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Author Topic: How Rare is an Amiga Cherry Keyboard?  (Read 5938 times)

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Offline danbeaverTopic starter

How Rare is an Amiga Cherry Keyboard?
« on: December 13, 2012, 04:59:27 PM »
It is the one with the Red "Amiga Keys" and I just saw one go for $61 on *Bay; I had read this in the past:

"The Cherry G80-0879 and G80-0904 were the first generation of keyboards to ship with the Amiga 2000. It features Cherry MX black switches, and the standard Amiga layout. The keycaps are double-shot  ABS plastic and originally featured a slightly lighter almond and light  grey color-scheme than the default Cherry keycap color-scheme. ...
Among Amiga collectors, the keyboard fetches high prices and is  highly sought after, due to its rarity. The keyboard was only in  production for the first batch of Amiga 2000 computers and was later  replaced by a more cost efficient foam and foil variant made by Mitsumi."

and

"Doommaster reckons this keyboard is worth hundreds of dollars. Unfortunately his forum is offline so I can't link you.
[edit: forum back online, actual value $1200: http://www.retrogeekcomputers.com/ph...c.php?f=4&t=28"
 

Offline Cammy

Re: How Rare is an Amiga Cherry Keyboard?
« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2012, 05:16:31 PM »
I don't know how rare they are but I have one.
A1200 030@28Mhz/2MB+32MB/RTC/KS3.1/IDE-CF+4GB/4-Way Clockport Expander/IndivisionAGA/PCMCIA NIC
A1200 020@14Mhz/2MB+8MB/FPU/RTC/KS3.0/IDE-CF+2GB/S-Video
CD32 020@14Mhz/2MB+8MB/RTC/KS3.1/IDE-CF+4GB
A600 030@30Mhz/2MB+64MB/RTC/IDE-CF+4GB/Subway USB/S-Video/PCMCIA NIC/USB Numeric Keypad+Hub+Mouse+Control Pad
A500 000@7Mhz/512kB+512kB/ROM Switcher/KS3.1+1.3/S-Video

Get AmigaOS
 

Offline ChaosLord

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Re: How Rare is an Amiga Cherry Keyboard?
« Reply #2 on: December 13, 2012, 05:52:47 PM »
I would say the red key thing is pretty rare if I can't remember it.

I am not saying I never had one with Red key I am just saying I can't remember it if I did.

In any case I am not convinced that ONLY the red key ones had cherry switches.

And in any event I know for sure that other Commodore keyboards had springloaded switches in them.  Whether they are cherry or not doesn't really matter.

All that matters to me is:
Does it have a spring?
Does it work?

I have a bunch of keyboard stuff on order.  I will have a keypuller soon then I can take apart all my old A2000 keyboards and report my findings.

If u want a quality Amiga keyboard you just want any of them that are NOT rubbber dome over membrane.

Any Amiga with NMB Space Invaders switches or Mitsumi switches or Cherry switches will be a great keyboard.

None of my A3000 keyboards was worth a flip.  I mean the keycaps are super high quality, but the switches were just crappy rubberdome over membrane and they broke after some years.  So I have 2 beautiful A3000 keyboards sitting here that are useless.

I might rip out the rubber domes out of one and cut them into O-rings which I can use as crash protectors in my brand new keyboard which Rosewill is on sale for $55.00!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It has the super awesome Cherry Red switches.  It works on PS/2 and USB.  So if u have a PS/2 adapter for your Amiga, which EVERY Amigan should have, then u just buy this $55.00 keyboard and plug it in and go.  No need to spend your whole life lurking on Ebay.

The switches in the old A2000 keyboards were the very best you get from any Earth based civilization until 1 year ago when these new Cherry Red switches came out.  They don't require as much force to activate.  They r kewl.

Commodore keyboards ruled the Earth from 1981-2011.

But now u can get something a bit better if u want.
Wanna try a wonderfull strategy game with lots of handdrawn anims,
Magic Spells and Monsters, Incredible playability and lastability,
English speech, etc. Total Chaos AGA
 

Offline ChaosLord

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Re: How Rare is an Amiga Cherry Keyboard?
« Reply #3 on: December 13, 2012, 05:58:48 PM »
Quote from: danbeaver;718887

"The Cherry G80-0879 and G80-0904 were the first generation of keyboards to ship with the Amiga 2000. It features Cherry MX black switches, and the standard Amiga layout. The keycaps are double-shot  ABS plastic


I would be very surprised if any of my A2000 keyboards were ABS plastic.  They never showed any signs of wear.  No matter how much I abused them.

Amiga 2000 keyboards are Doubleshot I believe.  Because they are smooooooth feeling and sharp looking.  You can't buy a keyboard with doubleshot keys anymore.  They keyboard companies will not let you.  You must track down doubleshot keys separately or hire a plastics company to build them for u for thousands of $$$$

When u ask for smooth keys everyone acts like u r crazy.  They only give u bumpy keys nowadays.
Wanna try a wonderfull strategy game with lots of handdrawn anims,
Magic Spells and Monsters, Incredible playability and lastability,
English speech, etc. Total Chaos AGA
 

Offline danbeaverTopic starter

Re: How Rare is an Amiga Cherry Keyboard?
« Reply #4 on: December 13, 2012, 06:20:09 PM »
I have a few A2000 keyboards; one is mechanical and the devil to clean; the others use a carbonized rubber, but none use a membrane.  I have 2 A4000 keyboards that are great.

For my PC I have a new 122 key Unicomp keyboard (they supplied IBM for a while, now make replacement keyboards for every old IBM model).  I still have an old original IBM AT keyboard -- heavy, clicky, durable as a tank -- but it doesn't match my eyes!  Er, I mean my black PC, so I replaced it.

I like the tactile and audible keyboards the best; the Amiga's are fav's with me because of the large return key; the PC-122 from Unicomp also has a large Return key.
 

Offline Ral-Clan

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Re: How Rare is an Amiga Cherry Keyboard?
« Reply #5 on: December 13, 2012, 08:32:31 PM »
While Cherry switches are good quality, and this keyboard might be slightly rarer, I would never rely on DoomMaster's price estimations.

In kind words (and I don't know the guy)....let's just say he was slightly delusional when it came to estimating the price of Amiga goods.  His prices should never be used as a guide for the value of Amiga parts.

He estimated that WICO bat joysticks were worth hundreds of dollars.  I have a bin of them downstairs in my basement which I picked up for one or two dollars each.

Just do a search for DOOMMASTER and MIL-SPEC or A2000 on this forum and you will see what I mean (if all of his postings haven't been deleted by now).
Music I've made using Amigas and other retro-instruments: http://theovoids.bandcamp.com
 

Offline ChaosLord

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Re: How Rare is an Amiga Cherry Keyboard?
« Reply #6 on: December 13, 2012, 08:43:29 PM »
According to EU Law, All old Amigas are milspec because they have lead in their solder.

By decree of the Imperial European Empire, all consumer products must be constructed using self-destructing, defective solder that contains no lead.

Only military hardware and satellites may use solder containing lead, because they don't like it when their $40 million jet or $100 million satellite stops working due to tin whiskers.  Tin whiskers grow 10x to 100x slower when u put lead in the solder.
Wanna try a wonderfull strategy game with lots of handdrawn anims,
Magic Spells and Monsters, Incredible playability and lastability,
English speech, etc. Total Chaos AGA
 

Offline utri007

Re: How Rare is an Amiga Cherry Keyboard?
« Reply #7 on: December 13, 2012, 10:11:45 PM »
I've one A500 wich have a rev 7 motherboard, I belive it is also quite rare?
ACube Sam 440ep Flex 800mhz, 1gb ram and 240gb hd and OS4.1FE
A1200 Micronic tower, OS3.9, Apollo 060 66mhz, xPert Merlin, Delfina Lite and Micronic Scandy, 500Gb hd, 66mb ram, DVD-burner and WLAN.
A1200 desktop, OS3.9, Blizzard 060 66mhz, 66mb ram, Ide Fix Express with 160Gb HD and WLAN
A500 OS2.1, GVP+HD8 with 4mb ram, 1mb chip ram and 4gb HD
Commodore CDTV KS3.1, 1mb chip, 4mb fast ram and IDE HD
 

Offline CJK3o3

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Re: How Rare is an Amiga Cherry Keyboard?
« Reply #8 on: December 13, 2012, 10:18:00 PM »
I have two of those. One is in an absolutely perfect condition and in a working amiga 500 (upgraded to an 8a mobo). The other one is a german keyboard that I used for parts mostly - it is missing some keys and springs unfortunately.

Those are pretty rare and I believe they are made by chery (really old ones) and samsung unlike the mitsumi ones in newer amigas. The keys also have a slightly different shape they are not rounded like the mitsumi ones. They are also a major pain to reassemble but in general they seem better quality than the latest ones.
 

Offline barney

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Re: How Rare is an Amiga Cherry Keyboard?
« Reply #9 on: December 16, 2012, 05:54:13 PM »
Quote from: danbeaver;718887
It is the one with the Red "Amiga Keys" and I just saw one go for $61 on *Bay; I had read this in the past:

"The Cherry G80-0879 and G80-0904 were the first generation of keyboards to ship with the Amiga 2000. It features Cherry MX black switches, and the standard Amiga layout. The keycaps are double-shot  ABS plastic and originally featured a slightly lighter almond and light  grey color-scheme than the default Cherry keycap color-scheme. ...
Among Amiga collectors, the keyboard fetches high prices and is  highly sought after, due to its rarity. The keyboard was only in  production for the first batch of Amiga 2000 computers and was later  replaced by a more cost efficient foam and foil variant made by Mitsumi."

and

"Doommaster reckons this keyboard is worth hundreds of dollars. Unfortunately his forum is offline so I can't link you.
[edit: forum back online, actual value $1200: http://www.retrogeekcomputers.com/ph...c.php?f=4&t=28"


This $1200 keyboard info is a bunch of crap.  There isn't a single Amiga keyboard worth that much.  I've owned a few of them myself, so they can't be too rare.  The Amiga 2000 keyboard with the red Amiga keys is simply a keyboard that was made/sold in Finland.  They also made the same style keyboard with mechanical switches but without the red Amiga keys.  I have owned about 3 of them.  Note:  The easiest way to spot the better Amiga keyboard is it says "Amiga 2000" without the word "Commodore" above it.  Now if this was supposedly a $1200 keyboard, then why didn't the recent auction reach $1200?  Because nobody in their right mind would pay that.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2012, 06:02:08 PM by barney »
 

Offline NorthWay

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Re: How Rare is an Amiga Cherry Keyboard?
« Reply #10 on: December 16, 2012, 06:08:55 PM »
I have a Cherry keyboard myself, it came with my 2000 rev 4.1 when I bought it new.

It has the drawback that you _need_ to follow the RKM guidelines for programming it: It takes a long time to reply unlike 500 or other keyboards.

But it is a nice enough keyboard. Still think I prefer my 4000 one though.
 

Offline Jope

Re: How Rare is an Amiga Cherry Keyboard?
« Reply #11 on: December 16, 2012, 06:21:43 PM »
I wrote that post you quoted VERY tongue in cheek. They are not all that valuable in reality, Doomy's well known for overestimating anything he reckons is good. Maybe I should have sprinkled the text with lots of smileys.

What someone wants to pay for it is its value for the day.

Personally I dislike the A2000 cherry keyboard, since it has a different layout than most other Amiga keyboards. Small function keys + gaps between alt+amiga and space. There are also slight timing differences because they use Philips made keyboard controllers, unlike all other Amiga keyboards, however you probably will never encounter any software that would fail to read the keyboard.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2012, 06:25:49 PM by Jope »
 

Offline barney

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Re: How Rare is an Amiga Cherry Keyboard?
« Reply #12 on: December 16, 2012, 06:35:32 PM »
I hear ya.  I wasn't coming after you on that comment.  Doomy actually told me the same thing in person and I questioned it then.  He told me her owned 3 of them himself.  For him to own 3 and me to have owned 2, it can't be that rare.
 

Offline Xanxi

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Re: How Rare is an Amiga Cherry Keyboard?
« Reply #13 on: December 16, 2012, 06:41:16 PM »
How do you identify those Cherry keyboards from the regular keyboards?
10 Classic Amiga Computers so far: I have too many computers!!
 

Offline barney

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Re: How Rare is an Amiga Cherry Keyboard?
« Reply #14 on: December 16, 2012, 06:56:43 PM »
The easiest way to spot the better Amiga keyboard is it says "Amiga 2000" without the word "Commodore" above it.