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Data Interfaces

Contents

Overview

Data Interfaces, Inc. was an American manufacturer from Massachusetts. Few details about the company have yet been recovered. Their known products include keyboards and keypads, keyswitches, and printers. In Personal Computing from May 1980, they are listed in the Printer Buyer’s Guide as a manufacturer of “low cost dot matrix printers”. One model number is known, the DIP-40, listed under A Directory of Affordable Printers in onComputing magazine, fall 1979.

Keyboards

Data Interfaces are known to have produced at least two full-size keyboards. Model KSA-33, in ASR-33 layout, was advertised in February 1977. This is a 53-key keyboard with DI-100 switches, priced at $24.95 in quantities of 1000 ($109.88 in September 2020). The 65-key KSA-35 model was advertised in August 1978; it too used DI-100 switches. KSA-35 addsed a numeric keypad to the ASR-33 layout alphanumeric cluster.

They also advertised model MK-16F, a 16-key low-profile keypad in Computerworld on 26 Apr 1976. This keypad also used DI-100 switches. Pricing for this keyboard was $10.50 in quantities of 1000 ($46.24 in September 2020).

Switches

Data Interfaces produced keyboard switches with redundant pairs of gold alloy crosspoint contacts, connected internally in parallel. This arrangement is rare, but it can be found in Omron B3K also. Switch model DI-120 is advertised as having the switch contacts inside a separate enclosure within the switch; the advertisement for model DI-104 expands on this to clarify that this is done to prevent foreign particle contamination. Models DI-100 and DI-104 are advertised as having sealed terminals to permit soldering, one of very few places where any explanation for sealed terminals is given.

Clear details on the series are not available, but the following details are known from advertisements:

Model Profile Angle Rated lifetime Test operations Advertised
DI-100 100 million February 1977
DI-104 < ½″ 20 million > 4G May 1976
DI-120 12° 20 million > 6G September 1976

Model DI-104 was advertised as a “low profile keyboard switch” and as a “companion piece to Double Cross Point”; this may be a reference to DI-100, which only appears after DI-104 chronologically in the advertisements discovered to date.

Documentation

All documentation was scanned by Bitsavers unless otherwise noted.