M0110 keyboard clone

[nightingale]

Is there any reason why new M0110 keyboards cannot be made? With the dwindling supply of original keyboards, it seems like this may be needed. I don't have one of these keyboards (thus my curiosity), but from photos I see online, it seems like it should be fairly simple to create a PCB that would work with modern switches, and it could be designed to a size that would fit into a readily available case. This could also allow some quality of life improvements, like a sane cursor key layout.

Unless I'm missing something, there appears to only be one chip on the keyboard, and that has been dumped and is available online. So could this chip not be recreated? This is the part I don't know enough about.

I think these original keyboards had a locking capslock key, so some custom circuitry may be needed to handle capslock, as I don't think locking switches are readily available any more.

The only thread I found on here where someone tried to create a replacement chip is here:

M0110A dump

Is there a dump of the firmware of the 8748 chip that's used in the M0110A keyboard? I have an M0110A with a damaged chip and would like to restore it to working order. Online I've found dumps of the M0110 ROM but not the -A. Are the ROM contents the same?

68kmla.org

But alas, they did not post their results.

So am I missing something obvious here? I've been thinking about this for a few years. Is it just that there is still sufficient supply of these keyboards to make it not cost effective to produce new ones? I feel like we might soon be getting to the tipping point. I'm hesitant to pay $100 plus shipping for a keyboard sold as untested.

 

[Byrd]

Going by the price of good mechanical enthusiast keyboards, it wouldn't be cheap. There are also other bridging solutions to use off shelf keyboards as an alternative.

The M0110 keyboard is pretty bullet proof unless poorly stored/damaged, the $100 untested unit will most likely work without issue.

 

[olePigeon]

Usually the key switches will become unresponsive due to dirt & grime getting in between the contacts. But they're relatively easy to open and clean. Requires you desolder the switches, though.