[Absolute last resort] Solution to A600 (maybe 1200?) keyboard cable problem

Originally Posted by spanner

Is there any differents beteen the A600 ribbon and the A1200 ribbon,..?

Commodore should of kept the way the A500 keyboard is,its not a ribbon..

Indeed, cable and a plug would have been a much better idea, but I don't think Commodore expected so many people to still play around with an Amiga 1200 in the year 2015. Still, this last resort solution worked for me!

First of all: thanks for posting this solution: great. I did it on my Amiga 1200 as well, it did not work at first, so I cut the cable several times, but managed to get it completely working again before I ran out of cable (see pictures). I actually updated your method a bit.

If you make a small cut in the laminated adhesive foil (without cutting it completely), you can actually tear off the entire foil (mostly that is, again see pictures). There a 2 layers of foil, a hard layer and a soft layer. Removing both layers is best for this but if you don't remove the hard layer at all, you'lll problably damage the cable (like I did, ... several times).

I saw that Amigakit.co.uk still sells the entire plastic keyboard sheets for about 6 pounds or so, that would be the best solution (I'll just order one as backup, I'm not shure this method will last forever).

Anyway, there are probably better way's of doing this, but repairing a computer with only the aid of a Stanley-knife and an old sticker I had lying around makes me feel like McGuyver.

I decided to also post a few pictures in this thread, I was really happy to find this solution, so I hope other people could use this as a last resort aswell.

Ow: I put a little tape on the backside of the cable to improve the connection between the cable and the connector on the motherboard (just to make the cable itself a bit thicker on the end).

For those who are about to give this a try: good luck and make sure you can still get a replacement keyboard somewhere (just in case )

[Shatterhand]

Akira, your pictures aren't showing up anymore, would you care to upload them again? I'd be grateful.

(Yeah, now my a600 keyboard is acting up too :/ )

[Amiga1992]

Oh man, I don't know where those pictures are. I'll look into them.
I don't know how much help they would be anyway, I described it all as good as I could with text.
Make sure it's a cable connection problem and not a key problem first. My A600 now has issues with one of the Amiga keys, and it's unrelated to this. It's just the one key acting up. (if you lose a whole column of keys, you should look into this method, but as I said, you risk ruining the keyboard completely if you do it wrong)

[edit] updated first post with picture!

[Shatterhand]

Thank you mate, it actually made me understand better what you did

I am pretty sure it's a cable connection problem. I cut a small part of the cable, the keys are working again but not all of them... and when I unplug-plug the cable, another set of keys work and other set of keys stop working. I've managed to make all keys work at some point just by unplugging/plugging, but never all of them at the same time.

[Amiga1992]

Well be very careful with what you do, and good luck.
As suggested though, start trying to find a new membrane.
Boy, I hate it when your Amiga descends into a sequence of problems after problems. When you fix one another comes up! Have you recapped it? If you haven't, that's gonna fuck you up next

[Arnie]

I know new membranes aren't cheap @£20 but, It does the job. I recently bought one because of intermittent keys not working, now it's like new.

[Shatterhand]

This one is recently recapped. And yeah, this has been the story of my A600 so far, since I got it exactly 1 year ago!

I've seen the prices of a new membrane on Ebay, kinda pricey (even more as I'll have to pay shipment and probably import taxes)

Trying to import anything to Brazil those days is really expensive, our money suffered heavy devaluation, and our import taxes are out of hand.

[Arnie]

Have you tried here.....

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Arnie

I know new membranes aren't cheap @£20 but, It does the job. I recently bought one because of intermittent keys not working, now it's like new.

Arnie, it's easy to think this way when you live in Europe, but when you live elsewhere, and especially in South America, it isn't as cheap or accessible to do it.

I came up with this solution back then when I was living in Buenos Aires and this is why it is a good absolute last resort before having to go through the painful and expensive route of importing a membrane from Europe.

You need to realize how good you have it over there. Even here in the US it's hard to come by Amiga stuff and most times you would have to import stuff from Europe, which becomes both cumbersome and more expensive due to import tax, shipping and whatnot.

[Arnie]

That's O.K I totally understand the situation. It's just that I've gone down the route of cutting the membrane and after the 5th attempt (and looking at the ever shortening membrane) I just gave up and bought a new membrane.

Living in Europe does have a few disadvantages. Buying anything from the States or Canada gets hit by Customs every time. I swear my address must set alarms going for over the pond mail.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Arnie

Living in Europe does have a few disadvantages. Buying anything from the States or Canada gets hit by Customs every time.

True, but rarely ever you have to source your Amiga stuff in North america! With the exception of kipper2k's stuff, you can get everything else either in the UK or Germany. Also prices for Amiga and Commodore stuff are much better in Europe. Prices in North america for Commodore stuff are ridiculous, and even more so in South America. In South America's case, add to the equation that you get a lot of stuff lost or stolen somewhere in the mail system, and you could potentially be throwing money to the garbage, literally.

In all, for all fans of Commodore products, Europe is the best place to live in!

[Arnie]

Originally Posted by Akira

In South America's case, add to the equation that you get a lot of stuff lost or stolen somewhere in the mail system, and you could potentially be throwing money to the garbage, literally.

Sounds like Hermes UK

I did notice on e-bay that there are tons of 50 pin SCSI drives in the States but the shipping and customs make them too expensive.

[spannernick]

I have been doing this and no matter how many times,its always the same keys that don't work properly or not at all.

The keys that have problems or don't work are:

Up
CTRL
Shift keys(I have to press hard and then they work)
Amiga keys
ALT keys(I have to press hard and then they work)

Any one have any ideas why..?
My reset keys don't work at all,have to switch it off to reset it.

About the shift keys,If I am playing a pinball game like Tilt I can't press the shift keys at the same time,it stops the flippers from working but can use the shift keys one at a time,so press left shift and the left flipper works ok and press the right shift and the right flipper works ok but press the keys together and nothing.

We wouldn't be having this problem if the Amiga keyboard was designed like the C64 keyboard and it was not 24 years old,I think the A600 and A1200 came out in 1992..

Do you find you have keys missing,not working when doing this,has this worked with all the keys working..?

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by spannernick

The keys that have problems or don't work are:

Up
CTRL
Shift keys(I have to press hard and then they work)
Amiga keys
ALT keys(I have to press hard and then they work)

Any one have any ideas why..?
My reset keys don't work at all,have to switch it off to reset it.

Well this is a diffferent problem, I dunno if you should have done the trick explained in this thread at all.
Your keyboard membrane contacts could be worn off or something in the plunger of those keys could be bad. I am having the same issue with my right Amiga key and I am pretty sure it has to do with the membrane going bad on that spot.

OPen the whole thing up and give the membrane a good clean, see if it comes back to life.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by Akira

OPen the whole thing up and give the membrane a good clean, see if it comes back to life.

Probably also worth doing the paper trick to the rubbers of the intermittent/dead keys too.

[Amiga1992]

Is that rubbing the rubbers with paper?

[Jope]

That's the one. Wipe them until they no longer shine. :-)

[Amiga1992]

Cool I will try that! But I have a feeling I already did.
Do you think using graphite pencil dust on the membrane would help in any way?

[Jope]

I wouldn't add graphite. The paper trick basically makes them like they were when new.. Graphite just makes a mess.

You can wipe any paper dust away with q-tips and rubbing alcohol.