Bosch CC RAFI keyboard & Videodidact review (RAFI RS 76 M)

This half-day wait has been excruciating! Looking forward to a good review.

nice vid man

i have a question chryo what recycling plant s do you so to to get some pf your keyboards

Are those connectors not DB9 & DB25 serial cables?

I love how the typing demonstation camera is not a really high quality one, never change it, it's like part of your style of videos, even if you get a 8K Red camera always use a 144P 6fps potato ps2 camera pls

Unusual looking board! Seems industrial... and quite funny how quiet it is compared to modern "quiet" switches.

It reminds me a little bit of a terminal board on a German printing press (KBA - Planeta) I used to work near in that many of the keys were similarly un-intelligible pictograph symbols that the employees would have to memorize or look up. A beautiful machine when it was working, and an expensive money-pit the other 50% of the time...

Very nice video! I do enjoy them.

nice video (like always)

My Marquardt Butterfly keyboard has a similar mechanism on the space bar stabiliser. I'd say yours also needs renewed lubrication.

Does it feel like there is any dampening in the board at all? Or do you get that solid "mechanical" clack feeling?

Bosch keyboard is part of a CNC machine control unit. It is still actually used today in many places.

since when have you had your own topre board?

Ever thought about building a retro gaming PC? PhilsComputerLab is a great channel to go on if you ever want to do that.

thanks for the video Thomas. I wish Rafi keyboards are available for today's use. I happened to buy a magicforce 68 with outemu black switches recently. This keyboard is as smooth as butter with actuation higher than even Cherry MX black. Please add it to your list for a future review.

The typeface on the Bosch is money.

You deserve more subscribers.

All these years I've been working without a "slinky down the stairs" key - I don't know how I've managed lol

That may indeed be the quietest keyboard I've ever heard, including rubber domes and membranes...even that breast implant keyboard you reviewed a while back.

Woah, those switches are AMAZINGLY quiet! Makes me wonder how much quieter we can go with a mechanical switch?

Awesome video, and If I had walked by someone using this board, and not looked at it, I would have sworn it was a Dell Quiet Key membrane keyboard from the mid- late 90's, as my high school at the time used a boat load of them since they where cheap as dirt.

Looks like it's designed to go into a lighting desk - I'm guessing the buttons are fade up/down (or maybe some digital "gobo" select?) and select movers for the "fire hydrant" switch. That's probably why it's so overbuilt - you need to be able to secure it for live gigs.

That keyboard is a awesome find. Looks like something out of a 1970's b sci fi movie. You know me I like blue alps sound and nothing less. But the no sound from the keyboard is really cool. Thanks for another great video man. Vintage/Retro felt big in this one.

hmm do honeywell keys fit on those switches?

The "not quite a VGA" is a DE-9 "D-Subminiature" connector. D connectors are used for just about every kind of computer interface you could imagine but that is quite possibly an RS-232 serial interface, which you absolutely CAN use with a PC, if your motherboard doesn't have a port (might be called "Com" for "Communication") to which you can just fit a header (lots of manufacturers just omit this because, hey, let's save $0.50!) or through a USB protocol converter or even a PCI card. None of these things are anything like expensive. Of course you'll need drivers, assuming it IS RS-232.

The Bosch also uses a D-connector, this is a DB-25 (number is pins, letter after "D" is the shell size with E being the smallest, then A, B, C, D & F being progressively larger. A size is the old Mac video port and the old PC Gameport, B is commonly the parallel/printer/Centronics port, C is the external floppy for the IBM 5150 and some implementations of SCSI, and D & F don't really have exemplars I'm aware of, they're rare to meet in the wild. The D connector pattern dates to the 1940s when it really was "Subminiature" compared to what was in use at the time (Octal plugs and Jones plugs, with the former being 8-conductor tube/valve sockets used as connectors, and the latter being big square jobbies with flat blades like American/Japanese power plugs and cross-sections best described in fractions of, and indeed, whole, cigarette packets.)

How many of your vintage keyboards are you actually able to use with your computer? I know you can make adapters for most of them, and its definitely possible to do so with all of them.

where do you get all this keyboards from?

Video Aus=turn video off, Alle=all, dunkel=dark, sperre=lock

You OWN a Topre board?

Please never stop of doing this kind of videos.

Will the next video be with the new equipment

Your voice made my car purr

This keyboard is quieter than a Dell QuietKey... Quite ironic.

oh man you should put those bosch caps on that zenith keyboard that would look SO GOOD

BOSCH has keyboard? Germany BOSCH? I can't believe... They are famous for power tool, garden tool.

The small keyboard is used in computer rooms in schools. We had one of those systems installed where I went to school. The teacher can select to view the students' monitors (wich are represented by all the Sxx buttons), switch them through to the projector, lock everyone's screen, display any students screen to all students, display their own screen on the projector or all students screens. I think it works for input, too. The teacher can override the students' mouse and keyboard.
All this is done by a giant switch matrix in the students' desks. I've always been baffled by how good the signal integrity was for VGA even after it passed through several relays. This system is ultra compatible, as it works with anything offering VGA and PS/2 ports.
In the newer computer room we had a system based on software rather than a giant switch matrix. Probably a lot cheaper and more student-friendly as you could disable it by killing the process in task manager.

I could see the space bar stiffness real clearly when you began your typing demonstration at the end of the video. That is awful, I agree. The spacing between the function keys at the top of the board feels foreign. xD

there are some motherboards that still have the first plug

Topre isn't quite, silenced Topre is

Does anybody know what the Bosch is from?

There's a very simillar spacebar stabilizer in my aristotle equipped chicony KB-5191

Were those caps a direct inspiration for DSAs?

Why you didn't included this in Top 10 most silent keyboards?

It sounds like you're typing on a wet paper towel.

I thought the slinky button looked like a duck button at first.

Dude your voice was different two years ago :D also the mic is annoying comparing the one u use now :D

The Bosch keyboard likely uses a parallel port connector.

What is the use for a diode inside switches?

I don't remember making this keyboard...

The connectors are 9 pin serial and then parallel port. They are on older pcs.