Has anyone seen an Osborne keyboard like this?

[Klee]

I was putting together the mechanical keyboard kit I bought for my Osborne 1 and decided to look at the insides of the two other keyboards I have.

Both are Oasborne 1A's

Pic of all three:



The bottom one caught my eye because its completely different than the two other keyboards I have and is unlike any that I have seen before.

More pics:

 

[Klee]

The outer case is the same but the internals are completely different.

There is no manufactures name that I could see only what looks like a date sticker.

The board, switches, key caps, keyboard wiring connector and the location for it are all completely different.

It does not look like a membrane keyboard at all since the black box shaped key switches mount directly to the board with only a clear plastic sheet in between them.

I did not disassemble it completely tho.

For those wondering :
The Osborne 1 serial number is A 147XX

The Osborne 1A for the middle keyboard is serial number is NA 247xxx

The Osborne 1A with the blue keyboard innards is NA 243xxx

 

[Klee]

Started to take it apart and found a manufacturers name on it.

TEC INC.
MEK-30041
ASM IN MEXICO

MEK = MEchanical Keyboard?




Will post more pics.

There are zero results when I search google for this.

 

[Klee]

This is definitely a mechanical keyboard.

I ordered a mechanical keyboard kit and I had one all along.

 

[Klee]

Very unusual design, the key switches are in units and also some are individual.

The individual switches interlock with each other and with the larger units sort of like wood flooring does.

The return key cap has what looks like two switches, one maybe just a dummy.

The space bar and the return key has a external spring between the key caps and the switch housings.

The caps lock has a separate external rod/spring.

I'm posting a lot of pics so not 56k friendly.

 

[Klee]

More pics.

 

[Klee]

More pics.

 

[Klee]

More.

 

[Klee]

More.

 

[Klee]

I think I will use this on my Osborne 1 instead of the mechanical keyboard kit I just assembled.

It would work better since its hard to keep the ribbon cable from pressing the keys during storage and this keyboard does not have a membrane so it would not suffer from the stuck key issue.

Also I tried to remove a couple of the individual switches but they just did not want to come off easy and I did not want to break this keyboard.

 

[kc4bqk]

very interesting. I wish I had one.

 

[Klee]

very interesting. I wish I had one.

I wish they were more common, then maybe I could have some info on it.

Web search so far has zero hits.

Anyway its working perfectly in my Osborne 1.

 

[kc4bqk]

Are the key switches straight and the key caps give it an offset?

 

[Klee]

Are the key switches straight and the key caps give it an offset?

Not really an offset but tilted away from the user,

 

[kc4bqk]

That should do the same with my keyboard I would think. It is a mechanical one already so it should not matter anyway.

 

[Moonferret]

The construction looks a lot like the RFI keyboard found on later Apple II+ machines.

Apple II - Deskthority wiki

deskthority.net

 

[Klee]

The construction looks a lot like the RFI keyboard found on later Apple II+ machines.

Apple II - Deskthority wiki

deskthority.net

Yes it does.

Thanks for the link.

 

[booboo]

I missed this thread. I just came into the same keyboard, came with an OCC1, serial number A04787. The plastic / aluminum sheets have delatimated, and warped. I've tied to use an iron to flatten and that has worked somehow, but likely need to reglue them together. Then test if the keys are ok, at least RETURN is working so far. Not convinced it's all ok yet. Seems like a much better keyboard than the FTM.

 

[booboo]

Adding a picture with keycaps (2 missing are being repaired as they have broken pieces in the stem connection). It has the solid arrows, as opposed to outline arrows on my OCC1A with FTM.

 

[Klee]

SWEET!! Now there are two.

I guess the easiest way to ID them is to look for the solid instead of outlined arrow keys.

Now I no longer worry about stuck keys from the ribbon cable since its not a membrane type keyboard.

On mine the black and aluminum sheets did the same thing, its not an issue at all as long as there is enough of the original sticky stuff to keep them in place and once you install it into the keyboard case you just can't tell.