[Coco] CoCo Keyboards...

[Al Hartman]

I’ve been thinking for the last couple of days, and just wanted to say this.

If one were to try to make a replacement keyboard for the CoCo, unless one could do it in a Chinese or Korean factory in the many thousands, one could never do it as cheaply as Tandy sold those Deluxe Keyboards for.

The $50.00 that Cloud9 charges for their PS/2 adapter is quite reasonable given that all the third party keyboards back in the day sold for $59.95 and up. I think I paid $79.95 for my HJL.

Lets say the PC board to mount the keys on costs about $7 to make. A CoCo keyboard has 53 keys at a minimum without the CoCo 3 function keys.

If one could buy each key station for .25 each, you’re looking at about $13 in keys, not including labor to solder and test them. Then the cable from the keyboard to the CoCo has to cost something, and then some kind of metal back plate to stiffen the keyboard. We are getting close to $25 – $30 in parts plus labor. At least at the small quantities the CoCo market would currently support. And there has to be some profit if only to cover returns and bad units.

The Cloud9 adapter has macro abilities, and you can use any kind of keyboard you want with 12 function keys rather than just 3.


I’m looking for keyboards from old broken CoCo’s myself. But, if I had the money – the Cloud9 adapter IS a good solution.

There’s just so much neat stuff I don’t have the money or the room for.

“You can’t have everything, where would you put it?” – Stephen Wright

-[ Al ]-