Sir Clive Sinclair’s ZX81 was a phenomenal sales success as one of the cheapest machines available in the early 1980s, but even its most fervent admirers will admit that it suffered heavily from the Sinclair economy drive. In particular that membrane keyboard was notorious for its lack of feedback, and a popular upgrade back in the day was a replacement keyboard. Now we can bring you what might be the ultimate in ZX replacement keyboards, in the form of [Brian Swetland]’s mechanical ZX81 keyboard.
The familiar 40-key layout is all there, using Cherry MX key switches and a beautiful set of custom-printed keycaps. There’s little more to a ZX keyboard than the matrix wiring, and in this case it’s all incorporated on a PCB. None of these techniques were readily available to individuals back in the ’80s, so a large piece of perfboard, key switches from an old terminal keyboard, and Letraset would have had to suffice.
We have to admit liking this project a lot, in fact we’re even tempted by a set of these keycaps for a regular keyboard just for old time’s sake. If you’re interested in the ZX81 then take a look at how we used one to help us through the pandemic.
I well remember the horrible membrane keyboard of the ZX80. But when it came out, it was about the only game in town for student hobbyists even though $75 was a month’s rent. Now we pay that much to upgrade the keyboard.
It would’ve been great to have a “real” keyboard on the TimexSinclair-1000
And you probably spend as much on the keyboard as the new comouter back then.
Surely you jest, it is going to be more!
Is it just me, or is the horizontal offset between the Q and A rows incorrect?
at least is has nubbies on the f and j keys to aid in touch-typing…
The Q and A rows have the same offset as 1 and Q rows, so it must be you…
On more usual keyboards the offset between rows 1 & Q and rows A & Z is ½ the horizontal spacing, But the offset between rows Q & A is ¼. This is a hangover from mechanical typewriters so that the four rows are spaced evenly (0, ¼, ½, ¾, 1) so the actuating bars and levers are so spaced. Actually, in row order from the top: 0, ½, ¾, 1¼ which gives the same interleaving).
This https://www.hackster.io/news/this-all-in-one-zx81-fixes-many-of-sinclair-s-original-shortcomings-01baab6ce6ed keyboard looks like it gets the row offsets correct.
I acquired a ZX81 with a Dk’Tronics mechanical keyboard, it also fitted a 16k RAM pack inside (minus the case, i.e. just the PCB and chips screwed down to a few posts with a ribbon cable.
This is very reminiscent of that keyboard! Love it!
Very cool. I have a ZX Spectrum 48K.
Not to knock he ZX81 but put this keyboard on it and it’s kind of all fur coat and no knickers. (Well unless it has 16k, then it has some old granny pants.)
Nothing wrong with a fur coat and no knickers!
Beautiful
yes but why not put cpu, usb and other i/o inside?
USB?…. :)