800XL faulty keyboard

[JCCyC]

I have a good working 800XL that doesn't recognize the H, J and Space keys. It's definitely a keyboard issue; I swapped the keyboard of a good one and it works. As a curiosity, the defective one is from Taiwan and has seemingly more resistant membrane connector coming out of it. (Coated in some white plastic thing.) The other one, with the good keyboard, has a flimsier transparent plastic membrane and is from Hong Kong.

 

I gave the keyboard a good cleaning and blow-drying, didn't have any effect.

 

Does anybody here have a dead 800XL with a good keyboard? (Other than Reaperman?)

Edited August 9, 2014 by JCCyC

[+DrVenkman]

I gave the keyboard a good cleaning and blow-drying, didn't have any effect.

 

 

Can you explain exactly what you did? Usually you can disassemble the keyboards by peeling apart the mylar, cleaning the contacts and verifying the traces aren't broken, then reassemble them and they work great again. If there is a trace broken, you can often repair them with conductive paint.

[Muzz73]

You can always get a NOS one from one of the Atari dealers, put it into your 800XL and then do a repair to get the old one working again. Never hurts to have a spare (as we all know).