Lousy Unix PC / 7300 keyboards

[Bill Mayhew]

Todd's article about assembling keyboards for Unix PCs at C-T
struck a nerve with me.  I have a 3B1 that came with one of the
keyboards that does not have the function key label strip.  The
date code is 8552 next to the mouse connector.  There is no QC
stamp visible on the outside.  The keyboard is a Taiwanese unit;
the one that is wrapped in the foil blanket.

I've had a lot of trouble with the keyboard with bad solder joints
that have cracked.  Hmmmm.  I finally got disgusted and resoldered
every single joint on the keyboard, which seems to have done the
trick for the moment.  Those of you out there with the function key
label strip type keyboards are lucky -- they have a much better
typing feel.  At least on my 3B1, the keyboard is the antithesis of
the original IBM PC-1 keyboard.  This unit is feels like poking
one's fingers into a bowl of oatmeal.

The decision to put the control key next to the space bar (well, at
least we can re-engineer that with softwrae)... I'd like to have a
discussion with the person who thought of that layout.

With the fancy design of the Unix PC case, I always thoguht it was
peculiar that a better grade of plastic wasn't used .. especially
in light of the original market price point.  When AT&T serivced
the motherboard on my machine several years ago under warranty,
they managed to break off the locking tab on the mouse cable and
one end of the keyboard cable, as well as chip off the corners of
the case around the floppy disk while prying off the case top.  I
like the appearance of my Unix PC.

Bill
-- 
Bill Mayhew  Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine
Rootstown, OH  44272-9995  USA    phone: 216-325-2511
wtm at uhura.neoucom.edu   ....!uunet!aablue!neoucom!wtm
via internet: (140.220.001.001)