Hail Mary question here, in case someone somewhere knows something:

In the late 90s, I lived in the UK in Hampshire. One weekend, I went to a local computer show in Portsmouth or Southampton. You know, a few tables in a community center with people selling all kinds of computer bits.

A small UK company had a booth there and sold a really interesting keyboard. It might have been the manufacturer, or a local importer. I don’t remember. But the keyboard had a UK layout. I bought one.

The keyboard was a folding full-size beige 102-key mechanical keyboard with a chunky coiled cable and an AT interface. It was built like a tank and had really good clicky switches. Basically imagine a slightly lighter model-M sawed in two with a mechanical hinge in the middle, allowing the keyboard to fold in two, with the keys on the inside facing each other.

It was a great keyboard, and while it didn’t fold into a particularly compact package and wasn’t light by any stretch of the imagination, it fit great in a small suitcase and protected itself naturally by sandwiching the keys in the middle. And it folded with a loud, satisfying clunk 🙂

I loved that keyboard, but I lost it in a move 20 years ago. I’ve been trying to find out who made it and what it was for years, but I was never able to find anything at all. The only hits that come up when I search for folding mechanical keyboards are those awful miniature battery-powered bluetooth keyboards for cellphones.

Does anybody know what that keyboard might have been?

  • @MyDearWatson616
    link
    510 months ago

    What an obscure piece of knowledge you hold. I want one.