A while back I won an e-bay auction for a genuine C65 keyboard (without printing on the top of the keys). Today it arrived, as you can see below. It was nice to again touch a C65 keyboard after about four years of not having one. The lack of printing on the top of the keys is not a big problem, as the key positions are fairly easy to figure out, and the printing on the front provides strong clues as well.
I also have to commend the seller for his meticulous packing. Below you can see lots of soft packing material, which I could only get to once I had cut through quite a lot of tape that held the box very well closed.
Inside that was the following inner part, also completely mummified in tape. This keyboard had no hope of escaping in transit.
Then once I de-mummified that, it was itself a further very large bag, sealed at the mouth with further tape:
Removing that tape, the quite large bag looked to also be heat-sealed.
Finally inside that the keyboard was sitting in its original light-blue Mitsumi packing bag, and in very good condition -- better than the original one I had, on which I had to repair a track on the cable when it first arrived.
So now I have a real C65 keyboard, a recreation C65 motherboard, lacking only the custom chips, and my FPGA design. I am getting closer to being able to make a complete working unit with real hardware. I am still leaning towards making a laptop form-factor C65GS, if only I can find a nice LCD panel that can do 1920x1200 or 1920x1080 and isn't too big. About 13" would be ideal, I think.
Did I just hear anyone say "C65 replica keyboards soon in mass production"? ^=^ Anyway, great news - I think it's safe to say that this particular keyboard couldn't have gotten a better home!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind words :)
DeleteHmm, I have looked at options for manufacturing new ones, but nothing firm yet, and certainly way too many things ahead on the queue for now.
Paul.