What's the deal with this 800 keyboard?

[trent]

Never seen one like it. Sharp key edges. More "grey" than usual. Font is funky. The arrow keys do not have inverted arrows. What is this?

 

Edited December 31, 2020 by trent

[+Nezgar]

Does it have an Atari key in the bottom right corner? (if not it might have been a 3rd party mod/repair/replacement?)

[trent]

It does. The option keys appear to be normal. This is for sale at goodwill, I'm tempted to get it just to see what the hell it is.

[Rybags]

Looks a lot like some of the XL keyboard variants.

 

Are the key rows stepped (hard to tell from the pics but they look almost flat)

Also relevant would be the age (serial #) though it has encased Ram boards which probably means it's not a later one.

[+mytek]

Too bad that it's missing a couple keys. Due to the custom nature of such, you would be hard pressed to replace them.

 

[trent]

Well, I won the auction - I needed the bottom part of the case to replace a broken one. I'll report what I find about the keyboard when it gets here.

[Almerian]

The exposed key switches look like these with the stem broken off:

https://deskthority.net/wiki/MEI_Sabrecoil

[Gunstar]

I have a 600XL and 1200XL with keys that look similar those, they aren't compatible though as you can see by the missing ones. Those missing ones are replacing broken and missing ones from the 1200XL that has the same looking keys, except in their case they are shiny. I forced compatibility by essentially "putting a square peg into a round hole" to fix my 1200XL keyboard. Eventually I'll clear-coat them so they match better, but this 1200XL is still in the midst of restoration.

 

It seems to me I have seen an 800 with that type of keyboard before at some point in my life.

Edited January 3 by Gunstar

[+hunmanik]

Possibility that occurs to me: Maybe this is one of the rather rare late-production 800 units made in Hong Kong.  The serial number sticker on the bottom will tell!

 

 

[BillC]

12 hours ago, hunmanik said:

Possibility that occurs to me: Maybe this is one of the rather rare late-production 800 units made in Hong Kong.  The serial number sticker on the bottom will tell!

 

My Atari-Wong Hong Kong 800 doesn't have this type of keyboard, but it may have been changed before I acquired it.

[MrFish]

3 hours ago, BillC said:

My Atari-Wong Hong Kong 800 doesn't have this type of keyboard, but it may have been changed before I acquired it.

It actually sounds better if you say, "My Hong Kong Wong Atari 800".

 

[BillC]

12 hours ago, MrFish said:

It actually sounds better if you say, "My Hong Kong Wong Atari 800".

 

I wrote it as "Atari-Wong" as that is what is on the serial# label.

 

[MrFish]

6 hours ago, BillC said:

I wrote it as "Atari-Wong" as that is what is on the serial# label.

Yeah, that's more politically correct; I won't argue with that...

 

[trent]

Got it in the mail today - it is a weird keyboard that I've never seen before, but it is Atari branded. This machine also has a weird card in the rack that I will start a different thread on.

[trent]

For internet search posterity:

Atari 800 keyboard

MEI Mechanical Enterprises Inc

ca012952-02

Inspected 6/13/80

1980

Blue pcb circuit board