Refurbishing a Kaypro 4 from the '80s, I recently went through the keyboard. (The machine won't start so I hadn't tested the board beforehand.)
When I removed the keycaps, which were grubby, I could see that the housing was full of dust and there was evidence of a cola spill. I took it apart as far as I could, cleaned surfaces without immersing anything (except the keycaps) and put it back together. I then tested the keyboard with a K II running Perfect Writer [insert pejorative comment here.]
A total of seven or eight keys were dead, some on the numeric keypad and some in the middle of the alpha characters. I assume this is due to a liquid spill.
While I was cleaning I wanted to see what was under the "stems" but as they resisted removal, and not knowing any better, I relented. It looks to me as though the mechanism is different from the K II board, which has foam pads above a capacitive trace. It looks like the bottom half of each switch is soldered to the backplane and the upper half ("stem") snaps in and is held by plastic tabs.
So my question is this: Can I pry out the upper parts by compressing the tabs and lifting out the stems, or is there another technique, or are they not made to be taken apart?
Thanks for your replies.
-CH-
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