[Coco] Mechanical keyboard upgrades for the CoCo

[Boisy G. Pitre]

I don’t mean to discourage others from looking at keyboard replacement solutions, but at Cloud-9, we’ve looked into this as well. I personally spent several months with a major keyboard key manufacturer evaluating their keycap creation services, as well as mylar manufacturers. To make a solid design would take considerable effort and investment. Getting that investment back in a reasonable amount of time is questionable.

Adding to the complication: while the CoCo 3 has one mylar design, CoCo 2 keyboards have at least three variations of mylar designs which are slightly different — enough to require the creation of three different mylars for a complete support regime.

The fact of the matter is that the Cloud-9 PS/2 keyboard adapter with a modern keyboard is still the most economical solution for keyboard replacement on a CoCo 3. Without that product, a replacement keyboard design would be much more attractive.

We’ve decided to invest in other areas of deficit in the CoCo market and expect to have some announcements soon.
—
Boisy G. Pitre
CoCo Projects Coordinator
http://www.cloud9tech.com <http://www.cloud9tech.com/>
http://www.nitros9.org <http://www.nitros9.org/>
http://sourceforge.net/projects/drivewireserver/ <http://sourceforge.net/projects/drivewireserver/>
http://sourceforge.net/projects <http://sourceforge.net/projects/drivewireserver/>/toolshed
http://liber809.blogspot.com <http://http//liber809.blogspot.com>
http://github.com/boisy/DriveWire-MacServer

> On Aug 21, 2015, at 9:08 AM, Bill Loguidice <bill at armchairarcade.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm a huge fan of mechanical keyboards and use them on my modern computers
> whenever possible, but I don't see how it would be financially practical to
> create anything resembling a drop-in replacement for the CoCo. I'm also not
> aware of such a feat being accomplished for any other vintage computer in
> our modern era, although replacement keyboards are being devised for the
> C-64 and Amiga 1200 (albeit not mechanical, merely modern replacements for
> the original designs; those communities are much larger as well, so the
> economies of scale work in their favor, which is why they're getting a lot
> of things (modern recreations of the motherboards, new cases, etc.) that
> those in the CoCo community are still aspiring to).
> 
> I imagine the most practical solution is the aforementioned PS/2 interface
> (USB would be preferred, of course, since today's mechanical keyboards are
> mostly USB-based), but that's obviously a bit of an inelegant solution,
> though of course has the advantages of being mostly future (and breakage)
> proof, fairly straightforward, and relatively inexpensive.
> 
> With the above in mind, I wonder if taking something like the Vengeance K65
> keyboard (
> http://www.corsair.com/en-us/vengeance-k65-compact-mechanical-gaming-keyboard),
> which is about as compact as mechanical keyboards get (~6.5x14in.; although
> I don't recall the dimensions of the CoCo case), and figuring a way to
> securely and somewhat cleanly mount that on top of the CoCo case (removing
> the old keyboard, etc.) and using an appropriate adapter (it helps it has a
> removable cable), would be a sufficient compromise between using an
> external keyboard or creating a true replacement? Probably not.
> 
> -Bill
> 
> ========================================================
> Bill Loguidice, Managing Director; Armchair Arcade, Inc.
> <http://www.armchairarcade.com>
> ========================================================
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