IBM SSK club!

andrewjoy · 28 Mar 2015, 20:49

Can we all get together and look at that barrel plate and say EEEEWWWWWEEEEE!!!!!

scottc · 28 Mar 2015, 20:51

Nice, my '87 SSK is my favourite! It's the 25th of September.

andrewjoy wrote: ↑Can we all get together and look at that barrel plate and say EEEEWWWWWEEEEE!!!!!

I agree. You should've seen the Cherry PCBs from BT that I was cleaning out this week. I used up literally half a box of cotton buds on one of them...

seebart · 28 Mar 2015, 20:58

Yeah really that barrel filth is intense. Is that Texan dust? Anyway congrats on your SSK LLRnR! Welcome to the club.
Another one from 1987. IBM must have cranked out a lot of keyboards in 87.

andrewjoy · 28 Mar 2015, 21:01

scottc wrote: ↑Nice, my '87 SSK is my favourite! It's the 25th of September.

andrewjoy wrote: ↑Can we all get together and look at that barrel plate and say EEEEWWWWWEEEEE!!!!!
I agree. You should've seen the Cherry PCBs from BT that I was cleaning out this week. I used up literally half a box of cotton buds on one of them...

Screw cotton buds, blastr them out with compressed air !

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Datavac-Electri ... B003BZCOKK

I have 2 one at home and one in work. I was cleaning the coms cab in the workshop and it shot that much dust out of the coms cap that i could not see the other side of the room. Its nice and tidy now tho

, you should have seen it before, i could not see the switch for all the unused patches and dust.

nothing better than a nice tidy coms cabinet .

LLRnR · 28 Mar 2015, 21:03

andrewjoy wrote: ↑Can we all get together and look at that barrel plate and say EEEEWWWWWEEEEE!!!!!

LOL, yeah that's what I also said. But I cleaned it yesterday, it took me a lot of time:

scottc wrote: ↑Nice, my '87 SSK is my favourite! It's the 25th of September.

I agree. You should've seen the Cherry PCBs from BT that I was cleaning out this week. I used up literally half a box of cotton buds on one of them...

Nice! Is 1987 the first year they started manufacturing SSKs? Anyway, for IBMs, the older, the better (well, not necessarily, but I much rather prefer having older rather than newer boards).

What's BT?

seebart wrote: ↑Yeah really that barrel filth is intense. Is that Texan dust? Anyway congrats on your SSK LLRnR! Welcome to the club.

It may well be! Thank you, seebart

scottc · 28 Mar 2015, 21:12

andrewjoy wrote: ↑ Screw cotton buds, blastr them out with compressed air !

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Datavac-Electri ... B003BZCOKK

I have 2 one at home and one in work. I was cleaning the coms cab in the workshop and it shot that much dust out of the coms cap that i could not see the other side of the room. Its nice and tidy now tho , you should have seen it before, i could not see the switch for all the unused patches and dust.

nothing better than a nice tidy coms cabinet .

I was actually looking at Datavacs earlier today, but they're so expensive on Amazon UK! Plus, you should've seen the goo on this PCB, eugh...

Nice cable management though, everything looks nice and tidy.

LLRnR wrote: ↑Nice! Is 1987 the first year they started manufacturing SSKs? Anyway, for IBMs, the older, the better (well, not necessarily, but I much rather prefer having older rather than newer boards).

What's BT?

Hm, good question. It might be! Clickykeyboards should be able to answer that.

BT = British Telecomms. A friend and I just got a big box of keyboard delivered from the UK, and a couple of them had stickers from what looks like a BT office in them. They were filthy!

LLRnR · 28 Mar 2015, 21:19

scottc wrote: ↑Hm, good question. It might be! Clickykeyboards should be able to answer that.

Yup, I just checked and it would appear the earliest models date back to 1987. The Deskthority wiki says the same thing.

BT = British Telecomms. A friend and I just got a big box of keyboard delivered from the UK, and a couple of them had stickers from what looks like a BT office in them. They were filthy!

Thanks for the clarification. I guess you must have had a lot of fun with that batch

POTV · 29 Mar 2015, 13:58

Say hello to Frenchie. An original 1987 ISO SSK bought on ebay a few weeks ago. (One of the apparantly very ISO factory made)

It had french/canadian keycaps, but I changed them to danish. Except for the enter key. When I tried with my spare enter with wire stabilizer, it felt much more light to the touch than the other keys so I decided to keep the original enter.

I really like the size of the keyboard compared to the normal Model M's - not to mention the F's...

LLRnR · 29 Mar 2015, 14:02

That's nice! I love the colored key caps. I'm thinking of getting some from Unicomp myself.

POTV · 29 Mar 2015, 14:06

Yes - they are nice. And I actually think that the different colours speeds up my writing a bit...

seebart · 29 Mar 2015, 14:07

Wow nice POTV. SSK ISO is rare indeed. You give your keyboard's names?

Where did you get those nice caps?

POTV · 29 Mar 2015, 14:10

Thanks seebart. Yes - rare and costly. The seller had it listed for 250 USD, but I could buy it now for 325 USD. It is probably not worth that much. And a bolt mod should be better anyway. But it was there - and I wanted it...

POTV · 29 Mar 2015, 14:12

Unicomp has the keycaps. Not expensive.

http://www.pckeyboard.com/page/Buttons/PRK

seebart · 29 Mar 2015, 14:14

Unicomp yeah I thought so. 325 is kinda steep but it's a rare one. Nice. Congrats.

Redmaus · 29 Mar 2015, 17:54

POTV wrote: ↑Unicomp has the keycaps. Not expensive.

http://www.pckeyboard.com/page/Buttons/PRK

The problem with me is if you want printed keycaps to replace the ISO keys in order to achieve full ANSI you have to mix and match and even then its a lot of money. Unicomp should just make an ANSI and ISO order option.

ramnes · 29 Mar 2015, 17:56

POTV wrote: ↑Thanks seebart. Yes - rare and costly. The seller had it listed for 250 USD, but I could buy it now for 325 USD. It is probably not worth that much. And a bolt mod should be better anyway. But it was there - and I wanted it...

You won't have any problem to sell it if you want to. 325$ for an ISO SSK doesn't sound expensive to me considering the rarity of a real one (not a ISO bolt modded).

Muirium · 29 Mar 2015, 18:01

Nice indeed. Submit it to Clickykeyboards Model M database:

http://www.clickykeyboards.com/index.cf ... n/pageID/3

I try to add all my relevant models to that collection too. Nice to gather for ourselves all the data IBM thoughtfully but cryptically included on our boards.

POTV · 29 Mar 2015, 20:58

Good idea, Muirium - the seller actually contacted Clickeykeyboards in order to find out more about the keyboard. So it should be there. I'll check up on it

macmakkara · 30 Mar 2015, 10:11

Im not sure if i dropped this here already... http://imgur.com/a/qSF3H

ramnes · 30 Mar 2015, 11:17

Registering here, a bit late, but better late than never:

Madhias · 30 Mar 2015, 11:19

The blank caps are awesome! I have them too, but never used them so far. I ordered them just for making some pictures, but was not brave enough to actually use them.

LLRnR · 30 Mar 2015, 11:21

ramnes' avatar + SSK => there's a pattern here!

Nice! That's a beauty!

seebart · 30 Mar 2015, 11:22

ramnes wrote: ↑Registering here, a bit late, but better late than never:

very nice ramnes. It's never too late! Looks sweet with blanks like that.

HzFaq · 30 Mar 2015, 11:25

That ISO SSK is too cool, I think that's going to be next on my big game hit list...I just need a way of turning used nappies into money and I'll be golden.

seebart · 30 Mar 2015, 11:32

HzFaq wrote: ↑...I just need a way of turning used nappies into money and I'll be golden.

I've been looking for that half my life, can't seem to find it.

Even more rare than an ISO SSK.

POTV · 30 Mar 2015, 13:18

Very clean and stilish look, ramnes - are the caps from Unicomp?

ramnes · 30 Mar 2015, 14:24

Thanks everyone.

LLRnR wrote: ↑ramnes' avatar + SSK => there's a pattern here!

Same keycaps, but not the same board, though!

POTV wrote: ↑are the caps from Unicomp?

Yep!

Khers · 30 Mar 2015, 14:26

Really nice ramnes!

I've considered acquiring blanks for my SSK from Unicomp for a while. I think this settles it!

The red esc is really neat as well!

Redmaus · 31 Mar 2015, 01:43

Very nice Ramnes. I like the blank keys and the red esc. I first I thought the blue logo thats on my SSK too looked ugly but now I kind of like it.

idollar · 31 Mar 2015, 04:34

@ramnes

Definitely, the shiny 107 deserves these keys

I like a lot your keyboard !