ScreamingAtTheRadio

Quick little video of the stabilizers on the new boards:

Here's the photo of the white and beige versions that I uploaded a while back. Imagine that with ISO return, and small differences such as control to the left of space and caps where control normally is. I don't have a photo of the graphite yet.

Addendum to the above form if you want new key caps... The new key caps are a little different in layout (shorter space bar with control and break around it, ISO return key, wide delete) but fit in the XE case's keyboard outline. You have an additional choice on color: you can have them in: ( ) White (clean look - comes with gray letters) ( ) Beige (stock look - comes with gray letters) ( ) Graphite (Atari Falcon030 look - white letters)

The boards I have today are all destined for prototyping / testing. When I'm done with them I may sell them, but for now let's do this... If you want one or several boards, please fill the following form and send it to me by PM (do not answer this thread directly) and I'll give you an itemized quote. The idea is for me to do an initial small batch before I make a more official call for orders on a new thread. Expect a substantial delay, those will be ordered and assembled on-demand, and I have a day job If you want more than one, that's perfectly fine, just tell me how many. [ ] I have key caps ( ) They are vintage caps with the square style ( ) They are vintage caps with the circle style [ ] I would like a set of the new key caps [ ] I need an adapter ( ) FFC (flexible flat cable) ( ) IDC (IDE/floppy-style ribbon cable, takes more space) [ ] I need a cable ( ) FFC ( ) IDC [ ] I need switches (pick one of the low-profile options for vintage caps, MX for new caps) ( ) Gateron low-pro; specify color: ____ (blue are clicky) ( ) RedDragon low-pro; specify color: ____ (blue are clicky) ( ) Kailh Choc low-pro; specify color: ____ (teal are great clicky switches) ( ) Kailh Box (MX); specify color: ___ (pink are great clicky switches) ( ) Other MX switches, specify: ____ [ ] I want an aluminum plate [ ] I want a USB adapter [ ] Include a Pi Pico [ ] Please solder everything for me My shipping address is: ____ While we're talking about shipping stuff: [ ] I'm also interested in one of your JoyKey Atari-compatible direction pads that behave like a regular joystick and can plug directly into an Atari computer ( ) 4 direction keys and one fire ( ) 4 direction keys, three fire buttons and two paddles

They are here... together with a long week-end to check everything works as expected. I checked the backlighting real fast... It works

... and the Ponoko laser-cut plate showed up today as well: It's nice but frankly, the price difference isn't justified so I'll recommend the Al PCB.

ugh, laser-cut acrylic. Bad idea. Acrylic is way too brittle for that sort of application.

Where can I buy those?

And unless your XE spends more time open than closed

Aluminum PCB plates just showed up, and they look glorious: In the same package, the USB adapters: The rest should be here in a few days.

... and here's the adapter for the circle-style vintage space bar: The bad news is that there doesn't seem to be a way to do the same thing for shift keys as there isn't enough clearance for a standard 2U Durock to fit. We'll have to stick to Costar for the shift keys, which is fine as these weren't so much of a problem as the space bar stabilizers were. I will have to do some light mods to the latest plate design though as this is where the Costars go and I've standardized too early on Durock.

Sure. I'll be doing all the building and shipping myself, so I should be able to ship pretty much anywhere.

While I'm waiting for the first prototype boards to arrive (should be here next week), here are some news. First, I added 3d models for Atari Fn keys without legend, with all Atari legends and also F1-12. I've tried a filament print for those, the general shape is fine but the legends don't come out great. I'm considering laser engraving for legends, we'll see, more experimentation coming. Those will be able to fit on both MX and low-profile switches. I'll also try a resin print when my resin printer has recovered from its latest spill (screen is dead). Also, I started the design of the stabilizer adapters. I've mentioned before how unsatisfied I was with how Costar stabilizers were working with the build. I've been working on adapters that fit on vintage Atari key caps and expose mounting holes for standard Duroc v2 stabilizers. For the moment, I have only the first design for the square style of Atari space bar, but I can already announce that it works brilliantly. I'm very happy with the result, proof of concept is done, and I'll move on to making similar adapters for shift keys and for circle-style caps. Here's a shot of the adapter with the stabilizer in place: Those will be very easy and cheap to print with filament, resin, or even to laser-cut. Also, now is probably as good a time as any to talk about next steps after the prototyping is done. I've spent a lot of time on this design over the past year or so (not quite alone, there's been fantastic contributions), and we're soon going to have great options for building drop-in replacement mechanical keyboards using both new and vintage caps for our beloved XEs. The designs are and will always remain open source so anybody can download the design files, build and mod them, do anything you want with them. I know there are also a lot of people in this community who can't or don't want to invest time in such a build and that's fine. For those of you in this category, or for those who want to build but don't want to source parts, or anyone in-between, I (and others) will offer partially or fully built keyboards. All options will be on the table and I'll make sure to have some sort of configurator so you can choose your options easily and in a non-confusing way. When this is ready to go, I'll announce it in a new pre-order thread. To be clear, I'm not trying to make a business out of this (there isn't one), just wanting to make my work accessible to whoever is interested with no barriers, and if it funds the (very expensive) hobby even a little bit, that's gravy.

Here's the latest SVG file for the plate, that I sent to Ponoko for fabrication in aluminum: https://github.com/bleroy/3d-junkyard/raw/le-clavier-xe/Atari130MX/DecentXE-plate-brd.svg

The prototypes have been ordered. They include the new plates, for which I've ordered both aluminum PCBs from JLCPCB and a laser-cut plate from Ponoko (prices have dropped for laser-cut metal and I want to compare quality and costs). They also include the new optional USB adapters: Most of the remaining design work is going to be 3D modeling (Duroc v2 adapters for vintage keys, Fn key models, and a couple surprises I'm still hiding up my sleeve).

Thank you so much for the suggestion, this is perfect. I swapped the fonts, and you should see the updated results above in the post where I put the images.

Yes, there will be opportunities to buy a set for the new design. I don't have any left of the previous designs that I'm ready to part with just yet.

Yes, the PCB and the plate designs are done, waiting for the end of the new year holidays in China to get prototypes fabricated. Now working on stabilizer adapters, flexible connector PCB and Pi Pico adapter board (which is not needed for use in an Atari). The PCBs will be fabricated with the ghosting diodes, resistors and LEDs surface-mounted at the factory, so assembly will just be your connector of choice, the power LED and the switches themselves. PCB front and back: Plate (only front, the back is a plain aluminum surface): The yellow parts really will be the exposed aluminum, we'll see what that really looks like when the prototypes come in. My latest work is in this branch, including fab files: https://github.com/bleroy/3d-junkyard/tree/le-clavier-xe/Atari130MX

My guess is that you had it fabricated in the standard 1.6mm thickness, which absolutely won't fit. You need them in 0.6 or 0.8mm, and then it'll fit very nicely. The stabilizers clip onto the plate, not the PCB (for the version that you have, future versions will use PCB-screwed Duroc v2 stabilizers, but even those will have easy access through the plate as it has the required cutout space). So you're fine.

You did nothing wrong. The plate holds the switches and then the switches are soldered onto the PCB, which should naturally ensure the distance between the plate and the PCB is sufficient and you won't get any shorts (plus, the solder is going to be on the other side of the board). You can use small vinyl washers as spacers too, and secure the whole thing with screws, but really, >80 switches are more than enough to ensure the cohesion of the assembly, so if a hole is missing, that's no big deal. I haven't revised the plate since the first revision of the keyboard, but it should still be fine (i.e. aligned switch holes). The reason I haven't updated it is that it's much more expensive than the aluminum PCB solution I found later. To assemble, you'll want to insert all the switches into the plate first, and only then solder the switches to the PCB.

The Fabrication folder should already have zip files that you can upload directly to JLCPCB. What I think happened is that you uploaded the whole folder containing multiple PCBs, thus confusing JLCPCB. Try again with the single zips that are already there. If in doubt, you can open them and view the files inside with a Gerber file viewer, but the JLCPCB web site should do just that. Make sure you select the right thickness for the adapter before you order, or it won't fit into the connector.

PM me.

They are standard OEM MX key caps.

And here's another progress report. This one is mostly @XL Freak's work getting sample caps, I only provided feedback and some of the glyphs. Those are new MX keycaps with an alternate layout that will fit into a regular XE case. It's not the final layout, but should give you an idea what to expect:

Yes, there are some lucky coincidences. I was able to group the pins in two groups that don't overlap, and that wasn't easy. Also, the only shapes you can use are circles and ovals, so that's also a nice constraint It even is all green in KiCad validation