ScreamingAtTheRadio

Yes, as viewed from above when assembled. The keyboard will sit on top of the bottom part of the case. The footprint is about the same as the vintage keyboard. Should be a perfect fit.

Oh wow, that is actually very lucky that it is horizontal. This should just work, the adapter will have the FFC connector under the board. It is very small, only about a cm. The cables are also flexible and foldable, so this will be no problem at all. On the keyboard side, it connects on the top-right.

Well it's not all doom and gloom tonight. I give you the first production model of the JoyKey XL (this one is going in one of the pre-orders): And here's a first look at the JoyKey Mini, but this one has a number of issues still that I'll have to fix before I can ship a production version: I also think I'm going to go for black for future batches of this, losing the paintability for out of the box aesthetics.

The function keys leave no space for another adapter. I'll have to have them redone. I might also ship them separately so folks can get their new keyboards fast and the function keys will come when they're ready. So the parts that need to be redone are: adapters for vintage keys, and function keys for modern sets.

Unfortunately nothing that would be reversible. I thought about glue, and that might be sort of acceptable on the side of the switches, but there's no way to fix on the cap side without damaging the caps, which are irreplaceable and in finite number. It's ok, things take multiple attempts, I should have produced fewer since this is a whole new manufacturing process I haven't experienced with. I'm sorry about the delay that will cause.

Bit of bad news... I received cap adapters and function keys yesterday and only just had time to test them. And well, they are a little too good. Where my little resin printer needed some fine tuning of the models to account for its own imprecision, the parts I had printed professionally are extremely precise, and the fit with switches and caps is way too loose. Bottom line, I have to trash the whole batch, >$100 worth of parts going to the bin. That also means an additional delay on the pre-orders as I'll have to modify the models and order a new batch. I might also have to be conservative about quantities to not waste more money and do things in at least two orders. I apologize to the folks who made pre-orders for the additional delay.

... aaaaaand... the key caps just showed up Check this out:

I just received two big packages from China. I now have all the parts to start building pre-orders, except for the caps, that I expect in a few days. I'll start assembling this week-end, to hopefully ship the first wave early next week.

That's because everything for the current version is still in a separate branch, that I'll merge when I'm done with changes to the readme. You can find the files here: https://github.com/bleroy/3d-junkyard/tree/le-clavier-xe/Atari130MX/Caps

Here's another idea: turn it around and move it to the left of the case: we can source longer FFC cables easily that would easily fill the gap and that would not be a problem with the length of the external cable.

That's been on the back of my mind for a while, but not having one myself to try with, I can't be 100% sure it will work, but I'm probably near 96%: the XEGS is largely reusing existing designs, and photos confirm the keyboard assembly is the same (except maybe for a little bit of help key stabilizer column removed), with an additional board that moves the control of the keyboard to inside that enclosure. As you noticed it even has the five function keys in there, plunger and spring included, just hidden by the enclosure. Those are just replicated in the main box. One question could be how the new keyboard will fit inside the smaller case, as there are two columns on top that restrict the height of the board, that don't exist in the XE case: However, the new board is pretty much flush with the top of the function keys, so it should be no issue at all. We also need to consider the clearance for the adapter and FFC cable, and again things look fine: There seems to be very little space above that connector, and it may not fit directly, but I can see two ways to make it work: 1. desolder the Atari connector, replace it with pin headers and solder the adapter horizontally above the board 2. rotate the board almost 180 degrees so the connector is more to the back and so we have more clearance for the adapter; I think this can be done while keeping it screwed in the central hole, but worst case you keep it in place with hot glue. For the help key, if modern caps are chosen for the work, I'd just use a low-profile switch for that one key, so we can use an adapter and keep the vintage key since we don't have a 3d model to print a new one. So yeah, it will almost certainly just work, with both modern and vintage caps. It would be pretty cool to see it work in fact.

I see, I didn't realize it is basically a macropad. I wasn't familiar with the peripheral until last night Yes, joykey/joy2b/snack/CX85 hybrid sounds like a good starting point. Would be nice to have space for a bunch of controller types on the back. I'll study it more when I'm off work. I'm particularly curious about the software side of this. I like that adding joystick functionality actually doesn't require software to just work though. Please keep sending ideas, this should be fun to design and build.

Yeah, well, those are considerably harder to make. Will depend whether we can get this solved. Also, they take a lot more space, we may not have enough width without making it comically large. mmm, a search didn't return anything. Got a pointer? Nevermind. Found this one: And this:

I don't understand: the drawing is XE styled. Is my drawing that bad?

Right, of course, not sure where I left my brain. LOL, why? I think it's neat to give the option to add the features without completely changing the case. Different people like different things

I checked, and there's a small gap above the joystick ports that should be enough to route a small flat cable without damaging anything. You'd probably have to remove the motherboard while you pass it through, but that's it, no new holes necessary.

There was some software supporting it, is my understanding. So it won't work as a regular numpad without that software. Others can probably give better info about this, or whether it's possible to support it with some kind of driver sneakily working in the background. For F1-F4 to be integrated in the package, I'd have to route some wiring into the main unit. I'll think about how to do that without harming your XE case. If we are going to do that though, there might be a hardware solution to the above, with a switch to make the numpad work everywhere by emulating the regular keys. In that case, why not go all the way and do the same for directions? Half-backed thoughts here. No idea if any of this will be doable. An idea for internal connection could be to have new adapters that would have an extension port for it in addition to the current 26 pin FFC connector.

Hahaha. Yes, to tell you the truth, I've been thinking about this for a while, and even started some FreeCAD work to build new cases... Your idea catalyzed it and gave me the idea of also having a separate extension unit as an option. Please do. That layout above was a great start. Could be good to also integrate this into the general layout that we use for ordering caps, so we can order a number of them full instead of TKL and build a stock of caps for this module. What do you mean by "joystick graphics"? This guy? I did not know that. Do you have pointers to examples? Not sure what you mean by that: the number of keys is limited to what matrix you can build with 5 wires + GND. CX85 maxes this out, pretty much. Can you explain exactly what you have in mind with this?

So @XL Freak we need to adopt the CX85 keys (not the layout, just the set of keys). That means Enter also is the + key, there are no ()*/, there are yes and no keys, an escape, a delete and no insert. The direction pad is really a joystick (doesn't replicate the keyboard's arrows without special software). We need a fire key close to the directions. The idea with the concept above is that the CX85 stuff is using one of the joystick ports, and the directional pad the other. It's pretty neat. I think we can still repeat the DB9 plugs on the right of the unit to plug regular joysticks. Since all this is basically passive switches, that should work without having to add switches to toggle between internal and external circuits. All in a way that's compatible with the existing hardware.

Quick and dirty concept sketch. This what you had in mind?

If anybody wants to donate one, I'll bite 😅

Technically you can, but the results are too inconsistent. Also, I'm trying to stop printing the resin parts myself (it's too messy and doesn't scale) and externalize them. 3D printing services don't have much choices in terms of color. Now if you want to give that a try, you absolutely can, I'm happy to point you to the right files on the repo.

Yes, there are kits available, and I can give you a custom quote if there are components you prefer to order yourself. The PCBs come with LEDs, anti-ghosting diodes and resistors already mounted. You still have to solder the power LED and connector.

You'd need to find a resin that exact shade, which is much harder than finding the right paint. Other ideas: vinyl stickers What this guy's been doing. Tricky but the results are great: https://mobile.twitter.com/mozzwald/status/1413322334287564803

While I'm waiting for the parts to build the pre-orders, I've been doing some paint tests for function keys. First, I'll say that painting those is way too much work, and for now at least y'all will have to do it on the white 3D-printed parts that will come with the kits and assembled keyboards (if you went for modern caps). OK, so here are some results: I put this next to my newest XE case (new-old stock from Best) for reference. There's also a Start key from an old-new stock keyboard on the bottom and a slightly more yellowed vintage Help key next to it which is a retrobrighted key from my childhood 130XE. Then on top, we have two caps printed in filament (which is why they look like crap in terms of texture), with a coat of primer and an airbrushed layer of Tamiya Medium Sea Gray 2 acrylic model paint. This paint is pretty spot-on in terms of tint (I guess you could try adding a liiitle bit of yellow to match the vintage plastics), and exists both in liquid cans (pictured) and spray can forms. This paint is very easy to find in model shops (got mine from my local Hobby Lobby). Under those, we have two resin-printed caps that got the exact same treatment but look way better in terms of texture (they are pretty much perfect in that regard). Those don't have a varnish / protection layer, but it would definitely be a good idea to finalize the look and protect the paint from continued usage. Finally on the right, you can also see an interesting result from some grey filament that I had around and that I used to print this prototype JoyKey Mini case. Texture is bad of course, this is untreated filament, but the color is pretty good. In case you're wondering, I don't know of a resin that would be a good match without painting. The one I have is way too blu-ish. Another thing is the legends. I attempted to apply some white paint with a needle and it was a failure (as you can see). The paint makes the relief of the legend too undefined and the trick I used before on the clear red caps of applying acrylic and then wiping out the excess just won't work once you've painted the caps. I think the only thing that will work in the end will be either laser engraving (I don't know, maybe there's a way to set the laser just at the right power to remove the coat of paint and reveal the white resin underneath), or some kind of printer (sublimation?). Another thing I'm considering is filling the legend "holes" with something, maybe some kind of paste, wiping the excess, then paint over it and finally carefully removing the extra matter from the holes with a blade or something. Seems like a lot of work and I'm not sure that would not damage the paint around the legend. If somebody has other ideas, I'd love to hear them. So yeah, that's it for this post. Summary: the pre-orders will have white function keys and it'll be left as an exercise to each recipient to figure out what they want to do about them. Of course, if you're using vintage caps, you won't have to solve that problem.