Performing a resto-mod on a beloved piece of childhood technology can be quite a ride. In [Bertrand]’s case, it was the keyboard to their Atari 130XE. Although it has those cool double-shot keycaps, they’re hiding a crappy membrane underneath that could really benefit from a mechanical upgrade. Relax — the membrane part was broken.
[Bertrand] designed and printed some new stems for Kailh box pinks that can accept both of the two known variants instead of the standard Cherry MX receptacle. He also made a new PCB (natch) and a keyboard adapter to replace the membrane interface, and had a steel keyswitch plate custom cut. The so-called Atari 130MX mod can be used with an Atari 130XE computer, or as a regular keyboard for a PC if you solder in a Pico.
[Bertrand] says that this labor of love was meant to be reproduced and told us that for some folks in the Atari community, it’s already on like Donkey Kong. If you’re going to attempt this mod, know that filament printers won’t work well at all for these tiny and precise parts. [Bertrand] printed the stems on an Elegoo with a resolution of 1/20 mm (50 micrometers). On the bright side, old-new stock Atari keycaps are not that hard to find. Check it out after the break.
We love to see vintage keyboards get modern upgrades. Did you see the nuclear missile silo keyboard/trackball combo? When we read that it came from ebay, our wallet took itself to DEFCON 1.
Well done friend. I’m a fan of the brown keys myself but its all user preference! Great job!
“Relax — the membrane part was broken”
I think it is sad that it has come to this, preempting negative comments about destroying old (broken) electronics.
Well naysayers, get ready, I am planning on replacing the membrane keyboard of my Timex Sinclair 1000 with an electro-mechanical one.
Now that I would like to see, but it will be a pain in the butt to print all the info on the key caps!
There were 3rd party cases with mechanical keyboards for the ZX81/TS1000 family of computers.
Forty years later?
http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/36275/Memotech-ZX81-Keyboard-and-Buffer/
ZX Keyboard Adventure (http://www.zx81keyboardadventure.com/) has 2 options, not sure if they are available right now.
WASD can do color keycaps that will fit all the keywords (I’ve done 2068 keycaps thru them that are even more keyword dense). 4Keyboard has stickers for the ZX80, ZX81 and Spectrum (3 sets in one sheet); that’s what the guy who does ZX Keyboard supplies.
And check Sellmyretro.com; someone sells a funky microswitch keyboard that will fit the space of the 1000 membrane keyboard.
Oooohhhhh! The Humanity!!!!!!!!
What a beautiful keyboard! It’s great to see people spend the time on mechanical and pcb design to preserve, and even improve upon, our digital heritage. Wonderfully made and documented. Kudos!
It’s a great alternative but the price of $300 is a bit much