On 9/13/16 6:19 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
> One of the great things about vintage mechanical keyboards is that > they can be acquired very cheaply indeed. ;-) > This posting must have been trapped in a time warp since 1996 :-) I've been working on archiving documentation and firmware from microprocessor based CRT terminals for a couple of months, since I realized they are disappearing the same way CRT monitors have. Besides the surviving examples looking like they have been stored in a cow barn for 20 years, they (almost) never come with a keyboard if it was detachable. This is bad enough that I've been thinking of building a serial protocol converter for Televideo and Qume terminals for Wyse keyboards, which you can still find for a painful but not absurdly high price. Unfortunately, the guys building new Cherry keyboards fabricate new keytops for Windows extended keyboards, and not ASCII (ie. VT-100 style) or ANSI (VT-220 style) so unless you want to spring the cash to have 500 sets of keytops made, you can't even make a practical replacement. I did do the Snoopy Dance this weekend, though, when I found an Esprit at the flea market for $20. Pics and firmware dumps up on bitsavers under hazeltine/esprit now.