[Info-vax] Keyboards (was: Re: Vax Station 4000 VLC)

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2018-12-28 05:53:22 +0000, Dave Froble said:

> The keyboards for the VT500 terminals, and USB based keyboards were 
> once produced.  I don't know by whom.  But I'd ask, do those entities 
> still exist, and perhaps they would have preserved the tooling.  Maybe 
> not. If so, then the design and tooling would be available, and from 
> that, how hard would it be, should a valid business case exist, to 
> start up the mfg of more keyboards?  I'd also wonder what would be 
> required for a valid business case?

The last batch of then-HP OpenVMS USB LK-series keyboards were produced 
by Cherry, and the production tooling aged out, and is no longer 
available.   This per the person that acquired the last batch. Then-HP 
had declined to pay for replacement tooling.

The only case for continuing that production has been around app 
software that's tied to the keyboard layout, and that cannot use an 
analogous and currently-available keyboard for whatever reason.

There's the added complexity of having to work correctly with the 
client device, and which is not often OpenVMS.

Folks still using EDT and the other LK-fond apps and the traditional 
OpenVMS command-line environment just aren't enough of a market, by all 
appearances.

Could this be done?  Could USB LK keyboard production be restarted?  
Sure.  It's only money, after all.   Pragmatically?  Getting apps to 
work with a web browser and/or with a client app and the default client 
keyboard is where we're all headed.  Servers just don't include bespoke 
keyboards as dependencies and client prerequisites.


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