[HN Gopher] ZX81 Mechanical Keyboard
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ZX81 Mechanical Keyboard
Author : zoenolan
Score : 96 points
Date : 2023-06-13 20:13 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| realjhol wrote:
| I always wondered, what do the black and white square icons mean?
| swetland wrote:
| The ZX80 and ZX81, like a number of 80s personal computers
| featured a set of graphical characters in addition to standard
| alphanumeric and punctuation and provided a way to enter then
| directly from the keyboard. On the Sinclair machines you'd use
| SHIFT + GRAPH to enter "graphics mode."
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Commodor...
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Atari-13...
| duskwuff wrote:
| They're box drawing characters. The markings on the keyboard
| are what they looked like on screen.
| dfawcus wrote:
| A bit nicer than the one I did for a ZX80 many years ago.
|
| I simply stripped the membrane key layer off the PCB, and
| soldered a set of mechanical key caps in place. It worked, and
| was a lot nicer to use.
|
| The key caps were clear (and removable), so I placed pieces of
| paper with the various symbols under them.
| rwmj wrote:
| Looks fantastic!
|
| Just FYI there was a full travel keyboard for the ZX81 back in
| the day (and I own one):
|
| http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/hardware/dkTronicsKeyboard
| https://t-lcarchive.org/dktronics-keyboard/
|
| I should get it out and take some good photos ...
| buescher wrote:
| Nice. In the US, I definitely remember seeing kits (perhaps
| loosely defined) of surplus keyboards and instructions for
| adapting them to the ZX81. A friend's dad who had built his
| ZX81 from a kit added a keyboard that way. Just little later on
| I think surplus TI/99 keyboards became the go to mod for anyone
| who was still running a ZX81/TS1000.
| kjs3 wrote:
| I recall seeing an Eastern Block manufactured ZX81 clone with a
| mechanical keyboard back in the day, and a couple of different
| Soviet era ZX81s with not-mechanical-but-vastly-improved
| keyboards. Seems like they _really_ liked to clone the ZX81
| behind the Iron Curtain.
|
| That said, really isn't new. Lots of people took ZX's and
| modded them with new keyboards, bigger cases (better thermals &
| PS), better mechanical connection for expansion ports, etc.
| tpmx wrote:
| I had this one piece "keyboard upgrade":
|
| https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/36030/Sinclair-ZX81-...
|
| It's debatable if it improved things or not. Must have been
| really cheap to manufacture though.
| pmontra wrote:
| Does it enclose the ZX81 or is it connected to the expansion
| bus, the one we used for the extra RAM card?
| rwmj wrote:
| It entirely encloses the ZX81 and the RAM pack. Which is an
| issue because when myself and my father originally fitted it
| (back in probably 1982) we threw away the original "doorstop"
| shell of the ZX81 designed by Rick Dickenson
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Dickinson).
| nickcw wrote:
| That is a sweet keyboard.
|
| It is rather better than my homemade one from 1982
|
| https://twitter.com/njcw/status/1368566103933337603
|
| My dad gave me a old keyboard from something and I traced the
| zx81 PCB to discover how it was wired, then rewired the new
| keyboard the same.
|
| I connected it by burning a hole in the case with my soldering
| iron to poke the wires through!
|
| It was a dream compared to the membrane keyboard.
| rwmj wrote:
| What's the keyboard from?
| nickcw wrote:
| I don't remember I'm afraid. My dad ran a business making
| keyboards at the time and he was always bringing home
| keyboards he'd bought to examine.
|
| When he was through examining them I got to play!
| daguil68367 wrote:
| Definitely looks to be from a DEC terminal of some kind,
| based from the switches and layout :D
| [deleted]
| cpcallen wrote:
| This is definitely tidier than the mechanical keyboard I had for
| my ZX81--build by a friend in the early '80s and purchased by me
| circa 1994!--which had keycaps which were more or less
| photocopies of the picture of the keyboard in the manual that had
| been photocopied and glued onto the keys of some ancient surplus
| terminal keyboard, with a healthy dose varnish to protect the
| paper on top and a lot of kludging of the PCB underneath to
| configure it to scan the same as the ZX81 membrane keyboard.
| swetland wrote:
| Somewhat amusingly, the keycaps were the most expensive
| component ($60 plus shipping), second most expensive being the
| keyswitches. I really wanted something that captured all the
| information presented by the original keyboard and also fit on
| keycaps and am pretty happy with the result.
| IvyMike wrote:
| Brian's entire ZX81 reproduction project is wonderful:
| https://chaos.social/@swetland/tagged/zx81
| swetland wrote:
| I've had a lot of fun with this project, but want to be clear
| that the actual "replicate the ZX81 using discrete 74xx logic
| (like the ZX80) instead of the ULA chip" PCB design is the work
| of Mahjongg2 who has shared their work here:
|
| https://github.com/mahjongg2/ZX81plus38
|
| https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=254492
|
| https://revspace.nl/ZX81plus38_simple_to_build_ZX-81_clone
| mlhpdx wrote:
| My original, self-assembled a lifetime ago, ZX-81 sits on a shelf
| next to me as I update insane fleets of processing power on AWS.
| If I can get past the sentimentality of preserving it, the joy of
| dropping this keyboard on it might just get me to bring it back
| to life.
| nickt wrote:
| I have one of Davids, it's a nice keyboard. I also have one of
| the Memotech keyboards from back in the day - but in 1981 I was
| "enjoying" the membrane keyboard.
|
| David's whole website is a ZX81 adventure!
| https://www.zx81keyboardadventure.com/p/zx-key-support.html
| https://www.zx81keyboardadventure.com/
|
| Memotech Keyboard:
| https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/36275/Memotech-ZX81-...
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(page generated 2023-06-13 23:00 UTC)