Zenith ZTX-11-Z

[//gainsborough]

Hello once again, DT community!

I recently purchased a neat board from eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Zenith ... 2749.l2649

It arrived just yesterday, and I made the time tonight to take some pics of the board!



This board, is maybe hands down the coolest vintage piece I have. For those of you who haven't figured it out yet, I am very fond of Zenith. The very first vintage board I got back when Chyros' channel inspired me to get into the hobby was a yellow alps ZKB-2 - which I have since modefied with undampened cream alps. At some point, hopefully in the near future, I'll take a picture of all the Zenith boards I have! In the last week I've added two new ones to my collection as well! One was a board I traded for from Brett macK (thanks again, mate), and the other was this ZTX-11!

When it arrived in the mail it must have been thrown against one side of the box, because the entire right-column of keys were broken. The worst one was the backspace key, where the SKCC green switch was completely snapped.



So I set to work on taking the board apart!



The pic above is, stupidly, the only picture I took of the insides of the board....well, really it's a PC! It appears to have been made in 1983. I desoldered the right column of switches and used a spare pingmaster I have to replace the broken switches with!



The board is absolutely stunning in my eyes. The vintage look is defnitely strong with this one. What amazes me most about it is its overall condition. The inside was pristine clean with no dirt or dust anywhere to be found. The keycaps are 100% unused and still retain their original texture.



And, of course, the logo is immaculate! The zenith logo is far and away one of the coolest looking logos around!



Overall I'm extremly happy with this PC/keyboard combo. I would love to be able to somehow figure out how to use the keyboard portion of it with a modern PC, but at the same time I appreciate it as a display piece and for the piece of history that it is!



Hope you enjoyed this little write up about it! I also took a short video of what it sounds like for anyone that is interested!

Thanks for reading! On to the next project (I think many of you will really enjoy the next one I have!)

またね。

//gains.

[macboarder]

Oh wow, it definitely delivers on the looks and sounds department.

And it's also nice to learn where those originally came from

[arkanoid]

Very nice looking clean board. I think I am the glorious first viewer of the video (Youtube viewer count was 1). Anyway, sellers should learn how to ship keyboads safely. It is a common practice to fix broken keycaps/switches/case. Epoxy is our friend...

[Brett MacK]

Amazing board, you just can't beat that zenith badge. It's crazy how the chassis can make such a difference in sound. Listen to that board compared to a ping master and it is night and day. Congratz on your find, put it to good use

[Menuhin]

Handsome!
Touchtyping was not an early 20th century thing and mouse was not there either.
I like anything that is small enough to allow me to put my mouse / trackball right next to it without significantly raising my shoulder's ball-n-socket joint. Hope you can find a solution to replace or to repair the SKCC green stem at the backspace key.

[IKSLM]

Handsome!
... Hope you can find a solution to replace or to repair the SKCC green stem at the backspace key.

I desoldered the right column of switches and used a spare pingmaster I have to replace the broken switches with!

[Menuhin]

Handsome!
... Hope you can find a solution to replace or to repair the SKCC green stem at the backspace key.

I desoldered the right column of switches and used a spare pingmaster I have to replace the broken switches with!

I was looking for such info too. To call myself dyslexic is not too much I believe. Thanks.

[Polecat]

Hello once again, DT community!

I recently purchased a neat board from eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Zenith ... 2749.l2649

It arrived just yesterday, and I made the time tonight to take some pics of the board!

This board, is maybe hands down the coolest vintage piece I have. For those of you who haven't figured it out yet, I am very fond of Zenith. The very first vintage board I got back when Chyros' channel inspired me to get into the hobby was a yellow alps ZKB-2 - which I have since modefied with undampened cream alps. At some point, hopefully in the near future, I'll take a picture of all the Zenith boards I have! In the last week I've added two new ones to my collection as well! One was a board I traded for from Brett macK (thanks again, mate), and the other was this ZTX-11!

When it arrived in the mail it must have been thrown against one side of the box, because the entire right-column of keys were broken. The worst one was the backspace key, where the SKCC green switch was completely snapped.

So I set to work on taking the board apart!

The pic above is, stupidly, the only picture I took of the insides of the board....well, really it's a PC! It appears to have been made in 1983. I desoldered the right column of switches and used a spare pingmaster I have to replace the broken switches with!

The board is absolutely stunning in my eyes. The vintage look is defnitely strong with this one. What amazes me most about it is its overall condition. The inside was pristine clean with no dirt or dust anywhere to be found. The keycaps are 100% unused and still retain their original texture.

And, of course, the logo is immaculate! The zenith logo is far and away one of the coolest looking logos around!

Overall I'm extremly happy with this PC/keyboard combo. I would love to be able to somehow figure out how to use the keyboard portion of it with a modern PC, but at the same time I appreciate it as a display piece and for the piece of history that it is!

Hope you enjoyed this little write up about it! I also took a short video of what it sounds like for anyone that is interested!

Thanks for reading! On to the next project (I think many of you will really enjoy the next one I have!)

またね。

//gains.

Nice find! Brings back memories of the good ol' days. This is indeed a terminal, rather than a PC, meaning it's an input device that connected to a remote computer, as was common before the personal computer came about. This will give you a better idea of how it was used:

http://www.pestingers.net/pdfs/heathkit ... 10-man.pdf

From another site it appears the power supply provided 10.2 VAC and 31 VAC at a combined 10 watts maximum. Those voltages would come from a transformer with two windings (or two single winding transformers). They were probably center-tapped, and would have gone into rectifiers and filter caps on the PC board, probably to provide +/- 5 and +/- 12 volts DC, as was common back in the day. The display would have been a composite video monitor, and no doubt a standard composite video surveillance monitor would work. Not too hard to come up with and make work. If you want to make that happen I can help.

[//gainsborough]

Nice find! Brings back memories of the good ol' days. This is indeed a terminal, rather than a PC, meaning it's an input device that connected to a remote computer, as was common before the personal computer came about. This will give you a better idea of how it was used:

http://www.pestingers.net/pdfs/heathkit ... 10-man.pdf

Very cool! Thanks for the info! It's neat to know a little bit more about the board!

From another site it appears the power supply provided 10.2 VAC and 31 VAC at a combined 10 watts maximum. Those voltages would come from a transformer with two windings (or two single winding transformers). They were probably center-tapped, and would have gone into rectifiers and filter caps on the PC board, probably to provide +/- 5 and +/- 12 volts DC, as was common back in the day. The display would have been a composite video monitor, and no doubt a standard composite video surveillance monitor would work. Not too hard to come up with and make work. If you want to make that happen I can help.

Almost this whole paragraph went over my head, but I may take you up on your offer to help get it running at some point in the future =) Thanks, dude!

[Norman_]

Oh man, what a beautiful board...or maybe, system?

Either way, i officially have a new board on my short list. My love of SKCC is taking over my love of Buckling Springs

[ideus]

Oh wow, it definitely delivers on the looks and sounds department.

And it's also nice to learn where those originally came from

Are these key caps Cherry compatible?

[Chyros]

Oh wow, it definitely delivers on the looks and sounds department.

And it's also nice to learn where those originally came from

Are these key caps Cherry compatible?

Nyet.

[ScottPaladin]

And it's also nice to learn where those originally came from ]

Where'd you get those? Did those have a part number or anything associated with them? I'd love to keep a lookout to some more.

[macboarder]

Where'd you get those? Did those have a part number or anything associated with them? I'd love to keep a lookout to some more.

I got them from Electronic Surplus, but those were the last 2 they had in stock. The part number on the PCB was 12KC132A.

[Taeha Types]

man i wish i could feature your boards on my channel LOL

[SpacemanToby]

The caps look nice on my pingmaster.