Televideo 950 keyboard

snuci · 18 Oct 2015, 19:42

Here's the keyboard from my Televideo 950 terminal. I saw mentions of it and some pics but I thought I'd post some pics. The key switches appear to be Futaba Simplified Linear. I was surprised when I opened the keyboard because I thought it was a re-badged Lear Siegler but the circuit board in the keyboard is marked Televideo.

Anyway, here are some pics of this terminal keyboard for reference:

: Televideo 950 - exterior top; Televideo 950 - exterior top.jpg (408.17 KiB) Viewed 3169 times

: Televideo 950 - exterior bottom; Televideo 950 - exterior bottom.jpg (358.89 KiB) Viewed 3169 times

: Televideo 950 - exterior profile; Televideo 950 - exterior profile.jpg (395.14 KiB) Viewed 3169 times

: Televideo 950 - exterior side profile; Televideo 950 - exterior side profile.jpg (322.77 KiB) Viewed 3169 times

: Televideo 950 - interior top; Televideo 950 - interior top.jpg (415.11 KiB) Viewed 3169 times

: Televideo 950 - interior back of keyboard; Televideo 950 - interior back of keyboard.jpg (458.41 KiB) Viewed 3169 times

: Televideo 950 - interior of keyboard; Televideo 950 - interior of keyboard.jpg (376.94 KiB) Viewed 3169 times

: Televideo 950 - interior side profile; Televideo 950 - interior side profile.jpg (306.29 KiB) Viewed 3169 times

: Televideo 950 - interior bottom profile; Televideo 950 - interior bottom profile.jpg (288.14 KiB) Viewed 3169 times

: Televideo 950 - key switches; Televideo 950 - key switches.jpg (320.02 KiB) Viewed 3169 times

: Televideo 950 - key caps; Televideo 950 - key caps.jpg (263.6 KiB) Viewed 3169 times

zslane · 18 Oct 2015, 19:48

Very nice!

The TVI-950 (or was it the TVI-925? I can never remember) was the second terminal that I used back in the day. I remember the keys having much less travel than those on the CDC-713 I used prior to it. It felt so strange to me at the time, but I got used to it.

How would you characterize the key travel on that keyboard (compared to switches of today), snuci?

snuci · 18 Oct 2015, 20:44

zslane wrote: How would you characterize the key travel on that keyboard (compared to switches of today), snuci?

You are correct, it's not a lot but I have a few keyboards so it's hard for me to judge what normal key travel is. Here's a couple of pics that might help:

: Televideo 950 - key up; Televideo 950 - key up.jpg (216.38 KiB) Viewed 3150 times

: Televideo 950 - key down; Televideo 950 - key down.jpg (198.13 KiB) Viewed 3150 times

Muirium · 18 Oct 2015, 23:00

Ah, complicated Futaba linears. Thanks for reminding me about these, as I'd quite forgotten that the good Mr. Beardsmore had sent me an interesting wee collection of various vintage switches, including a handful of these. Mine are the black and orange variety you can see in his wiki shots. But as one of the captions says: the colours don't tell you the switch type. The difference is in the shape:

Complex Futaba linears have the slider oriented perpendicular to the two long sides of the switch top. (Left) The later simplified switch rotated that view 90 degrees, so they go with the flow. (Right) Which means that your white switches are just as complex as my blacks.

They're a pretty heavy linear switch with quite short travel. Pushing one, slider to slider, against an MX black easily proves the Futaba is heavier. Their travel isn't so obviously different to me, but I'll go by Daniel's word. It's certainly no longer than the standard 4 mm of MX and so many other switches. Incidentally, they're among the most handsome of the switches in my collection. The pins in particular are excellent (they screw in, apparently) compared to the bendy nonsense you'll find elsewhere. A true vintage switch, in size and quality.

Nice find, as always! This board has shown up on DT before, but not nearly as clean and well shot. Good on you.