Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[Zelandeth]

I'll snap some photos later on, though a bunch of options will pop up if you punch "odb heads up display" into Amazon.

Question of the afternoon: Who on earth uses thirty-nine screws to hold a keyboard case together?!? Oh...that will be someone who's *really* serious about the RF integrity of the device in question it seems!

Edit: it's really annoying when you've put 37 of them back in and then realise you forgot to reconnect something and have to start over...

[CitroJim]

Question of the afternoon: Who on earth uses thirty-nine screws to hold a keyboard case together?!? Oh...that will be someone who's *really* serious about the RF integrity of the device in question it seems!

TEMPEST!

it's really annoying when you've put 37 of them back in and then realise you forgot to reconnect something and have to start over...

Been there so many times If I had a quid for every time I'd be quite well off now

It is always frustrating though, especially with Tempest equipment...

[Zelandeth]

In this case the bit of kit I'm dealing with (read: swearing at repeatedly) is badged as a Ptarmigan Universal Terminal. A very quick Google of that turned up nothing immediately obvious. It appears to have been made by DRS Ruggedised Systems Ltd of Chippenham. Wonder if they're still around...

[Hell Razor5543]

I still have a Fujitsu keyboard kicking around (from the late 90's). It has the 5 pin DIN connector, and Windows keys. VERY robust, and very tactile, but if you had to take it apart to clean it you were in for a long haul. Each key had a letter cap, key top, spring, bottom cup (to keep the spring under control), then contacted the rubber membrane, and finally the plastic contact sheets. All this was then on a steel plate. If you are the sort of typist who hammers on the keys all that would happen (apart from a key strike) was injured fingers (bruising on the ends). There are numerous screws holding things together.

[Zelandeth]

Sounds very like the construction of the IBM Model-M keyboards.

Also heavy enough to be wielded as a weapon to fend off household intruders -and still work just fine afterwards.

[Hell Razor5543]

I know that the magazine "PC Pro" was rather taken with it, as was my Mother. I built a PC for her, and I asked her to try out every keyboard she could (as she was going to have to use it for a long while). After three months she still hadn't found one she liked (this was August, mid 90's, and I was going to give her the PC for Christmas), so I suggested she tried out the one I had (the afore-mentioned Fujitsu keyboard). At first she was slow and careful, but within a few minutes she was typing at high speed. Finally she asked me if these keyboards were still available. I asked why, and she said something like "If they are not available YOU are going to need a new keyboard, as I want one of THESE". Fortunately they were still available, at £30 each (and this was, remember, in the mid 90's, so was expensive).

[demag]

I have a white/cream Fujitsu keyboard as well which is excellent quality.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[Hell Razor5543]

Mine has the 'lock' lights within each of the relevant buttons.

http://legacycomputersnparts.com/catalo ... 4700-1.JPG

[Zelandeth]

Pretty sure that one in the picture is actually an IBM board "in different clothes" so to speak. I've seen one identical to that over in the States with red LEDs in the lock keys, which sounded and felt identical to an IBM Model M, even down to the curved profile of the keys.

Can't for the life of me remember what it was badged though! Remember it confused me at first because the keys looked IBM but the case was wrong, before I came to the conclusion that it definitely had origins in the IBM direction.

From memory, the Model-M keyboards were actually physically made by Lexmark after around 1993, so I wonder if the occasional badge engineered version started to turn up around then.

Still keep hoping to find a keyboard made by Northgate at a car boot sale or something one day!

[Hell Razor5543]

They are not cheap! I just looked on e-bay, and they start at $150!

[Zelandeth]

Nope...you can imagine how furious I was when mine (an almost immaculate Northgate OmniKey Ultra) got swiped by IT when they "upgraded" my workstation unannounced one lunchtime. That's before we get to the eight months it took me to get all the software back up and running...Moral of the story? Well, two...one don't tell them something physical on your workstation is broken if it's old (PSU went bang) and expect them to sort it, and two, if you want to keep stuff make sure it's literally chained to the desk. Putting big "DO NOT REMOVE" stickers on stuff and on the plugs to it doesn't work.

When I say "mine" I do mean "I found it literally buried behind the stationary cupboard and immediately adopted it." Just noticed an AT keyboard plug poking out one day and decided to find what it was attached to. Reckon my typing speed doubled that afternoon and for the next year or two.

In relation to the odd IBM-but-not keyboard, I just had a poke around my photos from that trip and found one of it - it was badged Zenith, assumably meaning Zenith Data Systems. Pretty sure I've seen an old IBM XT era board (recognisable usually by having the function keys to the left of the board) with their name on it too now I think about it...

[elma]

Northgate, northgate, will try to remember that Zel. If I see one at the bootsale I'll grab it for you.

[Zelandeth]

TEMPEST!

Can't sleep and got fed up of staring at the ceiling so got up to do something for half an hour.

Turns out we were both thinking the same thing, Jim. This little machine appears to have been designed from the start as TEMPEST safe, so that explains a lot. Also why it's such a pain to take apart.

Sadly starting to look like we may have a problem on the motherboard, though even if so there is great temptation to see whether the existing case, display and keyboard could be used to house something newer... Raspberry Pi springs to mind, more than beefy enough for most of the things I use a laptop for and you could fit an insanely big battery for a Pi in that case!

Will keep trying to get it going for now as I'd rather get it fixed...

At the very least I'll try to figure out the keyboard interface (hopefully just PS/2 but with an expensive connector) as that surely has to find use somewhere!

[ekjdm14]

Wow, there went another 45 minutes of my day. This time going from TEMPEST through red/black & Van Eck to social engineering and onto loss aversion... Wikipedia is a dangerous place for a hungry mind haha

On the subject of keyboards, I always thought the '90s Fujitsu were microswitched. Must just be a membrane 'board with a very positive break, as I seem to recall them being the only keyboard I liked typing on/could type well on & positively hating the cheap feel of membrane compared to microswitch.

[bobins]

In this case the bit of kit I'm dealing with (read: swearing at repeatedly) is badged as a Ptarmigan Universal Terminal. A very quick Google of that turned up nothing immediately obvious. It appears to have been made by DRS Ruggedised Systems Ltd of Chippenham. Wonder if they're still around...

There was such as a thing as a Ptarmigan radio, which was : "a mobile, cryptographic digital and modular battlefield wide area network communications system".... but I'm sure your piece of kit has nothing to do with that. Oh no

Somewhere I have a photo of the copper lining for a very large and very secure 'system'. It was the copper lining for a verrrrry larrrrrge underground NATO bunker.