[citation needed]Daniel Beardsmore wrote:I just encountered, on Wikipedia, "Coincident with sublimation printing, which was first used in high volume by IBM on their keyboards, was the introduction by IBM of single-curved-dish keycaps to facilitate quality printing of key legends by having a consistently curved surface instead of a dish."
Apparently it was done to make dye sub printing work. If that's true then, yes, it was indirectly as result of cost, to avoid the need to use doubleshots
I didn't mean you with [citation needed] of course, but the wikipedia claim. A very diverse group of people write the wikipedia, and it's very easy for "factoids" (made up "facts") to sip in when they are just coherent and convincing enough. Anecdotal knowledge like this needs citations on Wikipedia for me to believe it. Otherwise, it could just have been written by some 13-year-old who "figures it must have been this way".Daniel Beardsmore wrote:You'll have to take that up with Mr Wales. It stands to reason though — it would be pretty hard to print onto the surface of a spherical keycap! (Many sphericals aren't, either, if you look carefully …)
Upped sticks! Uh oh, sounds like more "original research" / personal storytelling getting into Wikipedia.On 13 October 1983 the factory of Kenure Plastics in Berkshire, where the Oric-1 was manufactured, burnt to the ground. The factory was rebuilt, minus a considerable stock of bits (including 15,000 old ROMs) that went to make up the Oric-1. In the meantime production was said to have restarted within 24 hours in a new factory.[citation needed] Just a day later, a neighbouring warehouse went up in flames. Police were said at the time to suspect that the arsonist got the wrong place first time round.[citation needed] It was about this time, too, that Tansoft upped sticks and moved to co-exist with Oric Research at the Techno Park, Cambridge.
It looks great, though. Why isn't there a modern chiclet keyboard in beige and brown colour scheme? ...nathanscribe wrote:Micro-Professor II (with optional "full size" keyboard attachment):
Vintage TI calculators have really thin keypad switches that are made from bubbles of sheet metal. They click. Maybe this is something similar.nathanscribe wrote:"reminiscent of the Spectrum's but with a much better feel ... positive in action, there is a satifsying click". I don't know whether they refer to a physical action or a computer-generated audio click.
Hey! I remember those springy metal bubbles! I can't remember which keypad or keyboard I saw them on, but I definitely saw them on some late 70's electronics I disassembled back then. I had forgotten all about those things.Findecanor wrote:Vintage TI calculators have really thin keypad switches that are made from bubbles of sheet metal. They click. Maybe this is something similar.nathanscribe wrote:"reminiscent of the Spectrum's but with a much better feel ... positive in action, there is a satifsying click". I don't know whether they refer to a physical action or a computer-generated audio click.
From http://www.classiccmp.org/calcmuseum/tisr.htm: I used to have this keypad.. then I trimmed it down for a project that required only three buttons.
They are common on some POS keyboards, and there's some "industrial" keyboards I've seen on ebay that look like they have them. I think of these switches as "metal contact dome". You can protect them pretty well against environments, but they are horrible to type on. Not sure when they originated, though.nathanscribe wrote:Hmm, I've not seen that type of keypad on anything bigger than a calculator. My Casio FX 730P Pocket Computer has a membrane; the springy metal bubbles would not particularly be easy to type on, I think.
The first cylindrical keycaps IBM made (at least AFAIK) were on the Selectric III, which were most likely double shot. These were introduced in 1980, a year before the first Model Fs became available. Of course, the decision to introduce cylindrical keycaps for sublimation purposes could have been made before these were designed, but it seemed that for one reason or another, IBM thought it was worth their time to change their typewriter keycaps to be cylindrical too.Daniel Beardsmore wrote:I just encountered, on Wikipedia, "Coincident with sublimation printing, which was first used in high volume by IBM on their keyboards, was the introduction by IBM of single-curved-dish keycaps to facilitate quality printing of key legends by having a consistently curved surface instead of a dish."
Apparently it was done to make dye sub printing work. If that's true then, yes, it was indirectly as result of cost, to avoid the need to use doubleshots
