deskthority

I was browsing ebay in the vintage computing and found this. I knew it was Rafi as soon as i saw the keycap shape and a rather interesting label on the back made me buy it. And now for the photos

The board after cleaning including the keycaps.

Its all about the 8u spacebar

The back and the interesting label Rafi Label Inside - pcb Inside - front plate Front Plate - Front Front Plate - Back Case - Front Case - Back And now for more pcb
Top - No keycaps Top - With keycaps PCB - Back Connector I am not sure exactly when this was made, I am thinking sometime before the 80s based on the PCB and lack of an onboard controller but it is certainly a very interesting and unusual board to have in my collection.

Something that i just noticed looking at the wiki entry for the Rafi switches it states that there is no reason for the ruler marks along the lower edge. I think that these were used to place switches for larger then 1u modifiers. I think that as in the 1970s there was no CAD etc then layouts would have been prototyped by hand and so to accurately measure for placement of keys greater then the area of a single switch and also the offset per row of the staggared layout the marks on the side would ensure exact placement of the switch. I guess they must still be using the same molding which is why they still posses the ruler.

That is one hell of a keyboard mate.

Was it in this good of a condition when you got it or did you have to give it a clean? Its always good to see a before and after cleaning shot.

Feel free to add photos to the wiki.

i gave a quick clean but aside from a bit of dust and a couple of stains that came off with a damp cloth it was as clean as the pictures. I will post a few pics from the ebay listing if you really want to see the before state.

As requested a photo from the ebay listing showing the pre cleaned state

just an update to say the board is now converted to USB

Beautiful to see a Teensy go onto it so cleanly. There was no onboard controller? The matrix just fed straight out that big cable?

yep just straight out to whatever terminal it was for through the 19 pin lemo connector luckily the spacing was perfect for the Teensy. Working out the matrix was a bit tedious with a multimeter but doable and luckily there is an online tool usually used for handwireing that was able to generate the layout file from the matrix.

Oooh, cool. Got a link?

Hello! I've got a Rohde&Schwarz PUC process controller made in 1984-1985, but without keyboard.

I want to use my PC AT keyboard with it. Please, email me your keyboard layout and Arduino code to hexp@yandex.ru.