deskthority

Please suggest nominees for the Best relic/discovery in 2011.

Current suggestions (this list is frequently updated):

• The Space-cadet keyboard
• ZX-81
• Tipro
• 3 NIB G80-2550 for just 10 EUR per keyboard
• HaaTa in general for his combined archeological work in 2011
• IBM Model F AT

I nominate Space-cadet keyboard that webwit found

Surely between you, 7bit and Ascaii, you've got this covered..?

Anyhow, I nominate the superb ZX-81 a colleague brought into work a little while ago, and possibly his minty collection of rubber-keyed Speccies. That was a good afternoon of "useful, educational development". No pics sadly.

zoidbergslo wrote:I nominate Space-cadet keyboard that webwit found

I must double that!

For myself it surely was the Tipro.

Also the 3 NIB G80-2550 for just 10 EUR per keyboard.

zoidbergslo wrote:I nominate Space-cadet keyboard that webwit found

+1 vote for that!

I nominate HaaTa's Corton with the magnetic switches.

Well, as a recap of my year, some of these discoveries are posted, but a lot are not:

• Burroughs/Koukusai Optical Switch Keyboard
• Found ~33 NIB Hall Effect Keypads
• Cortron Magnetic Switches (there's one on ebay atm)
• Tandy 1000 has Fujitsu Leaf Springs (I'd been looking for these for a while, and found them in a somewhat common board that I thought would be sorta crappy) (they are my current favourite switch)
• NIB Heath-Zenith Boards (no case) (acquired ~120 of these, more details as things progress)
• Seikosha and Epson QX-10 had switches that look to be the tech that inspired Topre Switches (Pre-Topre)
• Volker-Craig terminal keyboard had a type of Xerox switches
• Old style SMK (similar stem to cherry)
• Old style Futaba (in the Atari Keypad)
• Old style NMB linears

And a bunch more next week, at least 2 keyboards with switches I haven't seen before .
I can elaborate if there is interest. I've just been too busy making controllers for all these boards to think about posting anything about my findings.

IBM Model F AT.

I guess we should nominate HaaTa in general for his combined archeological work in 2011.



HaaTa obtaining the Burroughs/Koukusai Optical Switch Keyboard.

I'm all in with the HaaTa nominations. He's brought up some very good posts recently that has opened my eyes into the older world.

HaaTa wrote:Well, as a recap of my year, some of these discoveries are posted, but a lot are not:

[*] NIB Heath-Zenith Boards (no case) (acquired ~120 of these, more details as things progress)

Half-Saint wrote:

HaaTa wrote:Well, as a recap of my year, some of these discoveries are posted, but a lot are not:

[*] NIB Heath-Zenith Boards (no case) (acquired ~120 of these, more details as things progress)

ALPS?

If HaaTa is going to nominate himself I'm going to nominate myself for the Vintage Switch Wiki - the only one on the InterToobs. At least in English!

Malware Warning:
http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title= ... rence+Wiki

ripster wrote:If HaaTa is going to nominate himself I'm going to nominate myself for the Vintage Switch Wiki - the only one on the InterToobs.

I can't find the entires there for either the magnetic or the optical switches that HaaTa displayed recently.

Honeywell.
http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title= ... l+Switches

I'll [strike]steal[/strike] borrow his pics sometime for any other weird ones he comes up with and include them too later.

ripster: sure, I'm happy if my blurry-cam images help your wiki. My website is work-in-progress, but it has a somewhat up to date image listing. http://kiibohd.com/mk2/crawler_query.cgi (this loads all of my albums, grab a coffee while you wait)

Half-Saint, mintberryminuscrunch: Yup ALPs, old style. Some people have pics, but I'm not releasing anything atm. I've had a working controller for about 9 months now.

webwit, Matuka: Thanks! Yeah, I nearly had a heart attack when I took off the plate of the Burroughs Keyboard.

This coming week is going to be fun , after I recover from my Thanksgiving food coma
Eventually, when I get my website more complete, I'll start posting protocol waveforms and the code for more USB converters.