SOL-20 keyboard question

[J.C. Wren]

    Yea, been there.  I actually managed to order the pads and a couple 
switch assemblies from Mike Stephens at Mil-Key.  He's not a happy 
camper.  Apparently he's had a number of requests from SOL owners 
looking for pads.  He was saying the big problem is the people calling 
him don't want to spend any money, and it was costing him to deal with 
them/us.

    At one time Keytronics was selling pads for $0.10.  I don't know 
what others were paying from Mike, but I bought 260 pads at $0.35, plus 
10 keyswitch assemblies at $2/ea.  He wasn't willing to sell me the pads 
until I told him the quantity I was willing to take.

    According to him, the pads aren't made anymore.  I imagine he has 
quite a few thousand in stock, though, since they're still making or 
repairing keyboards that use these pads.  I found this article, <URL: 
http://www.spokanejournal.com/index.php?id=article&sub=598 > that 
mentions him.  He's a 20 year veteran of Keytronic.

    From the way he was talking, and his tone of voice, I think this may 
have been his final sale of pads, or at least at the price I paid.

    Oh, and I checked eBay for Sun Type 4 keyboards, and found two hits, 
both way more than I was willing to pay for 10 year old keyboards in 
unknown shape.  Maybe someone else has an "in" to type 4 keyboards.  If 
they were cheap, I'd buy a dozen, just to stash them for the benefit of 
other SOLsters.

    --jc

Chuck Guzis wrote:

>The following site seems to think that you can use junker Sun 4 keyboards
>for parts:
>
>http://www.thebattles.net/sol20/keyboard.html
>
>--Chuck
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