A community for news, discussion, and showing off your mechanical keyboards
Keyboard from 2010 built by TG3 for a Siemens chemistry analyzer. I cleaned it up, added some weight to the bottom, and converted to USB. Cherry MX Black and PBT Dye-subbed DCS caps. Take a peek at what should be F9 and F10 (and are after conversion), as well as some of the keys above the numpad, which, tangentially, now has 5 keys that do absolutely nothing related to what's written on them.
Love that capslock led. It always irritates me that the visual feedback for capslock is on the opposite side of the keyboard than the actual capslock.
Yeah I agree it's bad from a UX point of view. I think the likely reason is adding an LED in the key itself is more expensive.
Like my first keyboard, the TI99/4A had the caps lock LED in the same position. I always found it irritating to look for it elsewhere.
Hey, TI99/4a bro!
That was also my first computer. Did you have the sweet voice synthesizer that sounded kinda like the AI from Wargames?
Nope, could not afford that. I didn't even have a casette player to save what I wrote on that machine, at least at the beginning.
Aww, that's too bad. It was a total gimmick, but it was actually used by a lot of the (very subpar) games. Later in the TI99/4a life they were selling it super cheap or bundling it with games, which is how we got it. You could even get it to saw words directly from TI BASIC.
That's probably intended for touch-typists.
Also, I don't touch-type, but the CAPS-Lock LED on the button seems to be always hidden by my hands, making me consider the original positioning to be a good idea.
Of course, before actually using a keyboard with the LED on the key, I used to consider this better.
Nobody touch types caps lock.
I admit I don't get bothered by it really, but I can certainly understand the preference, and it adds visual interest. The placement is kind of interesting, as Cherry MX switches (and some Alps) are made accommodate an LED threaded through the switch housing. This was specifically for on-key indicator lamps, but it evolved over time to our current situation with per-key LED lighting.
Looking at the keyboard before reading the text I thought "Oh, a keybord from a chemical or biological lab equipment".
And there are a lot more keys not doing anything related to the text on them, I'd say.
Fun project: Just make them send the key's lettering as a string of letters.
Oh yes. Converting this one was interesting. HERE is what it actually does. the "na" keys still send the original combo codes because the particular conversion firmware I use ran out of room.
Hello I would like to visit your shop
Ahh, but is it a FUN keyboard, or a narc keyboard?
It's s keyboard that allows Walgreens pharmacies to operate at the speed of fossilization. Greatly upsetting the very patient and kind customer base who don't bother to check for their messages informing them their drugs are ready for pick-up.
Ask me how I know
I hear meth is a hell of a key.
To quote Jenna Maroney, "they contain a little bit of meth which is something my body needs anyway."
Cock and Meth?
SMASH that p8 until your eyes dilate
god bless this meth.
bleth
How did you convert it? Slapped on a standard PS2 to USB converter, or something fancier?
In the picture you can just make out the Pro Micro "Soarer's Converter," which I flashed to use a firmware that includes the VIAL graphical configurator. I then taped that old Micro-USB cable to secure it and stuffed the whole thing into the case.
Hardware wise, this is a simple PS/2 to USB conversion, but because it was made for a bit of commercial lab equipment, the software side got a little weird, almost like it was high on something, LOL. The numpad doesn't include the usual math operators, NumLock is non-existent (and in fact this keyboard forcibly turns it back on if you find a way to turn it off), there's no Windows/Super key (not uncommon on older designs), 34 of the keys above the main clusters actually send combined keys (F9+A through F9+Z, then F10+A through F10+H). Someone else had already figured out that using F9 and F10 as your "layer switch" or "Function" keys is the way to unlock that, so I did the same. I only had one extra layer (plus two "Combo" keys) to play with, so I was only able to convert 28 of the 34, but those 28 now do pretty normal stuff: F keys, navigation keys, media keys, etc.
The other quirk is that, while the slightly longer spacebars (7 key "units", versus the usual 6.25) are not rare for keyboard nerds, the stabilizer rod for this one is on slightly nonstandard spacing, so I'm stuck with it until I can source another one. Luckily, the caps themselves are pretty decent.
Nice, been a while since I saw someone needing a Soarer's converter.
I prefer RP2040 stuff when I make a keyboard, but (most) Pro Micros use 5v I/O, while the RP2040 uses 3.3V. XT/AT keyboards also run at 5V. That means it's generally just easier on these conversions to stick with the tried and true, and people have managed to cram VIAL builds onto the memory footprint, which makes it even better.
I'm only had to do this sort of thing with my Model F XTs (my AT works with a standard passive AT->ps/2 adapter->usb adapter). RP2040s weren't even a thing when I was playing with this stuff, but I don't doubt there are some great QoL improvements.
CONTROL
Yeah, that Control key is like the opposite of the Severance keyboards.
Reminds me of the original Amiga computers.
Agreed. Many Amigas had a shape and color scheme that was fairly similar.
