SOL-20 keyboard (fwd)

From: Don Maslin <donm_at_cts.com>
Date: Wed Feb 13 22:10:26 2002

As you will note, Barry authorized this posting.

                                                 - don

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 17:24:45 -0500
From: Barry A. Watzman <Watzman_at_neo.rr.com>
To: 'Don Maslin' <donm_at_cts.com>
Subject: RE: SOL-20 keyboard

I won't but you may if you want to.

Barry

 -----Original Message-----
From: Don Maslin [mailto:donm_at_cts.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 1:05 AM
To: Barry A. Watzman
Subject: Re: SOL-20 keyboard



On Tue, 12 Feb 2002, Barry A. Watzman wrote:

> By the way, in 1977 I made and sold a SOL-20 keyboard modification kit
> that included a new ROM for the keyboard and new keytops. The new ROM
> made the high order bit of the numeric keypad keys a "1" instead of a
> "0". This made it possible to distinguish between the keys in the
> numeric keypad and the numeric keys in the top row of the normal
> keyboard (in the stock keyboard, these different keys produced exactly
> the same output). This was transparent to normal applications because
> they normally did an "ANI 7FH" anyway, stripping this bit, but it
> could be used by an application if the application wanted to do so.

> The new keytops had word processing legends instead of numbers, and
> really was made for the "Electric Pencil" and "Wordstar" word
> processors. The keytops were actually made by Keytronic (I had to pay
> tooling charges, about $1,000 (those were 1977 dollars, it was about
> one-fourth the price of a new car)) and and matched the SOL keyboard
> exactly.
>
> I have a few of these kits left in a box in the basement. If anyone
> wants them, they are $25. What I'm not sure of is if I have the
> installation instructions anywhere.
>
> [If anyone takes me up on this, I'm actually going to have to FIND that
> box, which may be easier said than done.]
Received on Wed Feb 13 2002 - 22:10:26 GMT