Pad card

Provided by the ASK Keyboard Dictionary

Image source: [1]
Category: ComponentsOrigin: Official

Aka/also known as: capsense PCB

A pad card is what IBM called a PCB with contacts to facilitate capacitance sensing. The name likely refers to the appearance of many pairs of rectangular pads of exposed copper under each key-switch actuator. Whilst pad cards may have controller/logic electronics on them, there's no specific requirement for one to also have logic - a pad card can have an edge connector for slotting a controller card onto it. IBM Model B and Model F keyboards both made use of pad cards.

Sources

ASK. Admiral Shark's Keyboards original content. License/note: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

  1. snuci - File:IBM PC Model F Type 1 - capacitive PCB.JPG [accessed 2022-11-05]. License/note: public domain.

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