Keyboard Builders' Digest / Projects

Mechanical ZX81 keyboard

Brian Swetland published a mechanical keyboard for the legendary ZX81.

KBD.news
Published August 18, 2023

I just stumbled upon it, but Brian Swetland shared his keyboard design for the ZX81 two months ago.

More than 1.5 million units were sold of this legendary budget home computer of the early '80s, but despite its popularity, the awfulness of its membrate keyboard is undisputed.

Brian's mechanical keyboard replacement brings MX switches to the good old ZX81. It's compatible with both the original Sinclair ZX81, as well as the ZX81+38 modern recreation of that machine. And it's fully open source. The repository contains all the design files as well as various exported versions and images.

The custom keycaps were ordered via wasdkeyboards.

Resources

• https://github.com/swetland/zx81-keyboard/

Published on Fri 18th Aug 2023. Featured in KBD #131 (source).

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