maden@rzsin.sin.ch (David Maden) (07/28/87)
The item in a recent digest requesting a spare part for a keyboard reminded me
of something I've been trying to find for a while now, namely replacement keys
for the 1040. So far my efforts have been unsuccessful.
One of the disadvantages of living in Switzerland is that certain manufacturers
such as Atari tend to sell keyboards here with German layout, i.e. Z and Y
interchanged and special characters all over the place and certainly not in the
same place as on my VT220 at work. Since I don't like adapting to a new
keyboard every few hours, I use Simon Poole's keyboard editor on the Atari to
put the keys where I like them. Full marks to Atari for designing the beast so
that this is possible. The rub is that Simon's editor can't change the
inscriptions on the keys so, at present, I have sticky tape all over the
keyboard with the appropriate symbols hand written on them. The problems with
that are obvious - the symbols wear out and it doesn't look particularly
professional.
A colleague of mine was in the Bay area lately and tried to get a set of
american keys from Atari - totally without success - "We don't actually make
the computers ourselves and therefore we don't have any spare parts!!" was
essentially the gist of the response he received. Not quite the customer
service one might have expected!!
So, does any kind soul out there know of any suppliers of keys for Atari
keyboards? Ideally, they should be engraved with the US symbols but blank
keys would be better than nothing. Many thanks in advance.
<maden@rzsin.sin.ch> David Maden,
maden@czheth5a.bitnet Swiss Institute for Nuclear Research,
CH-5234 Villigenasm@utcsri.UUCP (08/04/87)
In article <235:maden@rzsin.sin.ch> maden@rzsin.sin.ch (David Maden) writes: >[...] >One of the disadvantages of living in Switzerland is that certain manufacturers >such as Atari tend to sell keyboards here with German layout, i.e. Z and Y >interchanged and special characters all over the place and certainly not in the >same place as on my VT220 at work. Since I don't like adapting to a new >keyboard every few hours, I use Simon Poole's keyboard editor on the Atari to >put the keys where I like them. Full marks to Atari for designing the beast so >that this is possible. The rub is that Simon's editor can't change the >inscriptions on the keys so, at present, I have sticky tape all over the >keyboard with the appropriate symbols hand written on them. The problems with >that are obvious - the symbols wear out and it doesn't look particularly >professional. On my ST at home, I can remove the key-tops, so it should be easy to remove and exchange the keytops of the 'Y' and 'Z' keys. anees -- Anees Munshi @ University of Toronto Engineering. ARPA asm%csri.toronto.edu@csnet-relay.arpa BitNet asm@utcsri.UTORONTO CSNet asm@csri.toronto.edu UUCP {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!utcsri!asm Reality is so much better!
Sheldon_Hijacker_Chang@cup.portal.com (08/07/87)
I already have a U.S. 1040STf keyboard, and I want to know if there's
a way to get a MEGA ST type keyboard, that is, if the MEGA ST is ever availble.
SHELDON CHANG
sun!cup.portal.com!sheldon.hijacker.chang