Nutronics
Contents
Products
Keykode KA
Keykode KA was a series of keyboards from Nutronics. This series is known from a single, brief advertisement in Electronic Engineer magazine in July 1969. The specifications were listed as:
Has a low profile (1 in. deep), a short throw (0.1 in.), a light touch (3-5 oz. contact pressure), and a long life (rated at 5 million cycles).
A single example is known, model KA101-7. This is a 55-key uppercase-only unit, enclosed in a wood case. Encoding is provided by a hand-assembled diode matrix. From the photographs, there is no indication of what kind of switches are used. Each key has its own PCB tracks, but instead of solder terminals there are what look like plated through holes in between wide rectangular areas of copper. The keycaps are in a miniature chiclet style, and have no shift legends. A small number of symbols are present on the right side, and & is on the far left. Other keys include DELE, EOL, BEG and END. One keycap is missing, and only a beige square can be seen, that offers no clue about the switch inside. There is no visible date of manufacture, but the product label is marked “© NUTRONICS 1967”.
Keykode KN
The only known KN model is KN-14, a 12-key numeric keypad advertised in Computers and Automation in July 1968. The keycaps are ⅜″ square (9.5 mm) instead of the more typical 18 mm, and the key spacing is ⅝″ (15.9 mm) instead of the usual ¾″ (19.0 or 19.05 mm). The remaining specifications broadly match that of KA: 5 ounce contact pressure), 0.1″ travel and 5 million cycle life at 6 V DC.
Documentation
All material was scanned by Bitsavers.
- Keykode KN-14 numeric keypad advertisement, Computers and Automation, Vol. 17 No. 7, July 1968
- Keykode KA series keyboards advertisement, The Electronic Engineer, Vol. 28 No. 7, July 1969