Keyswitches: II / Mac compatibility

[buggie@aix06.unm.edu (Stephen E Buggie)]

I just finished a long overdue mass-repair of IIe/IIc keyboards: 61 
keyboards arrived, 50 repaired to perfect working order.

Has anyone successfully transplanted keyswitches from Macintosh keyboards 
to Apple II?  Mac keyboards are now cheap at thrift stores. Are the 
innards made by the Japanese company, ALPS, which matches the newer IIe, 
newer IIc/IIC+, and IIgs keyboards?

BTW, of the 11 "failed" repairs mentioned in the opening sentence, most of 
those were the oldest II+ keyboards. There were several different 
manufacturers of the II+ keyboard, and some had IC circuitry on the 
keyboard itself. Keyswitch heights varied and were incompatible across 
types.  Worst of all, some II+ keyboards lacked independent keyswitches to 
be replaced. Instead, the earliest II+ keyboards had the cheap style of 
membrane switches (similar to keyswitches in calculators) that are totally 
nonrepairable. The upshot here is that II+ keyboards are nonrepairable and 
are not worth the cost of shipping. The "modern" style of keyboard began 
with the IIe/IIc, with each keyswitch being an independent switch-unit, to 
be removed/replaced separately.

Steve Buggie


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