Hi Jules, Oh, no worries - I'd have taken it in this condition whether or not you were aware of the issues. After all, it +was+ a gift, and a very generous one at that; not just in terms of materiel, but in terms of your time spent, as well.
On the bright side, I may be able to send you some bootable media, if you still need it. Another kind cctalk'er sent me a pair of bootable O1 discs, one DBASEII and one WordStar. I figure I'll go the solvent flush route, using tri-chlor, and see where that goes. But honestly, I don't know what could be causing so many 'stuck' keys on this thing! One would hope for (easily clear-able) contaminants, but it might be more than that. As a previous poster noted, he felt it may be due to the cord keeping several keys depressed during storage. That might be worth investigating, if I can find a kb matrix map in the (incomplete!) service docs. As ever, my fear is that the materials won't withstand the solvent, even if it's tri-chlor, and I'll end up washing away every hope of survival. Water might be OK, but I'd have to grab a couple gals of distilled first. Ultimately, the dreaded R&R is the option. Not sure if I have the patience... -L On Mon, Aug 24, 2015 at 8:27 PM, Jules Richardson < [email protected]> wrote: > On 08/23/2015 03:28 AM, drlegendre . wrote: > >> Howdy gents, >> >> Working away on the recently acquired Osborne 1. Seems there's something >> wrong with the KB - and if I didn't know better, I'd say it's a case of >> shorted contacts. >> >> The KB connector is 24 pins, double row header like a short floppy or IDE >> header. >> >> On the KB side, there are two "shorted" groups of pins. Group one is 2X >> shortred pins, group two is 5X shorted pins. >> > > I just prodded mine with a meter, and the only continuity I get is between > pins 2 and 23 (numbered as follows, looking into the keyboard connector, > with the cable exiting toward the right) > > _____________________________________ > | nc 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 nc nc | > | nc 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 nc |====== > ------------------------------------- > > Thing is, this KB is not really built to be serviced, best as I can tell. >> > > Yeah, I just opened the case on mine, and it's a pretty nasty design - > cheap as possible :-( Wish I'd tried that keyboard on my system now so you > knew it had problems! > > With such limited access, I don't see many avenues other than flushing with >> solvent(s) and hoping for the best. >> > > Yeah, I'd do that first - or maybe soapy water followed by a flush with > distilled, then leave it for a week or so to dry. Can't hurt. > > If that doesn't work... break the melted plastic bits off, take the thing > apart, clean the membrane. Reassemble and put blobs of glue where the > melted plastic bits were. If you have a drill press, counter-sink the holes > on the underside of the metal plate first; it'll give the glue more plastic > to adhere to. > > If gluing doesn't work out... urgh. The switch bodies do seem to have a > little lip around the edges where they rest up against the membrane, so it > would be possible to slot metal bars down between the rows (secured at > either end somehow to the metal 'baseplate' below) in order to keep the > switches from falling out - but it would certainly be a bit of a project! > > Nasty keyboard, though! I expect mine will go the same way at some point :/ > > cheers > > Jules > >
