This is a very minor thing compared to most of the projects here, but it was suggested I post it anyway.
Basically I got rid of the BAE, and its awful ink-stamped keycap, on my Avant Stellar (Northgate Omnikey Ultra clone/replacement) by adding an extra switch and doing some minor rewiring on the PC board.
There was already a punched hole in the plate where the guide pin socket for the BAE was located. I popped that out, made a drill guide from an extra switch, and drilled the two holes for the switch terminals. Actually two sets of holes, 180 degrees out, since the first set was partly off the ground plane. I sanded off the green solder mask around the pins, and scored through the copper to make two isolated pads. Soldered in the switch, ran two wires, and snapped on the new keycap. The backslash and ANSI enter were part of the Tai Hao Dolch set. I still need to split off the original backslash key and find a spot in the matrix where it will generate a valid and useful scan code, but this gets me most of the way there.
Far as I know all three generations of Northgate have the plate punched for this switch, as well as the Gen4/Avant, but I haven't yet checked the PC board on the earlier ones to see if the ground plane covers that area.
