T+A Gabriele 7007L caps

[Kurk]

I've recently found a Triumph+Adler Gabriele 7007L electric typewriter in a shed on a garden party and I just knew that the caps had to be Cherry MX compatible. And gorgeous caps they were: thick PBT dye-subbed ones. Dark blue lettering on light grey with light blue alternative legends.
The space bar wouldn't fit on modern keyboards and the modifier keys of a typewriter obviously are different from computer keyboards. Besides that, the key spacing seems to be different so there is a slightly larger gap between the keys. Furthermore, the caps are in genuine Dutch layout

Gabriele 7007L (Dutch)

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Close up

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Thick caps.
MY-like switches but with higher resistance.

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Here's how they look on a MX11800 board. There might be keyboards that look prettier and have better matching colour schemes but this was the best fit available to me.

Caps on MX11800

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A Cherry surprise hidden in the guts of the typewriter: A vintage MX White (80 cN).

Surprise!

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[mintberryminuscrunch]

awesome find,
no more replies since everyone is searching ebay for another one^^

[rodtang]

You should make a custom PCB for MX switches and make it an even better typewriter.

[Spharx]

I knew it ! Some moths ago I wanted to buy one of the T+A electrical typewriters too just to see if the caps would be of any value for my keyboards.
Can the two keycaps below the tab cap be used to replace Caps and ANSI Shift ? What is the purpose of the white mx switch ?

[tsangan]

Those are some gorgeous keycaps

[mintberryminuscrunch]

btw. from 1986-1994 TA was owned by Olivetti

[Grond]

btw. from 1986-1994 TA was owned by Olivetti

Amazing find and interesting information. One would assume the keycaps on this typewriter to be the same found on Olivetti-Cherry keyboards, but they're actually different – Olivetti blue dyesubs use nonstandard profile and font.

[Kurk]

I knew it ! Some moths ago I wanted to buy one of the T+A electrical typewriters too just to see if the caps would be of any value for my keyboards.
Can the two keycaps below the tab cap be used to replace Caps and ANSI Shift ?

The blank 1.75 u key can replace a center-stemmed CapsLock but the 2.25 u blanks won't fit on the left Cherry ANSI shift mounts. They do have three mounting points but the outer two are separated by ~26.1 mm while normal ANSI left shift mounting points are separated by 23.8 mm. Some weird imperial measures for sure (23.8 mm is very close to 15/16 inch). But there is hope: it should be possible to mount them on costar stabilizers if you shorten the ends of the stabilizing bar a bit.

What is the purpose of the white mx switch ?

The MX switch is getting activated if the typewheel sledge hits the left side of the typewriter after pressing carriage return.

btw. from 1986-1994 TA was owned by Olivetti

That explains the nice blue colour. Resembles those Olivetti caps.

[martinyeah]

very nice !

[Icarium]

As usual "they don't make 'em like they used to" applies...

[kbdfr]

Nice!

Also AEG Olympia typewriters may have MX compatible keycaps:
http://deskthority.net/photos-videos-f8 ... tml#p22605

But of course lasered legends can in no way compete with your amazing keycaps!

Edit: by the way, found a mechanical Privileg (i.e. Quelle) typewriter on Saturday at my local fleamarket. It had doubleshot white on grey keycaps pressed on the bars, but they were by no way compatible to anything without a lot of modding. Chose not to buy.

[IvanIvanovich]

Very nice looking. The typewriter has typing feeling like a MY keyboard then more or less? I found a similar model (after seeing your post) for a good price and actually wouldn't mind having a decent more modern typewriter, not only just harvest the nice dyesub keycap from. I only have quite old typewriters from 1920's and you really have to hammer on them to get it to produce letters which leads to fatigue very fast. Even MY switch would be welcome in comparison.

[Kurk]

Yes, very MY-like. They are a bit stiffer than MYs and feel even more unpleasant when bottoming out. BTW, according to the all-knowing wiki, the Gabriele 7007 was a cheaper (i.e. more plastic) version of T+A's first traveling typewriter, the 8008.
I have also written a few pages on it before harvesting the caps. It's kind of fun, all that noise. These electronic typewriters already had some interesting features like centered layout, setting tabulator positions, auto-indent, word memory etc.

edit:
Coming back to the switches, I now would say that the black and the white MYs have the same actuation force and feel rather similar BUT: the black ones slide down more smoothly when hit off-centre.

[IvanIvanovich]

Turns out the TA 'Satellite' I have my eye on has Cherry MX clears or maybe whites like your models sole MX switch... double bonus. Now I just need to get motivated to go around and collect the thing.

[IvanIvanovich]

Picked up this beauty today finally. Since it did not work I talked the seller down to $10. Unfortunately due to it's size I have already torn out the keyswitch pcb and dumped the rest of it, since I would have had nowhere to store this gargantuan.
Not only does it have the lovely blue legend dye subs with only few unusable keys the enter, left shift and the large square keys on the far left. It has a previously unknown to me type of Cherry MX. They are a white linear switch just a tiny bit lighter than vintage blacks but a little heavier than reds. They do have an oddity in that the stems are about 1mm taller than standard. They are very very nice feeling.
I will post some more detailed pictures of what is left of it once I have it cleaned up and presentable.

Huge thanks to Kurrk for posting theirs, or I would have never even looked for one of these.

[Kurk]

Now that's a typewriter! It's clearly not a portable model
Nice caps you have there, even a few windowed ones. Now I am curious to see more of this MX switch of yours.

[Ascaii]

The loewe BTX board of mine seems to share the same linear white switch.

[IvanIvanovich]

Finally got around to taking some proper photos of mine:

[damorgue]

Is that some sort of heightened MX Clear?

[IvanIvanovich]

No, they are actually a linear switch but they are taller than usual.

[damorgue]

Are the caps fully compatible with normal height switches? I mean, is it just to add the height or do they interfere with the switch casing if normal stems are used? The stem-fitting of the cap looks to be flat with the cap itself and should then be compatible.

[IvanIvanovich]

Keycaps are normal, can put the dyesubs on something else or something else on these white switch. They just have like a booster seat I guess lol. The length of the stem from the little platform is standard to other MX.

[damorgue]

That enter might take the next award for HUGE-ASS-ENTER. Interesting switches, wonder wen they stopped making them. What year was yours made?

[IvanIvanovich]

I don't know, I am guessing sometime in the 80's. Yes the enter is gigantic, it's so big the stabilizer is diagonal... lol.

[Spharx]

My Gabriele 110 arrived ... it's not MX compatible
8€ gone
Compared to Kurrk's typewriter it has a little bit darker blue font. Watch out what you are buying

[Icarium]

Spharx: What kind of switch does it have?

[Spharx]

Foil & two Springs

Spoiler:

[Ascaii]

For your information, that is an Amstrad switch board.

[IvanIvanovich]

Found some more, TA 510 I got just arrived... turns out to be brown dyesub with orange sublegends. The base color is of course yet a different color than anything else I have :rolleyes:
More of those awesome linear white switches though, so I am still pretty pleased. Now I just need to do a good cleaning.




I also found another model in green which I have on the way.

[Findecanor]

Oh, I have got to check out typewriters now...