mcmanis.mark@Usc-Eclc (10/11/82)
From: Mark Moulding <mcmanis.mark@Usc-Eclc> I had my Sinclair (actually Micro-Ace, but the same machine) ZX-80 for exactly 2 days before I gave up on the magnificent membrane keyboard. It only took about an hour to interface a standard un-encoded keyboard (available from many surplus outlets for about $20-25) to the onboard matrix encoder. I simply used wire-wrap to form a matrix on the back of the new keyboard itself, then connected this via 13 wires (a DIP cable worked great) directly to the board. A little time spent gawking at the schematic will show you where to do this - if you're careful, you can even cut the old keyboard section right off the board. Make sure that the blocking diodes stay, though. I'm not sure if this will work on a ZX-81, since I've never played with one. I see no reason why a similar approach can't be taken, though. Oh yeah - to lable the new keyboard, I just cut apart the membrane cover I ripped off the old one and stuck the pieces over the new keys. Mark -------