wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) (09/14/89)
My experience has been that coffee is relatively easy to recover from when dumped into a keyboard. As noted, the crystalized coffee is readily dissolved by a water rinse. The same is true for plain tea. I've had experience removing both. Cola and sugared coffee/tea is much worse. The sugar likes to crystalize in almost any little crevice, and it is very difficult to get to go into solution with a water rinse. The absolute worst mess I've seen is hot chocolate. Yuck! Coffee with cream would be about as bad, I suppose. Milk dries to am almost impervious film, that is best removed with a particle beam weapon of your choice :-). Cola is also quite deleterious because it is acid, and will corroded the keyboard hopelessly if not dealt with immediately. A very easy solution is to deep six the keyboard and get a new one. USA Flex (see ads in Byte, Computer Shopper, etc.) has an XT/AT switchable keyboard that sells for "only" $49, and it even includes a separate cursor pad. The USA flex keyboard is made by Chicony. The case is flimsy, but the key mechanism is fairly respectable. If you don't often pick up your keyboard and attempt to flex it about its axix, the Chicony keybard is a pretty good deal. The worst keyboard to work on is the original IBM PC or XT keyboard; if you take the curved metal plate off the back all the parts fly out hopelessly. Once you get all the parts back in, you'll discover tht the metal plate is effectively impossible to snap back on. Bill