stu00@ux.acs.umn.edu (Stuart Stanley) (03/06/91)
Hello, I am having a problem with the keyboard on my (1 year old) 2500/30. The 'c', 'space', and '.' key all seem to be failing. The wierd part is that they work, but you have to hold the key down for longer than normal for it to work. If the key is struck (relatively) hard, I usually get it to work also. Does anyone know what might be causing the problem? It all started at the same time, so I am hesitant to believe that all the keys broke in the same strange fashion at the same time. Is there a logical connection at the hardware level between these keys? Thanks for the advice, Stuart
groenewo@fwi.uva.nl (Ferry van het Groenewoud) (03/06/91)
stu00@ux.acs.umn.edu (Stuart Stanley) writes: > Hello, >I am having a problem with the keyboard on my (1 year old) 2500/30. The >'c', 'space', and '.' key all seem to be failing. The wierd part is that >they work, but you have to hold the key down for longer than normal for it >to work. If the key is struck (relatively) hard, I usually get it to work >also. >Does anyone know what might be causing the problem? It all started at the >same time, so I am hesitant to believe that all the keys broke in the same >strange fashion at the same time. Is there a logical connection at the >hardware level between these keys? A somewhat egocentric story now :-) I have had a similar problem with my A500. My DEL and my cursor-right key started to fail. The strange thing was that they failed both at the same time ie. when one of the two keys failed, the other would fail too. I checked if a virus was involved, that wasn't the case. I posted the problem here, sadly, no-one had the good suggestion. Like you, I knew something had to be wrong somewhere deep in the hardware. I didn't believe I could repair it myself. Until the day that it realy drove me crazy. I screwed open my amiga. I looked at the keyboard and some of the chips on the keyboard but I couldn't see anything special. The only way to dissassemble the keyboard further was to unscrew some metal plate that was connected to the keyboard with no less than 28 little screws. Since I was desperate, I unscrewed that too. The first thing that I saw was some piece of plastic with wires printed in it. On the plastic there were also the contacts of the keys. I could see pairs of contacts. When a key gets pressed, it connects two contacts. I connected several contacts with a wire, they worked, except for DEL and cursor-right. Then I started to follow the paths of the printed wires. It turned out that three contacts were on one single wire. The third key that had one contact connected to the wire was the ' (single quote) key. So I connected that working contact to the not working contact on my cursor-right key with a wire. Then, with another wire, I connected the two contacts on my cursor-right key. When I saw my cursor move to the right, I felt happy. I realized I would need only one wire to do the trick, I just had to connect the working contact of the ' key to the working contact (remember each key has TWO contacts) of my cursor-right key and the cursor went to the right! The DEL-key responded in a similar fashion. Now I knew the printed wire from the ' key to the DEL and '->' key had to be corrupted somewhere. Following the wire, I found a spot where there was a cut in the wire. I had absolutely no idea how it could get there, but it was there. Amature as I am, I repaired the cut amaturely: I rubbed the plastic of the wire around the contact so that I could bridge the cut with a very little piece of copperwire. I put a piece of cellotape over the copperwire, made sure it connected and screwed the thing together again. From then on, my keyboard worked normal again, and it does still. A better way however to connect the cut in the wire was to buy some conductive liquid that can be pasted over the cut. But I didn't know that at that time. Moral ofcourse: do the same. It was a bit of a long story, hope you don't mind. I'd be glad to here from you if you have your keyboard working again and if this slightly too long story has been of any help. > Thanks for the advice, > Stuart Ferry. -- Mac. The noise of a wrong calibration. PS/2. You can't see the new thing. IBM. The toys of a dead generation. Sun. You can't feel the beating. NeXT. The choice cause of bad information. Atari. You'll need some healing. Amiga. For boys with real imagination. __ Amiga. You can reach the ceiling. __/ / Ferry van het Groenewoud \__/ groenewo@fwi.uva.nl
v089pfrb@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Jeffrey C Murphy) (03/07/91)
In article <3547@ux.acs.umn.edu>, stu00@ux.acs.umn.edu (Stuart Stanley) writes... > > Hello, > >I am having a problem with the keyboard on my (1 year old) 2500/30. The >'c', 'space', and '.' key all seem to be failing. The wierd part is that >they work, but you have to hold the key down for longer than normal for it >to work. If the key is struck (relatively) hard, I usually get it to work >also. > Pop off the key cap and the white cap under it. If you see two little contacts sticking up vertically then the problem is with fatigue in the contacts. Press them gentley together a few times, then replace the white cap and the key itself. The space bar is a bit of a pain to get back on. JM