Need help fixing Atari 800XL AWC Keyboard with with Cherry M8 Keycaps

[goya]

W key is sticking. You can hear on the release the clicking, sounds like its catching on something.

 

Please advice. Thanks in advance!

[flashjazzcat]

Replace the switch. If you get stuck, I have spares.

[goya]

Hey I've watched your video on youtube where you fixed one of these!

 

Thanks for the advice. Sounds like what I'll have to do.

 

I could not find on ebay US someone selling spares. Hopefully someone here in US will have spares they are willing to part with.

Edited April 23, 2021 by goya

[Sugarland]

I'm sure the AWC's were used in more than Ataris. Different keyboard searches will probably yield more results. I don't know where/what else in which they were used.

[goya]

Tried that, but could not find any of the listed keyboards for sale on ebay. The problem is Cherry M8 switches were used for a limited time a very long time ago. Cherry switched a very long time ago to MX switches which are used to this day. Unfortunately MX switches which one can easily find on ebay are not compatible with the older M8 switches.

 

I'll have to look for someone selling their old broken Atari 800 XL AWC keyboards, which is not easy since most of them are the ones with Mylar. Another problem is when people say that they are selling an old broken Atari 800XL most chances is that it won't have a AWC keyboard and they won't know what kind of keyboard they have so it will be hard to know whether to buy it or not.

[goya]

Does anyone know exactly which Cherry M8 Atari 800XL AWC keyboards used?

 

Here is a link to long list of M8 switches. I'm trying to find source to some, but I don't even know which ones were used by Atari 800 XL.

 

Cherry M8, MD and MJ variants – Telcontar.net

[_The Doctor__]

Something just popped into my head about original keyboard switches for the 800...

Futaba linear switches were used by Atari-Wong (AWC), that family of linear plate-mounted switches usually cylindrical but sometimes rectangular, but usually a a cylinder on the bottom and rectangle on the top had leaf contacts within them. It may still be possible to buy them or contact the descending companies and have them made again, there might still be stock or the info to make them again still existing (who knows, stranger things have happened, many old parts are renamed and still used and made for other things today using totally different names ascribed to them)

[+scorpio_ny]

On 4/23/2021 at 5:58 AM, goya said:

Does anyone know exactly which Cherry M8 Atari 800XL AWC keyboards used?

 

Here is a link to long list of M8 switches. I'm trying to find source to some, but I don't even know which ones were used by Atari 800 XL.

 

Cherry M8, MD and MJ variants – Telcontar.net

Hi goya,

 

You did not post any pictures of the keyboard switch. If you have one made by AWC, there are two variants of the AWC keyboards. One of them has the Cherry M8 and the other has a Futaba ML series (as mentioned by @_The Doctor__) which looks like a Cherry switch (see here). The one with the Futaba ML switch is keyboard type 2 (I happen to have this keyboard in one of my 800XL and and I cross referenced the part number on the PCB to this thread.) If yours uses Cherry switches, it would probably be a keyboard type 3

 

If you need some help identifying the correct switch, check here to see if there are any clues to the version you are looking for and 

possibly find an old keyboard that uses the same one for parts. 
 

Good luck!