Siemens K1197 review (Siemens STB-21)

Skip to 5:45 for a typing demonstration.

A review of my Siemens K1197 keyboard. It's got this great, classic look to it, and the switches feel almost exactly like stiffer Cherry MX brown.

The practice sentence was: "Hello my name is Thomas and I'm typing on a Siemens K1197 keyboard right now. The keyfeel is rather meh, but I really think this thing is quite the looker, definitely a most interesting keyboard."

[macintoshse]

That's the keyboard for a K1197 portable protocol analyser running two 68000 CPU's at ~8Mhz, this means that's it's probably made in around 1985. high end testing equipment, Great find.

[DannyJP]

awesome my day is better whenever I see a notification cyrosran has an upload

[Lazarus]

It's for a network analyzer. Basically a special little computer that would have been used with its own suite of software to do what we might do with a program like WireShark today. When you look at the picture, you can see the big network cable used at the time, something quite like antenna coax for a military radio, with an "N" connector (A "WTF, this isn't a PL259?!" plug). Coax networks were neat, you could run them very long distances but if some idiot unplugged his machine the whole thing went down.

[IIIJFRIII]

Man you really get some epic finds at the recycling center, like damn. Really nice looking keyboards, but I'm with you, don't care for the switches. Very 1980's looking, should put it in a display case or something. Dude your comments are so fucking funny, I laugh my ass off every weekend at some of the things you say. Thank for giving us another epic video review.

[dank]

Siemens K1197 is a Dual Interface Protocol Tester designed to monitor, emulate and simulate several legacy telecommunication protocols. It is a successor of K1195 (rel. 1985), K1195-B (rel. 1986) and K1195-C (rel. 1988).
Some general information from K1197 User’s manual (rel. 1990):
HOUSING: Modular construction, polycarbonate injection molded housing with Aluminium side reinforcement and Aluminium back.
CRT: 8 color RGB-delta display with 9” diagonal, 23x80 characters, 10x12 pixels per character.
KEYBOARD: Detachable full ASCII, with 8 programmable function keys.
DISKS: two 3, 5” floppy drives DS, HD/DD 135 TPI, formatted for 1.3 MB/790 kB; hard-disk drive 3, 5” with 40 MB capacity and 28 ms access time.
AUXILIARY PORTS: 2x V.28/RS-232C 25-pin, for Modem (DCE) and Printer (DTE).
POWER SUPPLY: 220V AC to DC: 5V/30A, 12V/3A, -12V/0.8A, 24V/2A.
SYSTEM BUS: VME BUS, 23 address lines, 7 slots on the back-plane.
MAIN CPU: 32 bit MC68000 (16MHz) CPU, 1 MB RAM, CRT controller, HD/FD controller, RT clock, 3x 16-bit counter/timer, 2x asynchronous I/O ports.
FRONT END CPU: 2xCPUs 32-bit MC68000 (16 MHz), 2 MB RAM each, 80 I/O lines each, 4x HW timer with 1ms resolution each.
TEST INTERFACES: ISDN-BAI (2B+D, both So and Upo), ISDN-PRI (T1/23 B+D, E1/31 B+D), V.28, V.35, V.36, X.21.
OPERATING SYSTEM: MF 2.X is a real-time, event driven, multitasking, multiprocessing operation system, supporting soft function keys.
PROGRAMMING: Enhanced version of FORTH high-level programming language
APPLICATION PACKAGES: PT can test and emulate ISDN D-channel, ISDN B-channel, CCS#7 (TUP, TUP+, ISUP, SCCP, TF), X.21, X.25, X.75, T.90 and TELETEX.
FILE TRANSFER: “Kermit” file transfer protocol; FORDOS SW package is used for accessing floppies formatted by K1195 and K1197, on IBM-compatible PCs with MS-DOS operating system.

[TheMovieCreator]

Siemens switches were used by most of Tandbergs terminals in the 80s and even into the 90s. These switches are more for touch-typing and not so much if you like to bottom out the switch. One thing is that they actuate more or less as soon as they start to move.

[Walterus_]

Awesome video! Diggin that electric shavers metaphore:)

[andrewmccauley]

I love your random dips into profanity and creative insults. You're like a really polite King's-English-Dutch version of Malcolm Tucker!

[toolthoughts]

those keycaps really have a nice aesthetic

[mirsadcanga]

I don't know what the others say or advertise... I've found the Keyboard GOD.

[chubeviewer]

3:19 I have that keyboard it's pretty good, very smooth for a rubber dome and the has very low rattle and wobbling on the keys, and the keycaps are quite thick and it also has a steel backplate.

[missgradenkoMC]

What's your favorite Cherry MX switch? And have you ever linear modded a Cherry MX blue switch before?

[nathanlamaire]

This could be 'kind of' best keyboard you would find in the consumer market in the 80s.

[doug]

This board does have a certain classy look to it, but I don't know if I could ever get used to those wobbly switches. Enjoy your holiday, I'll look forward to your return ;-)

[SuperBeanson]

really like the green arrow keys against that brown

[greyareaRK]

You have a great voice. Have you approached keyboard companies to do reviews of their keyboards? That is a nicely designed keyboard (visually).

[Knightjp]

I think that one keyboard that has pretty much a Marmite reputation is the TypeMatrix keyboard. Have you ever thought of doing a review on that?

[missgradenkoMC]

I usually watch your videos on my phone, since its more comfortable. Could you put words (layout, switches, etc) in the video without annotations since mobile youtube does not support annotations?

[oliversteward]

this is very classy. looks like something from East Germany. Can imagine it being used in a Stasi office. Where do you get these keyboards?

[grapsorz]

you etaher hate them og love them.. i love them and use a Tandberg version of it.