deskthority

I have a load of vintage Cherry MX Black switches which are soldered into a PCB. It's an old terminal keyboard, non-standard layout etc, so I want to re-use the keys in a new board.

Where can I get either a complete kit with a PCB that accepts Cherry MX soldered in, or at least a case and the mechanical info needed to make my own PCB? All the kits seem to be with hot swap switches that snap in, not solder types.

Or is this a case of buying such a kit and reverse engineering the dimensions of the PCB?

If it matters I'd like either a full size or numpad free board, and it has to be Japanese layout.

aestetix wrote: 20 Sep 2024, 13:59 "It's an old terminal keyboard, non-standard layout etc, […]

Poor old terminal keyboard
Mind posting a pic?

kbdfr wrote: 20 Sep 2024, 15:21

aestetix wrote: 20 Sep 2024, 13:59 "It's an old terminal keyboard, non-standard layout etc, […]

Poor old terminal keyboard
Mind posting a pic?

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=29075

If I could have saved the terminal I would have, it had a lovely monochrome CRT, pin sharp. Unfortunately it was thrown away before I could get it.

I thought about converting this keyboard, but I can't find much info on it and it's layout isn't ideal.

As they say on the other thread, it looks like a rebranded Wyse ASCII board. The physical layout is very usable, and the converter would let you change the keymap.

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=52597.0

Somebody did an internal re-wire on this reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyb ... converted/