Atari 800 Replacement Keyboard Membranes

[RWAP]

I now have a quote for some replacement Atari 800 Keyboard Membranes (or Mylars for those of you outside of Europe).  I assume there is only one type of Mitsumi membrane for these (the 56-7324A)?

I need to guage interest in these before placing an order as the more I can order, the lower the individual price.

Prices would be :

100 off - £22 each

250 off - £15 each

500 off - £12 each

Please comment on here if you are interested or if you have a different Mitsumi membrane number!!

[adam1977]

I would be interested in a couple 

[+slx]

Interested in at least one piece (maybe a spare depending on price). Also willing to test if required.

Maybe put a link to this thread in Duddie's thread. Not sure if he's still following up on this.

[Sugarland]

Wow! I'm interested in a couple as well, please.  I did the simple math and am a little shocked at the upfront cost.  To help move them, you might sell in bulk to other Atari8 vendors like Brewing Academy, JFC, Best, Bitsofthepast ,ABBUC, tfhh, 8bitclassics(dot)com... Then there's ebay etc etc... Maybe the podcast Antic would mention (unsponsored) their availability? 

Edited August 30, 2019 by Sugarland

[Duddie]

Is it Atari 800 or 800XL mylar?

[RWAP]

1 minute ago, Duddie said:

Is it Atari 800 or 800XL mylar?

Standard 800 mylar - not the 800XL

 

[Gunstar]

I'm glad my 800 has the mechanical keyboard so I don't have to worry about Mylar's for it!

[Kyle22]

3 hours ago, Gunstar said:

I'm glad my 800 has the mechanical keyboard so I don't have to worry about Mylar's for it!

You would change your story if you had the pleasure of typing on a Mitsumi. They never bind (even if you hit the wide keys on the very edge), and the plungers don't crack.

 

[Stormbringer]

Please put me down for 2.

 

Duddie,

Weren't you working on mylars for the 800?

 

[adam242]

I have a near-mint 800 with a dead Mitsumi keyboard. Would like one.

[Gunstar]

5 hours ago, Kyle22 said:

You would change your story if you had the pleasure of typing on a Mitsumi. They never bind (even if you hit the wide keys on the very edge), and the plungers don't crack.

 

I'm fully aware of how good the Mitsumi is, I have three of them on my 3 1200XL's, which are at least as good and more likely better than the 800's. I love the 1200XL keyboard. But I also love my 800's mechanical and the way it feels, and how easy it was to get some non-working keys working just by pulling the caps and straightening the metal brushes. I don't have any binding issues with it either. As for cracking plungers, I've got plenty of experience in properly repairing them long term, after dealing with a lot of them. Again, no problems on my keyboard in that area, yet, but I'm confident I can keep them working. It's not the infamous Stackpole keyboard thank God.  And this late in the game, when people are scrambling for replacement Mylars, I'm still TOTALLY glad I have a mechanical keyboard and don't have to worry about replacing a Mylar on it. 

Edited August 31, 2019 by Gunstar

[toddtmw]

How can I tell (without disassembling) which ont my 800's have?

[RWAP]

18 hours ago, toddtmw said:

How can I tell (without disassembling) which ont my 800's have?

I don't think there is any way apart from opening the cases...

[Sugarland]

On 8/30/2019 at 4:36 PM, Gunstar said:

I'm glad my 800 has the mechanical keyboard so I don't have to worry about Mylar's for it!

Wait I thought all 800's have a mylar. Is this replacement only for the mitsumi variants? The original post does not explicitly say this, only that there is one type of mitsumi mylar.  I have not completely taken apart my 800 keyboards for fear of breaking the mylar that I thought was underneath the black plastic block.

 

edit: I guess the PCB with traces on it on the underside of the keyboard hint that there's no mylar..?  Photos of the mylar variant keyboards in question would help.

Edited September 2, 2019 by Sugarland

[Gunstar]

1 hour ago, Sugarland said:

Wait I thought all 800's have a mylar. Is this replacement only for the mitsumi variants? The original post does not explicitly say this, only that there is one type of mitsumi mylar.  I have not completely taken apart my 800 keyboards for fear of breaking the mylar that I thought was underneath the black plastic block.

 

edit: I guess the PCB with traces on it on the underside of the keyboard hint that there's no mylar..?  Photos of the mylar variant keyboards in question would help.

Carefully pry up a key cap with a small screw driver or similar and once the key cap is off and if the center plastic mechanism is hollow with metal brushes in the middle, you have a mechanical keyboard. If not, you have a Mylar keyboard. There were two version of mechanical keyboards, IIRC, one is the Stackpole brand that tends to crack on the corners of the (yellow) plastic mechanism causing keys to become loose and fall off easily, and probably would be a good keyboard if not for this fact, though I've never typed on one myself, and more than likely the Mitsumi Mylar keyboard is better anyway to the touch, they are awesome, as I've experienced on my 1200XL, but I like having an also excellent mechanical 800 keyboard too, with no issues and it still works like new now after some very minor repair*. Then there is the second kind, like I have, which I forget the brand, atm, which has completely white mechanism and while can still fail in the same way, are much better and mine for example, which has been through multiple owners, still has no issues there. I did have a couple of keys that didn't work right when I first got it last year, but it was just the *metal brushes inside those keys had been bent out of shape so they didn't make contact with each other when the key is pressed. And easy fix by carefully bending them back into proper shape with some small needle-nose pliers.

 

My 800 is an early enough version that it came with the CTIA chip in it which I of course swapped for a GTIA, the first thing I ever looked into when I got the computer...well, second, I opened the bonnet (which you have to do as part of the process of opening it up to get to the CTIA/GTIA on the CPU board anyway) to see if all the ram slots were filled first!  It's label is missing off the bottom though...

 

Wow! I guess I need to dust off my keyboard!

Edited September 2, 2019 by Gunstar

[Sugarland]

34 minutes ago, Gunstar said:

Carefully pry up a key cap with a small screw driver or similar and once the key cap is off and if the center plastic mechanism is hollow with metal brushes in the middle, you have a mechanical keyboard. If not, you have a Mylar keyboard. There were two version of mechanical keyboards, IIRC, one is the Stackpole brand that tends to crack on the corners of the (yellow) plastic mechanism causing keys to become loose and fall off easily, and probably would be a good keyboard if not for this fact, though I've never typed on one myself. The there is the second kind, like I have, which I forget the brand, atm, which has completely white mechanism and while can still fail in the same way, are much better and mine for example, which has been through multiple owners, still has no issues there. I did have a couple of keys that didn't work right when I first got it last year, but it was just the metal brushes inside those keys had been bent out of shape so they didn't make contact with each other when the key is pressed. And easy fix. 

  

Wow! I guess I need to dust off my keyboard! 



 

Hmm okay thank you. So the mylar variants don't have the contact wings. In that case I've not seen the mylar variant yet, nor do I own one.   I have two white plungers models and one green. IIRC the green here is a stackpole.

 

RWAP, for now please retract my request for 800 mylars.  If you would confirm Gunstars information and/or provide photos of the mylar variants that would be appreciated.

 

edit: green plungers model at 27m 43s :

 

 

Edited September 2, 2019 by Sugarland

[Colleton]

25 minutes ago, Gunstar said:

...IIRC, one is the Stackpole brand that tends to crack on the corners of the (yellow) plastic mechanism causing keys to become loose and fall off easily...

 

Ha.  That's the keyboard on my 800 and it's exactly as you describe.

[Gunstar]

25 minutes ago, Sugarland said:

 

Hmm okay thank you. So the mylar variants don't have the contact wings. In that case I've not seen the mylar variant yet, nor do I own one.   I have two white plungers models and one green. IIRC the green here is a stackpole.

 

RWAP, for now please retract my request for 800 mylars.  If you would confirm Gunstars information and/or provide photos of the mylar variants that would be appreciated.

 

 

Then I guess Stackpole had yellow and green variants. I've not seen pictures of the green ones. Any issues with that variant having cracked plunger mechanisms?

And I can definitely confirm you don't need Mylars with simple fact of how the keyboards work: the mechanical's with metal brushes or "wings" complete the circuit by closing it when they touch, releasing opens the circuit again, like I am demonstrating in the photo by pressing down the mechanism with my screw driver. So they don't require Mylars underneath which are used to complete the circuit when a rubber plunger under the key cap is compressed and pushes two layers of Mylar together that have conductive circuit traces on both layers.

Edited September 2, 2019 by Gunstar

[Sugarland]

21 minutes ago, Gunstar said:

Then I guess Stackpole had yellow and green variants. I've not seen pictures of the green ones. Any issues with that variant having cracked plunger mechanisms?

And I can definitely confirm you don't need Mylars with simple fact of how the keyboards work: the mechanical's with  metal brushes or "wings" complete the circuit when they touch, so they don't require Mylars underneath which are used to complete the circuit when a rubber plunger under the key cap is compressed and pushes two layers of Mylar together underneath. 

 

The green stackpole variant is great. No problems. Date code on the label is 16th week of 83. I edited my post above with video of the green plunger stackpole. One of the white plunger (mitsumi I believe) here has cracked plungers and the keys do fall out, however it still works with no problems otherwise. The typing experience on it is sub-par I'd say a little scratchy and the return bounce is not great. I lubricated the plungers with no improvement gain. It just doesn't feel bouncy like a new keyboard I wonder why.

 

I think the story goes something along the lines that hi-tek made the original 800 keyboard and others were copying the design with great results so hi-tek sued them. Other manufacturers had to change the design so their later models aren't as good as the early copies. Something along those lines.

 

 

[Gunstar]

1 hour ago, Sugarland said:

 

One of the white plunger (mitsumi I believe) here has cracked plungers and the keys do fall out, however it still works with no problems otherwise. 

 

The white, square plastic "plungers" that crack may be Mitsumi, if they made mechanical keyboards for the 800 too, I'm not sure since I'm not sure of the brand unless I open it up and look, but the only Mitsumi keyboards I know for sure are the ones with rubber plunger (plunger as in rubber dome like a toilet plunger) that do use the Mylars; these are not "mechanical" keyboards by industry standards, even though, technically, all keyboards that have separately moving components I'd consider "mechanical*." But I believe the mechanical keyboards you have with the cracked hard-plastic "plunger" are the Hi-tek brand that you refer too as the first 800 keyboards.

 

*So to me, I consider any keyboard that has traditional electric-typewriter style keyboards is mechanical, which would include every keyboard any Atari computer ever had except the 400. And other examples of non-mechanical, to me, would be rubber chicklet keyboards like the Sinclair Spectrum or Mattel Aquarius, or IBM PCjr. or hard plastic chicklet keyboards like the TRS-80 Color Computer 1, 

Edited September 2, 2019 by Gunstar

[Kyle22]

The Stackpole ones have a decent touch, but the plungers crack. I think Hi-Tek is the white plunger one They suck. Those are the type that bind up if you hit the edge of the large keys.

 

[Gunstar]

8 minutes ago, Kyle22 said:

The Stackpole ones have a decent touch, but the plungers crack. I think Hi-Tek is the white plunger one They suck. Those are the type that bind up if you hit the edge of the large keys.

 

I have no issues with this binding up that you speak of on the large, or small keys of my keyboard. Those ones that bind on you is probably due to cracked plungers allowing the key caps to shift to the side that is cracked, and they do not bind when they are not cracked, like mine. Sometimes the cracked corners are hair-line cracks and not noticeable unless you press on the sides of the plunger to spread the crack. My educated guess is that the larger keys do tend to crack more often due to the fact that the plunger underneath is not 100% centered, like the shift keys for example, which creates more stress to one side when pressed.

Edited September 2, 2019 by Gunstar

[Gunstar]

29 minutes ago, Kyle22 said:

The Stackpole ones have a decent touch, but the plungers crack. I think Hi-Tek is the white plunger one They suck. Those are the type that bind up if you hit the edge of the large keys.

 

By the way, I do remember now that the 800 I used to own and sold about 10 years ago did have a shift key that did bind, and it did have a cracked plunger and it was the same type. Luckily the one I own now has probably had less use over the years, so none of the plungers are cracked (yet). But in perfect working order, I love the feel of my Hi-tek keyboard. I may change my tune in the future if I start having those issues, though I've fixed cracked plungers on other keyboards successfully over the years, so I may well be able to keep this one working as good as it does now if they do crack. Do I like it as much as my Mitsumi 1200XL keyboard? NO. But I do really like it  and generally mechanical keyboards are supposed to have the best "feel." With the Mitsumi's being an exception to that rule in my book. I may decide to keep an eye out for a complete Mitsumi 800 keyboard as a replacement for the future though.

Edited September 2, 2019 by Gunstar

[RWAP]

Sorry but I can't confirm whether there was more than one type of 800 with a membrane - I don't have a collection of computers and had to borrow the 800 from Adam to get a quote!

So grand total of mylars required at this stage is 4 - hardly worth investing in a production run!!

Edited September 2, 2019 by RWAP
Add info

[_The Doctor__]

need to see how many folks want or need them as the fall sets in and folks return to their hobbies...