Tag - keyboard

Amiga “Classic” USB mechanical keyboard

26th January 2023

Back in 2020 I backed a Kickstarter campaign run by Simulant Systems Ltd. to create a range of new retro USB keyboards for the Amiga (and other systems). Sadly it never reached its funding goal but they didn’t give up on the idea and continued to find a way to make it work. Well nearly two years later they finally achieved their goal and have produced a batch of what they are calling Amiga ‘Classic’ USB mechanical PC keyboards. They’ve been furiously packing and dispatching them since early December and mine arrived last week!

Front of the box.

What makes this extra special is that it has the official registered Amiga logo both on the box and the keyboard itself thus making it an official piece of new Amiga hardware being sold in 2023! Sadly it is actually a USB PC keyboard which is why there are Windows, Linux and Mac logos on the box but no Amiga Tick or boing ball! However they are working on an adapter that will allow it to connect to real Amiga. This gizmo will actually fit inside the keyboard case which is very intriguing. Definitely looking forward to finding out more about that when it’s released!

Back of the box.

The keyboard packaging is really attractive and worth keeping hold of. It would certainly not look out of place on a shelf in you local Currys (PC World). Opening it up reveals the keyboard safely cocooned inside a foam bag along with a guide sheet and some promo flyers.

Who doesn’t love the smell of freshly opened tech?

The keyboard itself is beige with a mixture of white and grey keycaps that follow the Amiga aesthetic well.

Noice!

It has a decently long 2m USB cable and there’s little channels in the base that allow you to have it exiting out of the left, right or rear side of the keyboard which is a really thoughtful addition. I appreciated the provision of a detachable Velcro cable tie to keep things neat and tidy too.

Note the non-slip pads, pop out feet and cable management channels.

It’s also quite heavy, coming in at just under 1.4Kg when I popped it on the kitchen scales. A fair bit more than most keyboards these days, unless you count the RGB gaming ones with aluminium bases.

Help!

The keyboard doesn’t actually come with a ‘Help’ key fitted as standard which is a bit of a strange oversight. However they have made limited quantities of Help keycaps and were good enough to include a couple of different sized ones for me when I requested them.

Help keycap installed.

The ‘Amiga’ keys on both sides of the keyboard are present and correct (replacing the Windows and Menu keys).

Left Amiga key.

There’s even an Amiga ‘Boing Ball’ key – because, well why not!

Right Amiga Key & Boing Ball!

The keyboard has little pop-out feet underneath that can be located at two different heights giving a grand total of 3 possible angles it can be positioned at.

Feet position 1.

Obviously as this is a PC USB keyboard it is currently only suitable for use with the various Amiga emulators, FPGA machines and the A500 Mini.

Feet position 2

I tried the keyboard out with AmiKit and Amiga Forever on my PC and it was a pleasure to use. The keys have that pleasing mechanical click that provides much needed feedback – but not so loud as to annoy like many gaming keyboards can. Interestingly the keyboard was actually recognised as a ‘Gaming Keyboard’ when plugged into my Windows 11 PC.

Cherry MX Brown switches throughout.

It’s nice to see that the keyboard is using genuine (as far as I can tell anyway) Cherry MX Brown switches which probably goes a long way toward explaining the high price too.

It’s far from an essential purchase, especially when it costs over £140 but given it was being made in limited quantities I felt compelled to grab one while I could. FOMO is a real thing! The plan is, one day, to pair it up with a MiSTer or possibly a Raspberry Pi in the upcoming Checkmate monitor that I’ve backed on Kickstarter.

If you are in the market for an Amiga themed USB keyboard and have £140 burning a hole in your pocket then (at the time of writing) they still have some left here…

VIC20 Keyboard Repair

7th March 2019

Steven

Commodore 64, VIC 20

47 Comments

This is just a quick post about how I was able to repair the damaged keyboard on my recently unearthed Commodore VIC20.

As I mentioned previously in my VIC20 Attic Find post, the decades of storage in my attic had taken its toll on the keyboard. The insides of the keys had become brittle and four of them had broken apart. As you can see from the following photo they were in a pretty bad shape. In this condition they just wobbled around on top of the plungers and fell straight off if the keyboard was turned upside down.

Broken and crumbling keys

The quick and easy solution would have been to stick some blue-tack in there but I doubt that would have been an effective bodge for long. Alternatively I could have glued them in place but then they would be permanently attached to the keyboard with no way of removing them for future cleaning or repairs. As my dad always used to say, if a job’s worth doing then it’s worth doing properly!

I did toy with the idea of replacing the whole keyboard with one from a donor machine off eBay. However that wasn’t cost effective and I really wanted to keep my VIC as original as possible.

I asked and searched around and eventually stumbled across retroleum.co.uk. They sell (amongst other spares) individual replacement Commodore 64 keys for £1 each. Luckily for me, the keyboard on my VIC20 is identical to the ones found on the original breadbin style C64’s. Not all revisions are so do check carefully before buying C64 keys if you want to fit them on a VIC20.

My new VIC20 keys!

Particularly useful was the fact that they sell a wide variety of keys, not just from different models of C64’s, but with different levels of yellowing too! This meant I was able to choose some that would blend in perfectly with the rest of my keyboard. In the end the keys I ordered were described as ‘Breadbin C64 – Keyboard Type 2, Grade 1.5’. A couple of days after ordering them they arrived in a neat little cardboard box.

New keys fitted – perfect match!

Fitting the new keys only took a few seconds and I was really pleased to see that they turned out to be a perfect match for my keyboard. My VIC20 is certainly looking a lot happier and I can actually use the keyboard now too.

Now that the keyboard is sorted I still need to look into sorting a few other things out. Next job will be to pop a few heat-sinks onto some of the more critical chips and maybe retrobrite it, if I’m feeling brave that is, (my last attempt was a disaster).