Anyone know about the early history of Tipro? A keyboard's been found with Tipro branding and non-MX-compatible Tipro-branded switches, dated 1988-89, model number T141A. Curiously the case is either Cherry-manufactured or so similar it even fools Photekq, but the layout's strange.
Note the layout - highlights: 1u Alts; 8u spacebar; 1.5u key to left of right Shift; Print Screen on *. I think right Shift is an unusual width too.
The sliders don't seem wide enough for MX and I can't find anything that exactly matches the shape in the wiki. Siemens or RAFI look quite close in terms of slider shape - leaving aside the mount, of course!
Plate and PCB. I'll leave those with wider experience to comment on the stabilisers - I can see they're Cherry-like, but I don't know how common that is. The stabilised keys have the switches turned through 90 degrees.
(There are several more pictures than I've linked here. Thanks to cyberovca on Reddit for allowing me to post these here.)
Given 1988-89 is still just about in the Communist era, I wonder if this might be how Tipro began, before they invented the modular system. Maybe they were a startup in the Tito era, making homebrew keyboards and other electronics for the Yugoslavian market, perhaps slightly influenced by their near neighbours in Germany... But of course, this is only speculation, and if anyone knows about Tipro's early history we'll be fascinated to hear about it!
(By the way, this probably puts Tipro's founding date earlier than what the wiki currently has.)
ohaimark wrote: You can tell the keyboard is Communist -- those red LEDs are a dead giveaway.
Such a pity blue and white LEDs weren't invented then - it'd be quite a good gimmick to have LEDs suited to whichever republic the keyboard was going to. Bosnia-Herzegovina, all-red; Croatia, red-white-blue; Macedonia, all-red again or red-yellow-red; Montenegro or Serbia, blue-white-red; Slovenia, white-blue-red.
Welcome to DT, Cyberovca! Of course now someone will want you to desolder a switch and take it apart... gotta earn that Wingnut!
The case is stamped "Dez" for Dezember. Unless Slovenia was German-speaking when this was made, that's a Cherry date stamp, and thus this would be a real Cherry case.
I don't know why they used a Cherry case. The serial number of the keyboard is 41, which means that they were produced in limited quantities. Maybe for some local companies or as a gift for workers of Tipro?
When were Yugoslav-layout Cherry keyboards (that is, three-letter code xxY) made? I have a speculative theory about how this board came about, but if Y-layout boards were available too early it torpedoes it...
(edit: or Yugoslav-layout Cherry keyboards from before layout codes were introduced.)
paecific.jr wrote: I currently have three questions. First, what is that monstrosity? Second, how much did you spend to initially get it? Third, where do I get one?
That's three Tipro keyboards joined together with Tipro's internal connector (their "killer feature"): a staggered QWERTY unit in the middle and a 64-key matrix unit on each end. For initial cost I'll have to let kbdfr tell you, but kbdfr sold me a staggered QWERTY and two 32-key units for somewhere around 90€. (I bought some other things too, so I can't be exact. ) If you don't need the stagger, used 16x8 matrix Tipros are going quite cheaply at the moment. I think the 64-key units are rarer.
Have a search on Ebay for secondhand ones. DigiPOS keyboards are rebadged Tipros, and Cherry rebadged a few as RC80 and RC128. New, I suspect they're very expensive, and Tipro may well have a MOQ. kbdfr and Wodan have sold Tipros on here before.
Has anyone actually tried asking Tipro about these switches? It might be preferable for a Slovenian to attempt it in Slovenian first. The company is still around and they may just remember something about it still.
Just so it comes up in Spy again: When were Yugoslav-layout Cherry keyboards made? (I don't mean the SL layout that seems to be used for several formerly-Yugoslav countries, but the earlier Y layout or any Yugoslav-layout keyboard from before Cherry started using layout codes.)
I have an idea for how this curiosity came about - but it's largely unsupported by direct evidence, so I'm inserting a
SPECULATION WARNING! SPECULATION WARNING!
I got the idea when I came across the Cherry RC series. For those who haven't met them, they are Tipro KMX keyboards sold by Cherry's American branch - the RC128 is the standard 16x8 Tipro, the RC80 a 10x8 layout. They were sold in America around 2006, which is approximately when Cherry were switching to the G86 series for their POS boards. (The manual for the G86-63400 is dated 2006 too.) Given the timing I wonder if some American customers objected to the G86 line and wanted to use their existing (custom-made, expensive?) MX caps - so Cherry contracted Tipro to produce the MX POS keyboards they didn't want to make themselves.
This reminded me of an arrangement that was quite common in automotive production. Since the examples are off-topic, I've put them in a spoiler -
Spoiler:
This sort of agreement was quite common in developing markets that restricted imports. The established maker contributed designs, expertise and/or parts, and a partner in the new market set up a factory and produced the designs for their home market. The partner got some relatively up-to-date technology which they could develop, and a friendly relationship with a big company; the government of the country got a new factory on home soil providing employment and some new cars for its citizens; and the provider of the technology got a friendly operation in an otherwise closed market, and the hope that later they could produce their own cars in a relatively low-wage facility. Early on German technology was exported to Britain, forming the Daimler company; later the same type of agreement built Seat and Authi cars in Spain and gave several COMECON countries new models, and it expanded the motor industries in China and Japan.
One of the most successful examples is Fiat's Polish joint venture, FSM. The factory was founded to produce the Fiat 126 for Poland; it worked so well that Fiat stopped producing the 126 in Italy, preferring to export the Polish-built 126s to Western markets. When Communism fell Fiat bought the factory, and it now makes the Fiat 500. From the western makers' point of view this was the ideal for how these ventures should go: lots of Fiats being sold in Poland and low-salary production while Communism lasted, and a new factory quite cheaply when Communism fell.
Something more typical of the usual course of these ventures is Oltcit, a joint venture between Citroen and the Romanian state-controlled manufacturer Oltena, which made a Citroen supermini as Citroen would have made it if they'd still been independent (the basic design had Peugeot mechanicals added to make the Citroen Visa for the West). This demonstrates a noticeable pattern: the cars supplied to the developing market are not always the most up-to-date designs.
Finally, there's Renault's attempt at the Yugoslavian market. Fiat already had a relationship with Zastava, a Serbian maker; so Renault tied up with IMV and operated a factory in Slovenia. As it turned out, Yugoslavia broke up, and the Slovenian market wasn't large enough to support the factory, so Renault used the plant for production for export; the last Renault-badged Renault 5s were made in Slovenia, and later on the Wind was made there.
- to summarise, established manufacturers who couldn't get into closed markets would enter joint ventures with local producers. They contributed designs (not always the most up-to-date) and knowledge, in the hope of getting access to the market and the possibility of buying the operation when the political wind changed; and if it didn't work out, they might at least get an amicable link with a low-wage region, for later production.
So I wonder if Cherry might have assisted Tipro when it started, by providing the 1000 case and some expertise behind the scenes, in the hope of ending up with access to the Yugoslav market and a new factory with cheap labour. Looking at it from this point of view, some of the design decisions are more logical. In 1988 Cherry were just about to release the 3000 case, so they may have had some 1000 tooling they didn't need, and they would have a more up-to-date model to sell if the Yugoslav-made 1000s escaped from their home country. But Cherry might well have been cautious about supplying MX switches, fearing the possibility of copying - so Tipro would have had to formulate their own switches. (As a parenthesis - I'd suppose there would be some Cherry influence in the switches too, perhaps a similar design to MX without the gold crosspoint, or even elements from Cherry's earlier switches.)
When Slovenia left Yugoslavia, just like Renault Cherry would have been left with a shrunken market. If Tipro had conceived their modular system at that point, they may have preferred going it alone to being absorbed by Cherry. Perhaps they had an amicable divorce, with a friendly link remaining, so ~15 years later when Cherry wanted some matrix boards they were able to get them from Tipro.
There's not much direct evidence for this:
The fact the case is practically identical to Cherry's 1000 suggests some Cherry involvement (barring a very good copy).
The earliest Yugoslav-layout Cherry board that's been found was from 1991, in the middle of the Slovenian independence efforts. However, that is the only Y-layout board with a date code that photekq knows about, so it's of limited value as evidence. (A Y-layout keyboard from before Slovenian independence would damage the hypothesis of Cherry being unable to access the Yugoslavian market.)
citrojohn wrote: IIRC Cyberovca planned to, and I think he's Slovenian - don't know if anything came of it.
Sorry, I wasn't here the past month or two (studying and work). Yes, I did write to them and they basically "fucked me off".
"Spoštovani, hvala za vaš mail. Kakšnih posebnih informacij o tej tipkovnici nimamo - gre za tipkovnico s PS/2 priklopom,
podpore zanjo pa že kar nekaj časa nimamo več."
Translation goes something like this: "Dear ..., thank you for your e-mail. We don't have any specific information about this keyboard - it's a keyboard with PS/2 connection and we don't support it anymore."
I replied to their e-mail with: It's not PS/2 but DIN and explained that I'm gathering information for Deskthority.net. Well, they didn't reply back.
I am always too hasty — I should have got a white background photo of the MX-type one before opening it, as it broke!
It is indeed gold crosspoint, but a different take on the design, and tactile. It has the sliding collar but, like MX White (Cherry's original design) it does not click.
BTW, these switches just about take SMK J-M0404 series keycaps (it's a tight fit). Futaba MD/ML/MR keycaps however don't quite fit. The fact that their other switches are copies of SMK J-M0404 fits in with this.
I know this is a necro but still wanted to add my 2 cents. Tipro has been around since the early 1980s. They produced a very nice keyboard replacement for the ZX Spectrum called Ines. They also produced keyboards for some of the domestically produces computers.
SPECULATION WARNING! 
