Repairing an Acorn Electron

[matsondawson]

What a palava, the people who wrote the ROM on these things should be shot!
If they keyboard has a fault the whole thing just dies with screen corruption, not even a how's your father!
I've spent two days fixing an electron, and every time I think it's fixed something dies again, all keyboard related.
4 keys and a weird copper ribbon (almost as crap as the connector on a spectrum keyboard) had to be replaced from a donor electron.

[matsondawson]

Also, can someone tell me if the electron can output colour on the composite video connector? I get colour via RF but not composite.

[tezza]

Hi Matt,

I know nothing about these machine so can't be much help. Does the keyboard work in a similar way to a BBC? Documents for the latter might be easier to find on the web.

That is unusual though. In most machines the only symptom of a faulty keyboard is that keys don't work.

"donor electron". I'm not sure if that was a deliberate pun or not but I like it.

I've just had an exciting time (-NOT) regarding a keyboard and one of my Colour Genies. But that's another story...

[matsondawson]

I noticed last night on my BBC Master some of the keys aren't working, opening it I found it uses the same key switches as the Electron.
Does anyone have a spare keyboard for a bbc or electron lying around that I can use?