deskthority

ghostdawg187 wrote: 07 Jun 2021, 22:17 ^^ noice

Haha, did nothing but retrobright the case and the spacebar, the real work was done by someone else

An ALPS PCB without bent pins, a rarity for sure


Gen 1 SKCC with square edges! later SKCC on the right for comparison


1978? earliest I've seen SKCC before

I've had this busted calculator for a while and finally decided to desolder the incredibly dirty switches, really interesting stuff

Finally!

Spent 5hs to clean the caps, plate, switches, and finished the conversion. My Panasonic skcc love.

John Doe wrote: 13 Jun 2021, 18:06 Spent 5hs to clean the caps, plate, switches, and finished the conversion. My Panasonic skcc love.

Spoiler:

F8C0C46A-6233-4B6C-9D7E-7B724A285A87.jpeg

Damn, you could eat your cereal out of that Return key

The case is identical to the Omni Key "Gold Label" case. Metal bottom case and metal switch mounting plate. The mounting plate has been sanded, painted with a nice semi-gloss black, then sprayed with clear enamel. It sparkles under the right light.

The key switches are from two IBM 5140 Convertible laptops and are the "original" variant of Alps brown, with the switch plate actuator. I'll be mounting either Alps or Matias switches in the 5140s, then resell them. They both work and at least one still has the original lead battery. No need to kill off two of the first laptops ever made! As far as selling this KB ... I'm not 100% sure I'd want to. It's pretty nice.
.

hellothere wrote: 22 Jun 2021, 21:40 The case is identical to the Omni Key "Gold Label" case. Metal bottom case and metal switch mounting plate. The mounting plate has been sanded, painted with a nice semi-gloss black, then sprayed with clear enamel. It sparkles under the right light.

The key switches are from two IBM 5140 Convertible laptops and are the "original" variant of Alps brown, with the switch plate actuator. I'll be mounting either Alps or Matias switches in the 5140s, then resell them. They both work and at least one still has the original lead battery. No need to kill off two of the first laptops ever made! As far as selling this KB ... I'm not 100% sure I'd want to. It's pretty nice.
.

Spoiler:

Brown.JPG

Wow, very nice, thanks for sharing that! Even new they didn't look that good. But...it's not a proper Northgate without the Ctrl key next to A. That was one of the big selling features when these were new (a must for Wordstar users) and remained so through the Gen3 models, with the Gen2 and Gen3 being shipped with dipswitches and extra keycaps to swap Ctrl and CapsLock.

Polecat wrote: 23 Jun 2021, 17:45 But...it's not a proper Northgate without the Ctrl key next to A. That was one of the big selling features when these were new (a must for Wordstar users) and remained so through the Gen3 models, with the Gen2 and Gen3 being shipped with dipswitches and extra keycaps to swap Ctrl and CapsLock.

I've actually got two caps lock keys fitted. I didn't realize that until after the pic . I now have a real Ctrl key next to the A.

I'm actually pretty happy with the Northgate/Focus layout. Took me only a couple days to learn where Ctrlwas. I'm also not having problems with my other keyboards with the Ctrl key under the shift. I don't know why. Now that I've mentioned that, I'll probably have problems ...

EDIT: that's either stuffing from one of my dogs' toys or hair from the two dogs that are white/partially white.

hellothere wrote: 23 Jun 2021, 21:47
I've actually got two caps lock keys fitted. I didn't realize that until after the pic . I now have a real Ctrl key next to the A.

I'm actually pretty happy with the Northgate/Focus layout. Took me only a couple days to learn where Ctrlwas. I'm also not having problems with my other keyboards with the Ctrl key under the shift. I don't know why. Now that I've mentioned that, I'll probably have problems ...

EDIT: that's either stuffing from one of my dogs' toys or hair from the two dogs that are white/partially white.

Funny, I just saw the "wrong" one. For a Wordstar user the Ctrl key being next to A-S-D-F (word left-character left-character right-word right) was very important, since there was no mouse in those days to move the cursor where you wanted it. That all changed when WordPerfect and Microsoft Word replaced Wordstar as the WP of choice, since those programs used the F-keys for navigation. And later versions of those programs supported a mouse, so it didn't matter at all to most people at that point, but a few of us hardcore users still wanted the Ctrl key next to A, and Northgate was there to support us in that, much longer than anyone else. No way the young kids can ever understand that; you had to be there. The early Focus keyboards also supported the Ctrl-CapsLock swap, with dual legends (not extra caps like Northgate) and a switch to swap the two keys, but that went away on the Focus boards long before Northgate gave up on the idea.

This topic needs love.

My IBM 5576-001 (Alps plate spring / SKCP) that I'm selling ... My customized Dell Bigfoot, w/yellow Alps switches and new Tai-Hao caps, which I'll be selling soon ... On the Dell, the caps lock stem is in an odd place, so I more-or-less had to use the stock Dell key cap. Interestingly, though, this batch of Tai-Hao key caps have the numpad enter, the main block enter, caps lock, and esc keys almost the same color as the stock Dell caps.

Hey all, hoping someone could help shed some light on an issue with a Focus FK-2001 I'm having.

I found a very nice condition fk-2001 at an estate sale, just some grime on the keys but no yellowing or anything. It was manufactured in 92, has white alps clone switches and generally feels very nice. It had the original 5-pin DIN cable. I didn't have a din->ps/2 adapter on hand so I flashed a pro-micro and wired up a soarers converter to convert to USB. Here's where it gets a bit odd.

EDIT:
getting rid of the novel and replacing it with my debugging thread
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=26186

Started to desolder the Alps on my AEK II today to transplant them to a Planck.

After all these years I'm looking forward to having them as my daily driver again.

ooh nothing special but im quite happy that ive found another escom fk-3002 with a not scratched badge. for sure a second black 3002 is neat too!
some better pictures soon when all things aligned

Uhhh, that's clean. Are those doubleshots?

Ah, Escom. The fancy one that got away…

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12915&hilit=Escom&start=3690

doomsday_device wrote: 06 Oct 2021, 23:04 ooh nothing special but im quite happy that ive found another escom fk-3002 with a not scratched badge. for sure a second black 3002 is neat too!

ohhh you got that keyboard, ive bid on that one aswell

When I passed away, I would bury myself with these......

Have you thought that through? It would seriously gunk up the switches. But then you would be the clickiest skeleton in the graveyard, perfect for haunting quiet offices. Cue soyuz-style picture of a skull with blue alps for teeth…

doomsday_device wrote: 06 Oct 2021, 23:04 ooh nothing special but im quite happy that ive found another escom fk-3002 with a not scratched badge. for sure a second black 3002 is neat too!

IMG_20211006_221324.jpg

IMG_20211006_221246.jpg

IMG_20211006_221459.jpg

some better pictures soon when all things aligned

Black and red color scheme? Alps switches? Focus? Sign me the fuck up.

morbid42 wrote: 07 Oct 2021, 17:27 When I passed away, I would bury myself with these......
01.jpg02.jpg03.jpg04.jpg05.jpg06.jpg07.JPG08.jpg09.JPG10.JPG11.jpg12.jpg13.jpg14.jpg15.jpg16.jpg17.jpg

Hi, which board did the caps in pics 2 and 8-10 come from?

morbid42 wrote: 07 Oct 2021, 17:27 When I passed away, I would bury myself with these......
01.jpg02.jpg03.jpg04.jpg05.jpg06.jpg07.JPG08.jpg09.JPG10.JPG11.jpg12.jpg13.jpg14.jpg15.jpg16.jpg17.jpg

You are insane

This is mindblowing!

Really great pictures Morbid; thanks for sharing your work.

Do you get the brass plates custom made or is this something you do?

Palatino wrote: 07 Oct 2021, 19:55 Have you thought that through? It would seriously gunk up the switches. But then you would be the clickiest skeleton in the graveyard, perfect for haunting quiet offices. Cue soyuz-style picture of a skull with blue alps for teeth…

Hell yeah, can really imagine that, an ALPS ghost

kelvinhall05 wrote: 07 Oct 2021, 21:46

morbid42 wrote: 07 Oct 2021, 17:27 When I passed away, I would bury myself with these......
01.jpg02.jpg03.jpg04.jpg05.jpg06.jpg07.JPG08.jpg09.JPG10.JPG11.jpg12.jpg13.jpg14.jpg15.jpg16.jpg17.jpg

Hi, which board did the caps in pics 2 and 8-10 come from?

Those keycaps came from a STONE MS-2401 electric typewriter which was manufactured in China back in the early 80s, some of the parts especially the keyboard module were made by ALPS in Japan, this is a part of early chinese computer historical mystery, really hard to dig up those storys.
I got few picture of the typewriter and the keyboard module, it came with ALPS made dyesubed PBT unipofile keycaps and SKEW integrated dome switches.
I saw some folks in DT use these caps in their ALPS kayboard moding.

morbid42 wrote: 08 Oct 2021, 03:52

kelvinhall05 wrote: 07 Oct 2021, 21:46

morbid42 wrote: 07 Oct 2021, 17:27 When I passed away, I would bury myself with these......
01.jpg02.jpg03.jpg04.jpg05.jpg06.jpg07.JPG08.jpg09.JPG10.JPG11.jpg12.jpg13.jpg14.jpg15.jpg16.jpg17.jpg

Hi, which board did the caps in pics 2 and 8-10 come from?

Those keycaps came from a STONE MS-2401 electric typewriter which was manufactured in China back in the early 80s, some of the parts especially the keyboard module were made by ALPS in Japan, this is a part of early chinese computer historical mystery, really hard to dig up those storys.
I got few picture of the typewriter and the keyboard module, it came with ALPS made dyesubed PBT unipofile keycaps and SKEW integrated dome switches.
I saw some folks in DT use these caps in their ALPS kayboard moding.
122_1691251_8f32a60d9c1880a.jpg122_1691251_4d296226d0d4f91.jpg122_1691251_2fd7f833a17b4e3.jpg122_1691251_0b0a2225c7b113b.jpg
IMG_16251111111.JPG

Thank you

At last, my Northgate Omnikey is finished. QWERTZ-ified with keycaps from a Focus FK 5001. Finally I found the time to solder in the switches, with which I also had a little Odyssey of my own. Thank you anthonymak for those very nice blue Alps!


With the board came the manual for it. This one has gotten a firmware update back in the day, which for example got rid of the "OMNI"-key's special function and exchanged it with a simple "Arrow down" input. So even cross-nav haters can use it comfortably.


I've scanned all those documents and attached them as PDF's (had to trim down the size of the "manual" file, so the quality is slightly worse).

Here are some more pictures from throughout the restauration:

TNT wrote: 25 Oct 2021, 23:34 At last, my Northgate Omnikey is finished. QWERTZ-ified with keycaps from a Focus FK 5001. Finally I found the time to solder in the switches, with which I also had a little Odyssey of my own. Thank you anthonymak for those very nice blue Alps!

Very nice! Makes me want to get my Omnikey finished. Any recommendations on retrobrighting the case? I have used the salon care developer clear but heard the cream version is better for this type of case.

I used the cream method. If you have a big enough tub, I always recommend using liquid peroxide tho. So much less of a hassle, not even funny.

My work in progress.

SKCM orange, canon keycaps, and the NCR80 case.

mode1ace wrote: 27 Oct 2021, 15:54 My work in progress.

SKCM orange, canon keycaps, and the NCR80 case.

Looks really great! I made my own pcb for NCR80 case with SKFL and SKFM switches, Chinese YanTai made Omron style dyesub caps