Too limp, too thick, a pair of balls, we've all been there...

"Look, they're selling 3D icons of VLC-player"

OK I have to admit the VLC joke made me laugh out loud

"The contact system here is probably the cheapest, most horrible design I've come across so far" - that's the Mattel® way!

Home Depot sells weather stripping that looks like it would have been a good match.

Radio Shack used to have the exact foam you need. It was a 1/4"-thick closed-cell foam that was used to prevent air-leaks in speaker cabinets -- you'd put it on the edge of the cabinet, and then screw the back onto the cabinet, compressing the foam and sealing the cabinet to the back. It would've been perfect for this project -- if only Radio Shack was still in business. :-(

An external nearly useless box attached to a far less popular games console from the middle of the video game crash. I can't imagine how it failed.

It's amazing to me how you're able to get these old mass-produced machines working again with clever usage of repair store parts. The face that you're memorializing these machines while essentially giving a repair tutorial for something that likely never had a service manual is awesome. Keep up the great work, your channel is a gem.

"If you need a pair of Balls, they do keep those in Stock" - 8-bit guy 11:00

When we were kids (circa 2002) my brother and I were playing the army tank game on Intellivision. We put it down switched off the tv and went to eat or something and forgot to turn the intellivision off. We had several game consoles and only 1 tv so some time later we decided to play n64 or playstation or whatever and swapped the video input to the other console. A year or 2 later we decided to play intellivision again, we reached under the cabinet to get it out and noticed it was warm... We plugged the video back in to the tv, and the 2 army tanks were still sitting right there where we left them!!! So we resumed our game! Haha!

that "computer" addon along with the Aquarius seems to be why nobody's talking about Mattel computers today.

Next time before punching them out take marker pan and make lines on non conductive side to spare yourself extra work.

everyone: never have water near electronics this man: hold my casio

I love how all of these projects are like a labor of love for you. I never dreamed I would find all of this retro electronic stuff interesting.

Syntax higlighting!

I gotta admire this guy's patience and innovation! Many thanks for filming and posting.

Too bad you ran out of time on this one. I could have watched 30 minutes of this.

This is where Apple got their new dongle-adapter hell scheme from! 😂🙈

David keeps saying he runs out of time in order to make the videos he posts short, but I think a lot of us, including myself, would absolutely adore videos double the length. I love this content so much.

I was able to stop by and visit David while he was finishing this video up. Such a nice guy and great to his fans.

You know, I was thinking about this. I could totally re-engineer this thing with a 3D printed mechanism and some bubble contacts or something. It would of course never be worth the trouble but it could be done! On the other hand, that exact foam is sold at Home Depot in the cabinet area for padding. I have some of it in my shop storage bin. You should have called me!

12:57 you could have sprayed the non-conductive side of the whole sheet with some sparse pale paint before punching circles. This would saved you a lot of multimeter testing time

I love how tenacious and thorough you are.

Totally amazed and delighted that I came across this video tonight. I grew up with playing the Intellivision I & II with my siblings in the early 80's, and I still have both consoles along with the voice synthesizer and system changer and tons of games. Also, I'm a musician who plays 80's retrowave / electro pop on several analog and digital synths. so this video was a total gem for me. ~ Never knew Mattel had a keyboard and ECS unit for their system. I know it takes some time for me to upload videos when I'm managing two or three camera angles on a synth session, but dude... all this footage and clips of you breaking down the chassis and running around to hobby shops to find the right materials, and then putting it together... more patience than anyone I know. You really made such an informative and interesting video here and followed through on all of your hard work. Very impressive! Thanks so much for sharing.

Damn, you put a lot of work into that foam thing

"So, I'm going to have to test eeeach individual one with a multimeter to figure out which side to put them on.." Why didn't you just blanket mark/color the non-coated side /before/ punching them out..? o_O

I just LOVE when the synth music kicks in, and the restoration begins!

I binge watched every episode and you inspired me to pick up an old Casio on Ebay. Thank you for the trip down memory lane.

My goodness, that was really a pain in the ass to repair this keyboard!

if you run into difficultly finding foam again, hit me up, we have place here in Australia called Clark Rubber, that has a large range of foam rubber and foams in multiple sizes, as they are a specialist in stocking foam rubbers

Yes! I hit LIKE for any 8-bit keys video. It’s like Christmas. 🙏

You are awesome. I'd had given up after the finding of the painted foam strip. But not only did you come up with a solution how to restore this piece of ... electronic waste, in the end and many hours of nerve wracking one shots you brought it actually back to life. Chapeau!

2:58 Wow, I’ve never expected syntax highlighting on machine that is over 30 years old. Syntax highlighting is very common these days, but I’m pretty sure it was very uncommon back then.

I was kinda thinking you’d end up using weather stripping foam. Cause I think that’d be an appropriate alternate.

This is, like, the most work that you’ve ever done. I salute you, man.

11:00 been needing a new pair! thanks, 8-bit guy!

Absolutely do an ECS video. Retro Man Cave just did an Aquarius series (And it's fantastic by the way, check it out), He mentioned these in the history of that machine and now I'm intrigued by these little weird computer add ons I've never heard of.

Who else is screaming self adhesive draft excluder that is made for doors and windows?

A whole 4 months! Missed this channel!

This video is not just an 8-Bit Keys, but also an 8-Bit Guy style video at the same time. Never before have I felt so intrigued to click faster on the replay.

"3-dimensional icon for VLC media player" 😂

"I suppose if you need a pair of balls..." Are they made of steel?

Wow, You went the distance for this one. great vid as always.

Thank you for your videos. I have anxiety and i find your channel incredibly calming and so interesting.

"Obviously this could be fixed [...] but, guess what? I'm actually not going to do that." Right choice. :D

woo hoo! a new 8-bit keys!

Congratulations on 200,000 subscribers!!

All of this effort for a piano for the Intellivision. David you are a saint!

Does the intellivision require retrobriting or are the accessories a different colour anyway?

I've been thinking about fixing my Intellivision Synthesizer for years, but could never find any kind of tutorial. Thank you so much for this video! It's not a great keyboard, but as far as I know it's the first one for a game console. That's worth something, right?

David great to see you back! Great video as usual.

Wow so much time and effort restoring and repairing that keyboard, I salute you sir

There's also a BASIC adapter for the Atari 2600, believe it or not. Yes, please do a video (or two) on the Matell ECS! I would love to see just what's in the box and how it works!

This old foam looks like it's from a yoga mat.

Finally, a new video from 8bitguy. I missed his videos

That restoration took a whole new level of dedication, you can't help but be impressed.

12:55 dangit i wanted that last hit

A remarkable amount of genius and industry to repair a complete piece of crap!

Although not really interested in the music side of things, I still found myself watching this just for the fantastic presentation and walkthrough of the repairs. Superb vid as ever! 🙂

This was awesome thanks for spending all that time on it great job dude!

Could have just grabbed door weatherstripping foam from Home Depot.

*"I suppose if you need a pair of balls, they do keep those in stock"* _- The 8-Bit Guy, 2019_

I enjoy watching such projects way too much, thank you!

This was such a ridiculous undertaking, I was always impressed by the ingenuity it took to get it to work, even if it wasn't perfect.

Where is that "demo" part?

11:18 "VLC media player" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Wow! Amazing show of patient troubleshooting!

A new 8 Bit Keys video? How the day is blessed with such wonder!

I can't wait until they start selling the Save Icon from Microsoft Word!

David why didn’t you mark the mylar sheet with a sharpie BEFORE cutting them out 😂

Very nice job on this restoration. That was tricky!

Dave, you're truly an expert, at fabricating some interesting solutions, to the problems that arise.

Hobby Lobby...UGH!

i admire your tenacity to get this thing fixed. I would of gave up long ago.

Wow, we didn't realize that you also did Inty stuff. Pretty good coverage. Thanks for doing+sharing!

Most delicate restoration for a keyboard. But it worthed. Good job!

That kind of patience comes only from love to old technology... Great job. I always enjoy your work... Please keep up with it. Greetings from Argentina...

I really love your videos. The attention to detail is incredible.

Welcome back!!! I’ve been waiting for a new video on this channel. Don’t get me wrong, I love 8-but guy videos but the repair videos are my absolute favorite.

Sweet! New video from 8-Bit Keys!

This is a really impressive fix david way to go!

I just figured something out. I've watched a number of _8-Bit Keys_ videos, as well as computer restoration ones, but it was not clear to me why you even wanted to do some of the stuff you do. The answer hit me while watching this one. *You are a "hot-rodder"!* Just that instead of cars, you use old computers and keyboards, striving to get them back to "cherry" condition. Cool!

It was worth the wait, I missed you

FINALLY some Intellivision stuff ! Love it ! There is so much you could cover on Intellivision...

So fun to watch how one can overcome the little obstacles you have when you are trying to make things great again. Interesting

I had the ECS when I was a kid. It was really fun typing in the BASIC programs from the book.

That was a lot of work. Respect, dude. Respect.

A new 8-bit keys episode? INSTALIKE.

Very impressive. You have far more patience than I do.

Wow, that was such a quest to restore the keyboard, no surprise video took so long to be made. Nonetheless, that's a great job, I guess that's what makes the review so interesting. Thank you!

congrats on 200k subs

Liked for the 3D VLC icons. That made my day.

Amazing work with the keyboard.

Genious. You're dedication is inspiring. I love your videos. Keep up the good work.

Back in the early 2000’s I had that full setup, it was really cool to have

I grew up with the Intellivision 2 but I didn't know they were offering all these things!!!! I watched your video and I'm not sad that it didn't know keyboard and shit existed! Back in 1980, my parents bought the intellivision 2 for me as a xmas gift and I had so much fun with it!!!!

Can we take a moment to appreciate David cutting out 48(!) little circular conductive things, checking the conductivity on each side of each circle, putting all of them up to the right place, and doing all this masking and overall putting that much effort into this thing?

Very interesting fix to a very unique and troublesome problem. Foam weather strip is what came to mind. THD has some that is very squishy and comes in various widths and thicknesses.

Ppl would die for a channel like this. And he's so busy that he let's it die

Amazing work on that keyboard! I love tinkering like that but think this project would be a bit advanced for me. Great execution with the material you had available!