Maybe it's some non-PC standard? But afaik the "88" would then have been called something like "IBM" or something?
edit: I meant XT instead of IBM of course 😊
Could you post some pics of the front of the entire keyboard and one with the model number to go along with it?

I'd be interested in the answer too btw 😀

Could well be - maybe a dumb terminal or something. I'm not aware of any of those that used a standard PC DIN socket though, all the ones I've seen had custom connectors.

Here are photos of the front and back of the whole keyboard. It doesn't really say much to me (the silver label on the back really is mostly blank, it's not faded or overexposed or anything.) Just looks like a generic keyboard. Unfortunately it's not a clicky-key one, but rather a very spongy type - feels like an early rubber dome one.

Ok so I took it apart - nothing spectacular but it does have the brand "Datacomp" on the PCB, the date "1/8/1990" as a copper trace on the PCB, and "SUNG WEI 02HB" also as copper trace on the PCB. Also has another "QA 03 OK" sticker like on the back.

It certainly looks very similar to the IBM keyboards of that era. It's possible the model number (many keyboards back then had stickers with serial numbers, yours seems to not have one) on the sticker has let go of your keyboard.

Perhaps someone with more knowledge on this subject may chime in later, I'm not too familiar with keyboards 😊

Btw, I've heard rumors of terrible things happening if you remove the space bar, so better keep it there. Condition of your keyboard looks very good actually 😀

Oh, what sort of terrible things? I've removed spacebars before without any trouble, you just have to be careful as they usually have two mounting points, so I guess you could damage the key if you pull one end more than the other...

Malvineous wrote:

Oh, what sort of terrible things? I've removed spacebars before without any trouble, you just have to be careful as they usually have two mounting points, so I guess you could damage the key if you pull one end more than the other...

I heard rumors of people who carelessly removed the space bars of their vintage keyboards and then it would brake off, like you mentioned.
I don't know for sure what happened to all those people who did this but I've heard vague rumors that exactly 1337 days after they had removed their space bars, they all had died terrible deaths like being struck by a bolt of lightning or getting decapitated by hurricane-propelled CDROMs of AOL install disks, it was horrible! 😢

I was only joking of course...but anyway, I don't bother removing space bars, still got a little stack of keyboards left 😀