As you can see, I have returned. This time I bring you a Clare/Pendar keyboard. I have a bunch more photos for your today, but you can probably tell that I have a sub-optimal setup. I have some pretty terrible lighting in my workshop, and the kitchen has the best light setup. I also am only rocking an 18-200mm Nikkor atm. As a broke student, getting a Macro lens, and a Lightbox, are on my to do list but obviously they aren’t cheap. So for now this is the best that I can do. I am also experimenting with Lightroom, before I do my final touchup and watermark in Photoshop. Some of these photos I notice, turned out a bit darker then I like, so I figure it was something I might have done in Lightroom 🙄

Before I show off the keyboard, I have spent a few hours researching the origins of Clare-Pendar, and although confusing, it is quite interesting.

I got this board the same time as I got my Honeywell Microswitch Keyboard, only I was able to keep this board. I posted a basic Imgur Gallery to /r/Mechanicalkeyboards, where I was asked by HaaTa and others to post a more thorough gallery. It wasn’t great. Here I will attempt to do a far better job.

So the history of Clare-Pendar is a little confusing, but I believe that I have figured some of it out. Clare-Pendar is a product line (also going by the names: Switchlight, Pendar switchline, Clare Pendar switchline, and General Instruments switchline) made by the Joseph Pollak Corporations, Transportation Electronics Division. Pollak was started back in 1909 in Boston, MA. It supplied the 2 pole connectors to the Ford Motor Company for use in the Model T! This is where I start getting quite confused.

Much later down the line (1988) a company called Stoneridge buys the Pollak Company, and then 4 years later (1992) they buy the General Instruments Transportation Electronics Division. The company Electro-Mech then buys the Switchlight product line from Pollak Transportation Electronics Division (T.E.D.), (owned by Stoneridge) in 1997. On Electro-Mech’s website they list “General Instruments switchline” as being a previous name of the Clare-Pendar switch.

Based on a label on my keyboards PCB, my keyboard was made April 6th, 1973. What I cannot figure out, is which of these companies were connected back then, and who was the actual designer and creator of this keyboard? Just as things seemingly made sense, I discovered another couple tidbits that make everything even more confusing. There is a Texas Instruments controller on the PCB of my keyboard. It just so happens that back in 1951, Texas Instruments originally named themselves General Instruments, 12 years after the original General Instruments (they then of course changed to Texas Instruments after they noticed the conflict). What I wonder is if the inclusion of a Texas Instruments controller is again a coincidence or if there is some connection.

Finally I know that Haata has a possible Clare-Pendar Keypad. The only identifier on his keypad is “MEXICO”. I know for the most part he believes it to be a Clare-Pendar board, but the “MEXICO” just reassures that possibility. The reason is that both Electro-Mech (the recent acquirer of the Switchlight product line) and the Transportation Electronics Division of General Instruments, were based in Southern California/Texas, and manufactured (with American QA) in Mexico. This again just leads me to wonder, were Pollak (a Boston based company), and General Instruments (created in Horsham, PA) somehow connected way back in the day. Sadly HaaTa’s keypad, does not have any date on it.

Lastly, I found a supplier of Clare-Pendar switches going by the name Visualux. They mention that they have been a supplier of Clare-Pendar switches since the late 1980’s (Stoneridge bought Pollak in 1988, which leads me to think that they were the creator and manufacturer of the switches, but that still doesn’t explain their link to General Instruments), and that the manufacturer of the switches have undergone multiple ownership changes since then.

So please if anyone can dig up any more information or knows anything, I would love to know. The main thing I am confused about is, who originally created the Clare-Pendar line? Was it Pollak’s Transportation Electronics Division? Was it General Instruments Transportation Electronics Division? Were the 2 somehow tied back in the day? Were they just combined by Stoneridge? Did Texas Instruments simply supply a controller for the Clare-Pendar Keyboard, or due to the conflicting names were they more involved in the creation/production of the keyboard?

on to the keyboard!

There is a blue connector with pins on the opposite end, that attaches to these gold contacts here.

Here are all of the markings and identifiers I could find on the PCB:

T.I. P/N 959326 REV E (it appears it was previously stamped with “REV C” but was restamped and then hand changed to “REV E”. Then there is handwriting that says “INS.” and is underlined, I assume this means “inspected”. I mentioned in the history part, that these boards were manufactured in Mexico, but there were Pollak (General Instruments? Texas Instruments? Stoneridge? Electro-Mech?) Quality Assurance people on the floor, who inspect everything. Sounds an awful lot like Razer QA inspecting their Kailh clones 😆

EDIT: Also noticed the “T.I.” part. Possibly “Texas Instruments”?

CKJ5 BX 102K

“OG” circled? (They must have paid Ice-T to sign each and every keyboard… ) “C INC B”

“Clare-Pendar Code Identification Number 97564” handwritten: “-7345” “Assembly Number 720731-K1. Serial Number.” handwritten: “33439-C”

“eh” handwritten in cursive

“Final 81 INSP.” Stamped into the PCB.

“PART NO. 700409-E129” handwritten: “-A”

“ISSUE 4-6-73” I assume this to be the production date.

Here is that Texas Instruments chip I mentioned in the history.

So in the History section I mentioned a distributer of Clare-Pendar products, named Visualux. If you take a look at their product catalogue you can find this PDF. It talks about a type of Clare-Pendar Reed switch. This adds to the likely possibility that HaaTa’s reed switch keypad, is made by Clare-Pendar. On page 5 of the PDF it also diagrams and talks about a space bar designed for the Reed Switch. Although my switches are not Reed Switches, it shares the same space bar design:

Sadly I did not think to desolder this switch at the time (I will do so if there is interest), but the capslock or “SHIFT LOCK” key is a locking key! It is actually quite nice, and smooth.

Now I have no clue why, but I seem to have completely skipped over taking a nice shot of the tops of these switches in my previous Imgur Gallery, AND this photoshoot! Luckily it isn’t that incredible but this should suffice:

I desoldered a good few switches and the only thing that changed in the identifiers of the switches were the numbers in the very middle. They were all different numbers and didn’t seem to have any physical differences. The 5 switch was the space bar switch, if that gives any help to anyone.

So the switch is a basic Gold Leaf switch. The plunger holds the 2 leaves apart and when the switch is depressed, the contacts touch and form a complete circuit. Just a basic continuity switch. They are obviously linear. The stem is a basic cross mount, but it is not compatible with Cherry MX keycaps, and vice versa.

To measure the actuation force, I broke out my high tech lab gear again.

The switch actuated with 2.5 oz of weight. 2.5 oz is about 63 grams. We will round this to 65g.

Finally the keycaps:

They are all double shot, and like I mentioned earlier, they are not Cherry MX compatible, no matter how close they appear.

So there you have it! This is my Clare-Pendar keyboard and a tear down of the Clare-Pendar switch, and a bit of history thrown in too! These photo guides are a ton of fun to make, but also happen to take 5+ hours (this one, with the research I did, took closer to 10 hours) to make. At the moment I have a good bit of free time, and I have a bunch of more vintage keyboards, and will be going to a computer/HAM fest this weekend. I plan to pick up a bunch of stuff, and I will post what I have and you guys can chose what I teardown next.

Darksouls 2 releases later today, a game I have been anticipating for a long time now, so I will be spending a good amount of time there. Basically, my point is that I enjoy making these posts but they take a lot of time, and I have a bunch of keyboards to show, so I am going to try and do as many as I can while I have plenty of spare time. Let me know if there is anything else you would like to know, or see with this keyboard!

I also noticed that this wiki page: https://deskthority.net/wiki/Clare-Pendar_Series_S840 was made based on my original Imgur gallery I posted 5 months ago. I don’t know much about who can edit the wiki, or how, or any guidelines surrounding that, but I am pretty sure this post organized and added a lot of information. So if someone else wants to add this to the wiki, or if someone could let me know how I could go about doing that, that would be great. Finally, would anyone be interested in the Osborne 1, Oak Switch Systems, Full Travel Membrane keyboard next?