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Cherry keycaps

Contents

Overview

Between their various keyboard factories, Cherry provided a variety of keycap types.

Families

United States

Cherry in the United States manufactured their keycaps in-house, although KXN3-8451 has been found with what appear to be Comptec DCS keycaps. The keycaps used with M6 switches were stated in the 1973 and 1974 Switches & Keyboards catalogues to be made from ABS; no details so far have been obtained regarding their MX keycaps, or the keycaps used with their other series such as MF.

KB II

These were advertised in March 1984 in Computer Design magazine as:

Smaller KB 11 keycaps are low profile and rectangular.

The term “smaller” appears to be in relation to KB IV, which preceded KB II the advertisement.

KB IV

These were advertised in March 1984 as:

Low profile KB IV sculptured keycaps are top mounted and removable.

Germany

Günter Murmann (formely Cherry’s vice president of engineering) reported that the double-shot injection moulding tooling in Germany was outsourced. EliteKeyboards’ understanding is that Cherry owned the tooling but that it was manufactured and maintained by a tooling house, which corresponds to the information from Herr Murmann. Presumably this external provider produced each of the four or more keycap types used in Germany, although this is not confirmed.

12 mm

These are Tenite keycaps used with M7, M8 and M9 switches, 12 mm in height. These keycaps have a spherical surface.

6 mm

These are ultra-low profile keycaps, made from ABS, designed to complement M8 switches. These keycaps have a spherical and a flat profile.

8 mm

These may be the original keycaps designed for Cherry MX; they have a spherical surface and a flat profile.

Cylindrical

These are the standard keycaps found on newer Cherry MX and MY keyboards, with a more modern cylindrical surface. They are lower in profile that keycaps from other manufacturers, including the “OEM” profiles used by other companies who bought Cherry MX switches and supplied their own keycaps. Cherry offered a choice of double-shot moulding and dye sublimation for the legends; the double-shot tooling was sold off, and typically now, laser-based legend marking is used.

The product call-off notification for the cessation of double-shot keycaps gives the material as Novodur. Novodur® is INEOS’s brand of ABS plastics, with a variety of formulations to suit different requirements.

The Deskthority wiki reports that Cherry announced the discontinuation of their double-shot keycaps in 2011. There is presently no known evidence to support this. Cherry’s own product-call off notification for the double-shot keycaps is from the 14th of January 2010, with a last-buy date of the 28th of February 2010. This tooling was at some point transferred to GMK, who continue to produce these keycaps: Deskthority forum member IvanIvanovich obtained confirmation in 2012 that German manufacturer GMK obtained Cherry’s “original tooling, molds, etc” but further clarification seemingly never arrived.

Documentation

All material was scanned by Bitsavers unless otherwise noted.

See also Cherry catalogues on the Deskthority wiki.