Help Identifying key caps

[DowntownBen]

About 30ish years ago a friend of my dad gave me about 10 boxes of random ITT key caps and space bars.

I recently came across them. I took them to World Of Commodore in Toronto last Dec because there are some keyboard nerds (I say that in the most complimentary way) I know that I thought cold help identify them, but no luck.

I am curious what computer they were for. Could have been a typewriter, but some keys suggest a computer.

Here is a link to a google photos album with some pictures.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/UBMGiSYxAkYGSp9r8

Let me know if anyone can shed some light on them..

TIA!

Ben

[wjrii]

Comptec is a predecessor to Signature Plastics, the last major keycap manufacturer in North America. These look like SA caps with a cruciform mount that's probably too tight to fit on Cherry MX switches, but a couple of ITT's in-house designs for switches used something similar. Having cap legends that make you wonder if they're for a computer or typewriter sounds like they were for a terminal, and indeed ITT did try to compete with IBM in that space for a while with the Courier terminals. There's not a lot out there on their keyboards, but it's plausible that ITT made (or planned to make) terminal keyboards using their own switch designs, or were operating as an OEM for another manu.

[EricTrotter]

Comptec is a predecessor to Signature Plastics, the last major keycap manufacturer in North America. These look like SA caps with a cruciform mount that's probably too tight to fit on Cherry MX switches, but a couple of ITT's in-house designs for switches used something similar. Having cap legends that make you wonder if they're for a computer or typewriter sounds like they were for a terminal, and indeed ITT did try to compete with IBM in that space for a while with the Courier terminals. There's not a lot out there on their keyboards, but it's plausible that ITT made (or planned to make) terminal keyboards using their own switch designs, or were operating as an OEM for another manu.

Thank you for the information you have shared.

[DowntownBen]

Comptec is a predecessor to Signature Plastics, the last major keycap manufacturer in North America. These look like SA caps with a cruciform mount that's probably too tight to fit on Cherry MX switches, but a couple of ITT's in-house designs for switches used something similar. Having cap legends that make you wonder if they're for a computer or typewriter sounds like they were for a terminal, and indeed ITT did try to compete with IBM in that space for a while with the Courier terminals. There's not a lot out there on their keyboards, but it's plausible that ITT made (or planned to make) terminal keyboards using their own switch designs, or were operating as an OEM for another manu.

Thank you... That's some good info. When I google ITT Courier terminals it brings up some low resolution images that take me here:

wiki/ITT_Courier_1700

but that pages is not working...

Is there an archive around I can look for?

TY.
Ben

[wjrii]

The Wayback Machine has archived the Deskthority wiki several times over the years, though hopefully it gets fixed up soon.

Here is the Courier 1700 page, though the pics there don't look to be the same caps:

https://web.archive.org/web/20240204225 ... urier_1700