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Radio Shack Part No. 275-1422 Keyboard


Caterpiggle

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23 hours ago, Turbo-Torch said:

1977 catalog page 94. 

Generic keyboard for projects.

 

 

rs.jpg

Thank you for your search and found the match number 275-1422 but it is still NOT match what I have it. Please look at the photo below. There you go. The box front generic keyboard is not match to that black keyboard. So I want to know which exactly terminals that are using the very same keyboard below.

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1 hour ago, Caterpiggle said:

Thank you for your search and found the match number 275-1422 but it is still NOT match what I have it. Please look at the photo below. There you go. The box front generic keyboard is not match to that black keyboard. So I want to know which exactly terminals that are using the very same keyboard below.

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Does it have the foam & foil contacts under keys?  That would be Keytronic in a nutshell.

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On 9/12/2020 at 3:45 PM, Caterpiggle said:

No foam or foil contacts , nothing. Just bare plastic. Keytronic may be but which terminals or computers that using the exactly same keyboard above. It does not even have flat ribbon cable, nothing.

No circuit board?  That's really weird

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30 minutes ago, Caterpiggle said:

There you go ! Just tiny metal pins below the key caps. Yes, 2 pins each. At least can you tell me which terminals using that kind "unique" keyboard style ?

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Those look like solder connections. 
I've never seen a circuitboardless keytronc, but if you pull a keycap (carefully) I'm still betting it has a little piece of foam with some foil glued to it.
 

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I wonder if that keyboard was originally designed for something like a teletype.

 



Some teleprinters had a "Here is" key, which transmitted a fixed sequence of 20 or 22 characters, programmable by breaking tabs off a drum. This sequence could also be transmitted automatically upon receipt of an ENQ (control E) signal, if enabled. This was commonly used to identify a station; the operator could press the key to send the station identifier to the other end, or the remote station could trigger its transmission by sending the ENQ character, essentially asking "who are you?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleprinter#Control_characters

 

 

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RS probably stuck whatever overstock they had at the time in that box.  I think I bought a Coleco Adam keyboard from RS for a few dollars.

 

Since there's a few unlabeled keys, they were probably assignable for a data terminal.  It would be interesting to see a key cap removed.  The key shape and large character font looks just like a Model I Hi-Tek version.

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  • 5 weeks later...
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On 9/11/2020 at 4:26 PM, Turbo-Torch said:

Generic keyboard for projects.

A "HERE IS" key firmly indicates it was made for a serial terminal. It also has a different layout than the photo. They probably had different keyboards at different times and just reused the same packaging. Note the shift 8/9/0 keys, this an "ASCII layout" where the shift key merely does an XOR 10H, for easier hardware encoding. The TRS-80 also had that. In fact this is almost but not quite an ADM-3A layout, with an extra column, and a (probably mechanical) CAPS LOCK key.
 

Being a big slab block like that means it's a Hi-Tek keyboard. The original Model I keyboard was one of those. They can bounce a bit and be troublesome to repair, but they have a nice feel and sound. Over many years the square plungers will split and get stuck. I've had a couple of old terminals (ADM-3A and H-19) with Hi-Tek keyboards that I've fixed with donor plungers from some old spare keyboards I have. Also the key caps come off with no trouble. Odd that it seems to have no wide keys, only a single 1.5-wide TAB key. Maybe they scrounged some key caps from another surplus source, and there were no 2.0-wide keys left.

 

I also have a gray TI-99 keyboard still in the RS peg-hang bag with Alps (mechanical) keys, and I know they also at some point sold surplus Adam keyboards. (with I / II / III / IV keys)

 

On 10/16/2020 at 2:16 PM, Barry968 said:

I am looking for just such a keyboard for a 1970's computer project I am working on. Would you be willing to part with the keyboard. It would be going to a good home.

I guess you can't get more 70s than using a Hi-Tek, since that's what the ADM-3A used. But if I was going to make one myself I'd use Cherry switches from Amazon, the main problem is that the pins have a .25" spacing in one dimension, which is not breadboard/protoboard friendly, so you would have to find or make a circuit board for your layout. I'm seriously considering some for an ET-3400 type project. The Cherry clone keys with [+] shaped shafts can work with key caps that have circle shafts. You can get those keys from a particular era of Apple keyboard (late '00s?) with an awful dome mechanism. (I have a few where the space bar doesn't work, I could maybe even re-use the electronics)

 

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