[Coco] Coco Digest, Vol 153, Issue 65

[Mark J. Blair]

> On Aug 26, 2015, at 12:24 , Dave Philipsen <dave at davebiz.com> wrote:
> 
> Ok, after thinking about it a little more I came up with another idea. Design the keyboard with a stock, passive-matrix layout and design a dual-row header where all of the traces exit to the flat cable so that all of the signals must pass through it.  Only do not install the header.  Just have traces connect all the pins across to the opposing side (1 to 2, 3 to 4, 5 to 6, etc.) So now you have a factory style layout and the ability to cut all of the traces between the two rows of the header connector with a dremel tool.


I considered exactly that idea last night. I like it because it probably would add zero cost to the board, while making it easy to splice into the matrix.

I'm also considering whether it might be practical to design the keyboard such that it can be assembled in either a CoCo-1/2-like arrangement, or a CoCo-3-like arrangement. I would need to shrink the right shift key to 1x1 size to keep common keys in the same locations, and extra keycaps plus two different cosmetic bezels would be needed (which might make it impractical by eliminating some economy of scale optiona). But if this ends up being practical, then either configuration would end up with a few unpopulated physical keyswitch locations, which might be repurposed by a keyboard hacker to provided dedicated control keys to a keyboard smartener device.

Anyway, the prices I see from WASD might make this doable in the $200 range. My next step will be to look into local sheet metal fabricators to see how much a support plate will cost.

-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/