, dafuq?

tinnie · 09 Apr 2013, 15:27

http://www.play3r.net/reviews/tech/cher ... rd-review/

Play3r · 09 Apr 2013, 15:38

Thanks for linking to our review. Are you surprised to see Cherry produce a gaming keyboard?

Acanthophis · 09 Apr 2013, 16:27

Play3r wrote:Are you surprised to see Cherry produce a gaming keyboard?

I doubt it.
Cherry already produced enough keyboards explicitly for "gaming" (as long as it has ≥6kro and Cherry MX switches, every keyboard is for gaming).
And as tinlong being Chinese, he knows Cherry already did so on the Asian market.

I, for myself, was rather suprised by this:

I happen to do a fair bit of lurking on one of the best mechanical keyboard communities (www.reddit.com/r/mechanicalkeyboards), [...]

ne0phyte · 09 Apr 2013, 16:52

Acanthophis wrote: I, for myself, was rather suprised by this:
I happen to do a fair bit of lurking on one of the best mechanical keyboard communities (http://www.reddit.com/r/mechanicalkeyboards), [...]

If you enjoy readding countless posts (every day) with camera phone pictures of peoples new Ducky/CM QFR/Noppoo with stock caps it is the best mechanical keyboard community

Muirium · 09 Apr 2013, 17:18

Piece of pie!

Play3r · 09 Apr 2013, 17:21

ne0phyte wrote:
Acanthophis wrote: I, for myself, was rather suprised by this:
I happen to do a fair bit of lurking on one of the best mechanical keyboard communities (http://www.reddit.com/r/mechanicalkeyboards), [...]
If you enjoy readding countless posts (every day) with camera phone pictures of peoples new Ducky/CM QFR/Noppoo with stock caps it is the best mechanical keyboard community

Well it's only of late, that I came across this site - and seeing a number of hits come from here, thought it was best to check it all out. Liking what I see so far and hopefully I can contribute a fair bit.

Maybe next review I'll include a mention of Deskthority?

Findecanor · 09 Apr 2013, 17:35

I think that this is a good move by Cherry. If you look through other hardware forums you will see that there is demand for a flatter mechanical gaming keyboard.
BTW, added to the Wiki

Peter · 09 Apr 2013, 19:08

Looks like a piece of plastic-junk to me !
But I haven't seen it IRL yet, so maybe it is OK..
Except for the caps, it just cant get cheap enough, can it ?

tinnie · 10 Apr 2013, 05:42

Peter wrote:Looks like a piece of plastic-junk to me !But I haven't seen it IRL yet, so maybe it is OK..
Except for the caps, it just cant get cheap enough, can it ?

^^^^
That's what i think about it.

And I'm quite wondering when i knew this board come with plate (http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/che ... hilit=3850). I know there are some old models is plate mounted like G80-0499/G80-9035(Nortel 5155)/etc. But, 3850 is a board for end-user, they somewhat broke their "traditional".

JBert · 10 Apr 2013, 10:31

It seems Findecanor added it to the wiki ( http://deskthority.net/wiki/Cherry_G80-3850 ), but it doesn't say anything about PS/2 support.

Did the keyboard come with an adapter by any chance, and if not, could you test it with one of yours?

Play3r · 10 Apr 2013, 11:50

JBert wrote:It seems Findecanor added it to the wiki ( http://deskthority.net/wiki/Cherry_G80-3850 ), but it doesn't say anything about PS/2 support.

Did the keyboard come with an adapter by any chance, and if not, could you test it with one of yours?

It didn't come with much tbh, I will check it for you when I get back from work

pcross · 06 Jan 2014, 17:27

Tinnie, I found that you had mentioned the G80-9035. I recently acquired one, and was hoping that you might be able to help me locate the KeyBind utility, or any other type of software that will detect the virtual keys. None of the Cherry software will allow me to program it, Nortel is out of business, and Alcatel-Lucent thinks I'm a freak lol. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks much.

Broadmonkey · 06 Jan 2014, 17:37

You say you've got a g80-9035? can you post pics?

tinnie · 07 Jan 2014, 09:53

Broadmonkey wrote:You say you've got a g80-9035? can you post pics?

NORTEL NTNX51HH, a.k.a. G80-9035, is a custom keyboard built by Cherry for Nortel in early 00's, a now defunct company. This keyboard comes with a plate, which wasn't common at that time. Also, it got some special doulbeshot keycaps. However, it DOESN'T has much feature other than those.

LINK TO HIGH RESOLUTION PICS (IN CHINESE):
http://kbtalking.cool3c.com/article/14202

pcross: Sorry, I have no idea how to get an appropriate driver for it. And I don't think you can use it even you got a driver.

pcross · 07 Jan 2014, 21:54

Thanks, Tinnie. Yeah, I used to use one when I worked for the telephone company. It's an operator's keyboard. I have the full spec and documentation for it. It's an absolute DREAM to type on!

(This model was made in 2008 and re-badged by Volt Delta. Seems that they produced Nortel's IWS keyboards after Nortel went defunct. Mine is black, and from what I gather, rare. I got it new in the box for $20 plus shipping.)

I hadn't planned on actually interfacing with the phone network (that'd be impossible without the complete terminal and access to a switch), I just wanted to be able to initialize and use some of these keys that don't seem to produce a scan code.

Some of the keys can be specially labeled, and DO produce a scan code, i.e. the "Pos Rls" or "Position Release" key generates the scan code for numpad divide. I'm using a combination of AutoHotkey and SharpKeys to map the ones that do produce a scan code.

At any rate, even if the entire keyboard was dead, it's an interesting collector's item.

Here's a photo of my keyboard. Have a good one!

Broadmonkey · 07 Jan 2014, 22:35

Thanks, keycaps are definitely not Cherry made, something which the NORTEL one had, apart from a few of the key caps, which looked different to me. Are they double shot?

pcross · 07 Jan 2014, 22:43

Broadmonkey wrote:Thanks, keycaps are definitely not Cherry made, something which the NORTEL one had, apart from a few of the key caps, which looked different to me. Are they double shot?

Yes, all keys with the exception of the clear-capped label keys are double-shot.

These keys look and feel like cherry keys though. This keyboard is identical to the beige Nortel variety, with exception to the color, right? Did you have any advice as far as mapping the "dead" keys on this board? I haven't heard back from Cherry on where to get a programming utility. The Nortel utility used to be called KeyBind.exe, and was included in the TOPS/IWS SIC (Service Interface Compilation)

Broadmonkey · 07 Jan 2014, 22:57

I am pretty certain the keycaps are not made by Cherry. You can see it from their round corners and from the font and symbols. The rest of the keyboard looks pretty identical however. I just think Volt Delta cheaped out and got someone else to produce the keycaps.

I am not really capable of answering your question about remapping the dead keys, sorry. My experience with remapping keys only counts AutoHotKey of which you have already tried.

pcross · 07 Jan 2014, 23:23

Broadmonkey wrote:I am pretty certain the keycaps are not made by Cherry. You can see it from their round corners and from the font and symbols. The rest of the keyboard looks pretty identical however. I just think Volt Delta cheaped out and got someone else to produce the keycaps.

I am not really capable of answering your question about remapping the dead keys, sorry. My experience with remapping keys only counts AutoHotKey of which you have already tried.

Thanks just the same! I had a look at the Nortel keycaps vs the Volt Delta keycaps, and the typeface on some of them look the same, but a lot of them look different. It's probably not a Cherry cap, but the finish is amazing.

pcross · 08 Jan 2014, 22:34

So, I just spoke to Ed at Cherry Technical Support, and here's what he told me about the G80-9035.

- It's programmed through an OTP process, (One time programmable)
- It is NOT customer programmable.
- All of the keys should generate a scan code, otherwise the software it originally was used with couldn't detect it either. (Anyone know where I could get software that will tell me the scancode? SharpKeys won't detect it either.)

He wasn't sure if the keys were genuine Cherry, as they were ordered by Nortel. Volt Delta ordered the spec from Nortel and they chose the manufacturer.

He did a lot of footwork for me, and went so far as to contact Germany. There was only one technician left that even remembers this board, which leads me to believe that it's even more rare than I originally suspected.

Anyway, thank you guys too. Glad I signed up!

-P

Muirium · 08 Jan 2014, 23:35

Boot up a Linux session and try xev. I think that's the command line utility everyone advises for basic reading stuff.

I do everything via Soarer's Converter (for which I'm apparently the lead promoter…) and hid_listen. But that's because I have one in daily use, and I'm on OS X so I don't know the usual suspects anyway. Let alone PS/2 ports…

scottc · 09 Jan 2014, 00:30

Muirium wrote:Boot up a Linux session and try xev. I think that's the command line utility everyone advises for basic reading stuff.

I think that xev tells you about keycodes as opposed to scancodes, which I think are a different part of the chain in Linux/X11. Anyway, there are instructions on how to get scancodes on Linux on the ArchWiki here.