Finally I got the computer I wanted about 35 years ago: the Atari 1200XL. It is the sexiest, best Atari computer ever made! Nice look and feel, design.

As usual I have not bought one, I bought not two, I bought a lot of them ;-). Most of them will go to collectors here in germany and I will keep one for my own collection. That quaranties none of the "butchers" from an Atari club will get them for crafts (I've heard there are people around adding ugly switches to this beautiful computer and drilling holes into it for such stupidity like SIO2SD etc.).

After receiving the first series of devices I started to open and clean them. the keyboard seems to be the "default" troublemaker in not working realiable after all that years. The cartridge slots looks "used" as well. But the overall condition is great. The housing do not really require my special bleeching step (well some of them requires it partially - specially on the back it seems most of them are "yellow"). I cleaned them up and tried to repair some of the existing scratches. They now look fresh and even the smell of old cold plastic with some smoke is gone.

Prior to sending over to the collectors I will assemble fully working condition by adding a basic cartridge, a 1050-powersupply (luckily I bought all I'm able to get within the last year) and a monitor cable for AV/Composite.

The only visible "problem" are the function keys. It seems most of them have scratches from daily use or cleaning (then you will notice circles). What is the best way to repair those keys? Transplant them from another device like Atari 600XL/800XL? (because it is easier to add metall bands on top of 5 keys instead of 10 including the name plate specially as the look and feel will differ)? Or is there another known way or the possibility to buy them elsewhere?