User:Dwaro/Sun Microsystems keyboards

Keyboards manufactured by Sun Microsystems.

The keyboards were made in multiple different country layouts: US, US/UNIX, French, Danish, German, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Finnish, Swiss/French, Swiss/German, UK, Korean, Taiwanese, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, Turkish F, Turkish Q ^[1].

Notable features

UNIX layout

Not taking language variants into account, there are 2 basic variants of the layout - classical and UNIX. The UNIX layout^[2] has the following properties compared to the classic layout:

the Caps Lock placed to the left of the A key
the Control key is in the bottom left corner of the main key block
the Backspace key is placed directly above the Enter key
there is a back tick key above the Backspace key
there is a blank key in the spot where the Esc key is normally placed
the Esc key is next to the 1 key in the main key block.

Special purpose keys

These keyboards feature a Help key and a block of special purpose keys: Stop, Again, Props, Undo, Front, Copy, Open, Paste, Find, Cut. Another special feature is the presence of the Alt Graph and Compose keys that can be used to input special characters such as © or aid in typing letters of complex alphabets like Japanese.

The Stop key in combination with A can be used to make a SPARC machine to enter the OBP prompt for maintenance or debugging purposes^[3].

Type ID

Each of the keyboards identified itself to the operating system with a distinct identifier. The Solaris operating system leveraged this in the installer - if such keyboard was detected, it was not necessary to select the type of the keyboard and it was selected automatically based on this ID. Some of the keyboards have a set of dip pins that allow to set the layout dynamically. This is handy for Internationalization and localization testing.

type ID slots
key ID switch on the rear of type-7
empty key ID slot on the rear of type-7
key ID switch on the bottom of type-5

Models

There used to be a black USB keyboard sold by Oracle with some server systems after the Sun Microsystems aquisition however this model was cheaply made and did not have any real traces to the original Sun Microsystems keyboards.

Type-3

The keys were split into 3 blocks:

special keys
main block
numeric pad

Shipped with Sun-3 systems ^[4]. There were 4 diodes in the upper right corner.

Type-4

Type-5

Original keyboard for Sun Microsystems workstations. Has 2 Mini-DIN connectors for connecting the keyboard to computer and for connecting the Computer mouse. They are both located underneath the keyboard.^[5]^[6]

Type-5c

Replaced Type-5 keyboard in 1994. Has one Mini-DIN connector for mouse. The cable for connecting the keyboard to computer runs underneath the keyboard.^[7]

Type-6

Comes in two variants, one with Mini-DIN, one with USB connectors. The top edge of the keyboard is rounded. The keyboard has a special "diamond" key (called Meta key) placed next to the space key. This key comes from Lisp machines and is meant to be used with the Emacs editor. Also has 3 keys for regulating volume control or screen brightness and a power key in the upper top corner.

It came with plastic wrist rest in purple color.

In this type 4 diodes on the top were added - Num Lock, Caps Lock, Scroll Lock, Compose. There are no diodes built in the keys.

This keyboard type seems to be least popular among Sun Microsystems keyboards ^[8] based on the key depress mechanism which is rubber based^[9].

Type-7

Has 2 USB connectors on the rear and 1 USB connector on the bottom. There is a separate cable for connecting the keyboard to computer that runs on the bottom. The design resembles the original design of Type-5 keyboard.