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  • Knight and SAIL keyboard replicas

    From Lars Brinkhoff@lars.spam@nocrew.org to alt.sys.pdp11 on Mon Dec 20 16:53:37 2021
    From Newsgroup: alt.sys.pdp11

    Hello,

    I'm trying to gauge the interest in keyboard replicas. The ones I have
    in mind would be modeled on the keyboard for the Knight TV, and the
    similar SAIL keyboard. Apparently there's a large start-up cost for
    making key caps, so the more orders the merrier.

    The Knight keyboard is useful for running ITS, and the SAIL keyboard
    would be really good for some of the WAITS applications.

    More info here:
    https://github.com/osiweb/unified_retro_keyboard/issues/37
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  • From Paul Rubin@no.email@nospam.invalid to alt.sys.pdp11 on Mon Dec 20 12:22:58 2021
    From Newsgroup: alt.sys.pdp11

    Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> writes:
    Apparently there's a large start-up cost for making key caps, so the
    more orders the merrier.

    Aren't the keyboard frames even more expensive? I wonder if the key
    caps themselves can be 3d printed in two passes, with the key legends
    made as a groove and an "inlay".
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  • From Lars Brinkhoff@lars.spam@nocrew.org to alt.sys.pdp11 on Tue Dec 21 08:01:23 2021
    From Newsgroup: alt.sys.pdp11

    Paul Rubin wrote:
    Aren't the keyboard frames even more expensive? I wonder if the key
    caps themselves can be 3d printed in two passes, with the key legends
    made as a groove and an "inlay".

    It's probably going to be a pricey affair from start to end.

    I welcome any 3D printing experiments. I suggest posting any results to
    the GitHub issue.
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  • From Three Jeeps@jjhudak4@gmail.com to alt.sys.pdp11 on Wed Dec 22 15:14:30 2021
    From Newsgroup: alt.sys.pdp11

    On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 3:01:25 AM UTC-5, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
    Paul Rubin wrote:
    Aren't the keyboard frames even more expensive? I wonder if the key
    caps themselves can be 3d printed in two passes, with the key legends
    made as a groove and an "inlay".
    It's probably going to be a pricey affair from start to end.

    I welcome any 3D printing experiments. I suggest posting any results to
    the GitHub issue.
    My knowledge of the Knight keyboard is minimal but some googling turned up some good photos. My first impression is that the keycaps and layout (for the most part) look very similar to an IBM 29 key punch machine. Perhaps the supplier of those keyboards is still around? (I dont recall who made them for IBM)
    Back in the day (1990s) Cherry would supply keyboards and custom keycaps as well. They are still around and may be a source for the keyboards.
    At this point, I don't have too much of an interest in a keyboard replica. My interest in doing anything 'AI' went away when the LMI and the TI Explorer machines were taken out of my office.....
    J
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  • From Lars Brinkhoff@lars.spam@nocrew.org to alt.sys.pdp11 on Thu Dec 23 20:03:47 2021
    From Newsgroup: alt.sys.pdp11

    Three Jeeps wrote:
    At this point, I don't have too much of an interest in a keyboard
    replica. My interest in doing anything 'AI' went away when the LMI
    and the TI Explorer machines were taken out of my office.....

    My post actually had an off by one error; it was intended for
    alt.sys.pdp10. Still, it's not too off topic because the keyboards were attached to a PDP-11.

    Thanks for you comments!
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