How Rare is an Amiga Cherry Keyboard?

[barney]

The easiest way to spot the better Amiga keyboard is it says "Amiga 2000" without the word "Commodore" above it.

[Jope]

I hear ya.  I wasn't coming after you on that comment.

I didn't really take it like that.. Just thought I'd clarify my stance. :-)

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.

Yeh, I have two as well. I'd say the NMB space invader keyboard is more rare, but I have five of those so is it that rare after all, or have I just been patient enough when tracking them down? :-)

The easiest way to spot the better Amiga keyboard is it says "Amiga 2000" without the word "Commodore" above it.

Even easier: the Amiga keys are red. No other Amiga keyboard has them in that colour.

http://jope.fi/amiga/amikbd/cherryfull.jpg

But yeah, just looking at that picture, the Cherry keyboard is very distinctive in its looks. The cover isn't properly closed in that pic, hence it looks a bit wonky around the upper row of keys.

[barney]

Not all Space Invader Amiga keyboards have the red Amiga keys.  They also made one with regular black keys.  The keyboard itself has the same shape.

I sold one on Ebay about 2 months ago.

[NorthWay]

however you probably will never encounter any software that would fail to read the keyboard.

A vast number of games and demos fail with it. 95% of hw-banging games and even more among demos. IMHO. (It did get better later on, but it was real shyte for many years.=

[ChaosLord]

Yeh, I have two as well. I'd say the NMB space invader keyboard is more rare, but I have five of those so is it that rare after all, or have I just been patient enough when tracking them down? :-)

u guys are hardcore Amiga collectors.  How many u have proves nothing

To a regular guy who wants to buy a specific type of springy keyboard, they are all rare.  Especially A1000 keyboards as there were only 100,000 of them made to begin with and most of those are thrown away now.

Even easier: the Amiga keys are red. No other Amiga keyboard has them in that colour.

http://jope.fi/amiga/amikbd/cherryfull.jpg

But yeah, just looking at that picture, the Cherry keyboard is very distinctive in its looks. The cover isn't properly closed in that pic, hence it looks a bit wonky around the upper row of keys.

That keyboard looks like crap

I don't know that the problem is the case not being closed.  Cherry only makes Cherry Lowrider keycaps.  Their keycaps are only 6mm tall.  Normal keycaps are 12mm.  
I hate Cherry Lowrider keycaps because there is no room to install O-rings or crashpads under there when they are sooo short.

Thanx for posting that pic!
I have never had an Amiga 2000 keyboard that looked like that.  That is wack.  I guess this means all my A2000 keyboards are using Mitsumi switches?

[ChaosLord]

A vast number of games and demos fail with it. 95% of hw-banging games and even more among demos.

There is nothing wrong with letting AmigaOS bootup.

There is nothing wrong with using the OS to read the keyboard.

There is nothing wrong with using the OS to read data from a device. (floppy, hard drive, CD, DVD, whatever).

Commodore made them a great OS and gave it away free with every computer.

If the coder refused to use it then its his own dam fault.

You can always let the OS load and then do a Forbid(); Permit(); around your main loop if you want to "disable" the OS temporarily.

You can temporarily disable the Interrupts too.

There is not much reason to throw the whole entire OS in the garbage when writing a game or Demo.

[NorthWay]

There is not much reason to throw the whole entire OS in the garbage when writing a game or Demo.

But people did. And they did it wrong too. So I am not the one to argue with.
The Cherry being rare didn't make it easier to knock that into the programmers.

[Thorham]

I guess this means all my A2000 keyboards are using Mitsumi switches?

Are those the ones in A1200 keyboards? The horror

There is not much reason to throw the whole entire OS in the garbage when writing a game or Demo.

There is when your game or demo has to work in 512 KB, or worse, 256 KB on the A1000.

[Jope]

Not all Space Invader Amiga keyboards have the red Amiga keys.  They also made one with regular black keys.  The keyboard itself has the same shape.

I sold one on Ebay about 2 months ago.

Hmm, none of those have red Amiga keys. I was talking about Cherry kbds when I wrote that. :-)

Space invader keyboards have a Commodore key instead of the left Amiga key and the keyboard layout is identical to the Mitsumi keyboard.

Here is one in case someone else is interested in how they look like. This one is fitted to an A500, but the A2000 one is almost identical. Transistor Q1 (generates kbd reset) and the LEDs are missing if it's fitted to an A2000.
http://jope.fi/amiga/amikbd/nmbtop.jpg