Keycap Standards Variations

[UNIXcoffee928]

A while back we discussed the different variations of the keyboards, themselves, that were used in Atari systems. In some cases, there were many different keyboards used, even for the same model Atari.

 

What wasn't discussed was the physical mating portion of the keycaps, on the different models, and on their variants. There are many different ways that a keycap can mate onto a switch plunger, & I was wondering if any of the dissimilar models had perfectly compatible keycaps.

 

Being that the 800, XLs, XEs, XEGSs, and STs all had keys that were all molded in different colors, it would be kinda interesting to make some Frankenstein variations... like white keys on a 600XL, or white, gray, and black keys for different parts of the keyboard... things like that. If I had one of every system, I could just start plucking them off to check & test... but I don't .

 

I took a picture of the underside of the keycaps from my 800 and CX85 Keypad. As you can see, they have clearly different, incompatible designs. It would be interesting to see what some of the other models looked like, if you want to take a quick pic of your system's keycap, it would help to document this hitherto unexplored area of Atari design.