deskthority

Finally, took me a while, but managed to get one of those George Risk keyboards, complete with Magnetic Reed Switches and their "Engraved Keycaps". (It's linear)

This one was purchased no May 10, 1976 from Sargent's Distributing in Bellflower, California (and shipped to Sparantburg, South Carolina via UPS for $3.99). I know this because I'm looking at the original receipt for $57.49 (includes shipping).
Lots of goodies came with this keyboard, including an implementation manual copied from a book/magazine, a single page catalog from Sargent's Dist. Co, symbol list (for decoding each of the keys), and a huge schematic diagram copied from some hand drawn blueprints which also maps out each of the symbols to part of the matrix.

The board is very heavy, and damn is it thick. I mean, just look at the PCB...



I mean, there is nothing in there but a keyboard...

It also has probably the largest single keyswitch assembly I've ever seen (I'll try to take it apart when I get around to desoldering some switches)


Did I mention it has a weight variance in keys?



Anyways, enough talk, more pics:








https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-1sK_ ... .26.24.jpg
Wood grain...ugh...so...tacky. Why is it even there?


Probably ripped from something much more ancient.








Ahh, that's what's the wood grain was for...to cover up the hole... (still looks tacky )





The sliders "snap" into the main housing, fairly easy to pull out, but does offer plenty of resistance so the keys don't fall out.













Built by Jim perhaps? Dunno



Homebrew AC to DC. Haven't bothered to make sure if it is functional.


The case is actually built by RCA.














Hah, couldn't find a ribbon connector I guess

Wow, that thing is bigger than the IBM beam spring keyboards isn't it?
And I for one love the wood, makes it look classy.

Are these switches linear? I find it hard to imagine why anyone would go to that much trouble, to make such a collossal contraption, unless they had a particular force curve in mind.

And all that for only $57.49? Granted that would be a worth a lot more today.

And a mains transformer inside a keyboard?!

No wonder Alps switches became so popular ;-)

As a rule of thumb you can qualify most 70ties keyboards before IBM came with beam spring/buckling springs as "random ass linear". I bet this one isn't an exception.

webwit wrote:I bet this one isn't an exception.

The fact that they're reed switches confirms that even further.

Sweet tank you got there. I didn't know it was legal to own one of those.

There was a portable briefcase-style terminal on eBay (I think made 1974.. or was it 1970) that had these switches:
(Unfortunately, it looks like I deleted the other photos and the terminal was sold.)

Holy shit them resistors and diodes, that's fucking cool.

It looks like the Datapoint 3300 (1969) also used George Risk switches.
The Datapoint 3300 was the first Datapoint terminal and was later rebranded as both the DEC VT06 and HP 2600A (HP's first CRT terminal).

When I saw the font on the Datapoints, I thought, "Hey, that looks like a George Risk!" (...and I was right)

That's was huge for a switch...Hope it has the light-weight variant keyboard.
Awesome post.

I really must learn to read more carefully. I did incredible amounts of research, noticing that this keyboard is remarkably similar to the ones in the movie Andromeda Strain, concluding (with delight) that it's an RCA Video Data Terminal, when all I had to do is read this fucking line:

HaaTa wrote: The case is actually built by RCA.

Yes, it's one of these: