KBK update for Sunday, 18th October

An eBay listing for a Texas Instruments Silent 700 ASR/KSR keyboard has drawn attention to the overlooked fact that Clare-Pendar Series S840 surprisingly dates back at least as far as 1973. (Snuci had already noted that his Bendix control panel is from 1974.)

Discussions with Peter Cherry (former Cherry president) and Günter Murmann (former vice-president of engineering at Cherry in Germany) have recently led to a number of clarifications of Cherry product history:

• Clarification of the history of Cherry MY, from the US and German perspectives (details of the original UK type are still needed)
• Cherry MX White was indeed designed as a clicky switch, at the behest of Olympia; after they declined to accept it, it was marketed instead as a tactile switch with hysteresis, with the click sound suppressed with grease
• Cherry M8 is suspected to have been introduced around 1976 or 1977; Günter Murmann confirms that it was never patented, which means that we cannot use a patent as a source for likely date of introduction
• “Cherry M1” is most likely to be M11, although final confirmation from Günter is needed; this implies that M10 did also exist

Additionally, a US FTSC type existed, the Next Generation Keyboard, offering both linear and tactile feel options. This was a different design from the German system, that seems to have had more in common with the DIN-compliant solid state capacitive keyboards.

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