Hail Mary question here, in case someone somewhere knows something:
In the late 90s, I lived in the UK in Hampshire. One weekend, I went to a local computer show in Portsmouth or Southampton. You know, a few tables in a community center with people selling all kinds of computer bits.
A small UK company had a booth there and sold a really interesting keyboard. It might have been the manufacturer, or a local importer. I don’t remember. But the keyboard had a UK layout. I bought one.
The keyboard was a folding full-size beige 102-key mechanical keyboard with a chunky coiled cable and an AT interface. It was built like a tank and had really good clicky switches. Basically imagine a slightly lighter model-M sawed in two with a mechanical hinge in the middle, allowing the keyboard to fold in two, with the keys on the inside facing each other.
It was a great keyboard, and while it didn’t fold into a particularly compact package and wasn’t light by any stretch of the imagination, it fit great in a small suitcase and protected itself naturally by sandwiching the keys in the middle. And it folded with a loud, satisfying clunk 🙂
I loved that keyboard, but I lost it in a move 20 years ago. I’ve been trying to find out who made it and what it was for years, but I was never able to find anything at all. The only hits that come up when I search for folding mechanical keyboards are those awful miniature battery-powered bluetooth keyboards for cellphones.
Does anybody know what that keyboard might have been?
That sounds really cool! This likely doesn’t answer your question, but I found some things while googling that might be of interest to you / others seeing this post.
While looking for any old foldable keyboards with a UK layout, I found this company and their website looked outdated (footer last updated in 2011?): https://matias.ca/foldingkeyboard/
On their about page:
I also found this article/video from the CBC archives from 33 years ago, about how Edgar was trying to make a better one-handed keyboard: https://www.cbc.ca/archives/one-handed-keyboard-1991-1.5902406
Since their website looked outdated I went looking to see if the company died, but it turn out they ARE still alive, and not only that, but they were at CES this year!
Link: https://matias.ca/wireless-usbc/pr/PR - Matias Wireless USB-C.pdf
Cool that they are still doing stuff :)
Again sorry this doesn’t answer your question, I looked through their products and didn’t spot something matching what you described. This is more just me sharing something cool I learned.Although, if the company was working on similar things way back then, maybe they might be able to lead you in the right direction if you got in touch :)Refreshed the page and saw others got the right one! Enjoy the story anyways 😄