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KBK update for Tuesday, 8th September

Using advertisements provided by Marcin Wichary as a starting point, the Licon and Cortron page is now updated. We now know that the most common ferrite core switch is Series 555, which appears to cover both “Early Ⅱ” and “Early Ⅲ” styles. In addition to Series FC2500, there was also a FC-2550 that seemed to be produced first, with no clear indication on how the two series differed. FC-2550 is described as having “true linear feel”, while all known DIN-compliant ferrite core keyboards from Cortron are tactile. There is also a magazine advertisement from 1978 for “Series III” switches, with no way to determine what these are, other than that they do not seem to match anything that was introduced around that time.

There is now a suggestion that Series 555 part numbers took the form 55-5xxxxx, so the mystery model on eBay (for which I forgot to archive the listing photos) with part number 55-100007, was either Series 550 (seemingly unlikely as that did not use a PCB) or an intermediate type in between the original Series 550 and the later Series 555.

There is still a long way to go, but gradually more details are fitting into place. The mechanical types remain to be discovered, either in a keyboard, or in any product literature. Thus, their identity remains a mystery.

View within the updates for 2020

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