KBK update for Monday, 28th September

Another advertisement, another Stackpole switch type. This time it is KS-200, advertised in 1981. The photo in this advertisement is even harder to make out, but chances are KS-200 is their standard switch array, referred to until now as “Stackpole switch grid”. Specifically, KS-200 is likely to be the pre-DIN grid, as “Stackpole switch grid” covers both the pre-DIN and DIN types (the latter being KS-200E). KS-200 also includes the smaller modules including single switches, as depicted in the advertisement. Having gone through all of Bitsavers’ scans of Computer Design from January 1967 to June 1981 (and various later issues), there has been no sign of a KS-100, and no official advertisement of the Lo-Pro switches. Hopefully further advertisements will show up in the other magazines that they have scanned, or some other details to indicate whether there was an earlier array type, that corresponds with the HP keyboard with a Stackpole array that more closely resembles Hi-Tek’s original design.

Additionally, the second Mechanical Enterprises Sabrecoil example has shown up: Sabrecoil was selected by AMD for their AmZ8000 CPU evaluation system. This can be seen in a couple of advertisements, added to the Sabrecoil page.

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