deskthority

I found this on the web the other day. It's a terminal for a Sperry-Rand UNIVAC from the 1960s.

Note the two-layer keycaps, the cursor keys on the left, the left-arrow key where Tab would normally be, the right arrow on the space bar, the other right-arrow to the right, with the Tab on the bottom rights, the shape of the Return key, and the "food processor button" numeric keypad.

Other than some rare left-hand keyboards, that's the only time I've seen left-handed cursor keys. And that's a freakishly wide CRT; I don't remember ever encountering anything with an aspect ratio like that in the 1980s or 1990s.

What a beast! What switches are in those? ITW magnetic valve?

Side topic, but there were at least a couple wide aspect CRTs back in the day.

The Morrow Portable Micro Decision computer had a wide aspect CRT. That was from the early '80s. The one pictured in the attached ad has a green CRT, but mine was amber.

In the late '80s Brother made a word processor with a wide aspect CRT. The phosphor on that one was bright yellow. I still have one of the Brother CRTs here someplace.

I'm sure there must have been others, but these two I played with personally.

AndyJ wrote: 05 Dec 2024, 06:19
...And that's a freakishly wide CRT; I don't remember ever encountering anything with an aspect ratio like that in the 1980s or 1990s.

Cool. Thanks!

I'm surprised the widescreen CRTs weren't a big thing. [pause] Come to think of it, they might have been, just turned 90 degrees and used in portrait mode.