Keyboard Field Identification Guide

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XMIT
[ XMIT ]

17 Apr 2015, 20:00

A very real problem is sorting keyboards at a recycler. The vast majority are rubber dome keyboards that are more valuable for their reclaimable materials: silver, other precious metals, some plastics. Some are valuable to us.

What I've constructed is a document to give to non-experts to help with first round keyboard sorting. This assumes one "expert" and multiple individuals who are not experts but are capable of learning and following patterns. I've tried to "keep it simple" and restrict it to one double sided sheet of Letter or A4 paper.

The full guide, version 1, is here as an image attachment.
Spoiler:
20150417 Keyboard Field Identification Guide.jpg
20150417 Keyboard Field Identification Guide.jpg (409.02 KiB) Viewed 4023 times
20150417 Keyboard Field Identification Guide 2.jpg
20150417 Keyboard Field Identification Guide 2.jpg (184.92 KiB) Viewed 4023 times
This is the current text on page one, without formatting:

Keyboard Identification Field Guide

Goal: To separate out keyboards that could be interesting to collectors.

Step 1: Place every keyboard into one of three piles.

YES means “leaves the warehouse”. Done.
NO means “goes to the grinder”. Done.
MAYBE means “take another look, maybe pull a key”.

We can't just sort by brand or model as there is too much variation.

Keyboards in the YES pile:
Clicky. Loud. Really heavy. IBM Model M. IBM Model F. Dell AT101.

Keyboards in the NO pile:
Rubber dome keyboards that look and feel cheap.
Work with someone to double check. Careful – once here, it's gone.
Examples: Dell QuietKey. Many IBM, HP, Dell, Compaq.

Keyboards in the MAYBE pile:
Chicony. Apple. Everything else.

Step 2: For every keyboard in the MAYBE pile: consult an expert.

These are words that describe keyboards that are probably a YES:

loud, heavy, old, big, small, metal, unusual connector (not AT or PS2 or USB), spherical key caps, dark keys, no numeric keypad, unusual key layout, unusual legends, colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown)

These are words that describe keyboards that are probably a NO:

mushy, soft, light, thin, flexy, cheap, hollow

Every keyboard in the MAYBE pile must end up in the YES or NO pile.

User avatar
Ascaii
The Beard

17 Apr 2015, 20:10

You are missing something very important: Cherry! Unfortunately, most cherry boards fit your "no" indicators, so put the brand down on the definitie MAYBE list.

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Muirium
µ

17 Apr 2015, 20:11

An image attachment?

Image

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XMIT
[ XMIT ]

17 Apr 2015, 20:39

Muirium wrote: An image attachment?
Propose a nicer way to share a PDF or similar. Suggestions welcome. I'm not buying into Dropbox or one of those awful embedded Javascript PDF readers. Plus it was quick and dirty. So, yes, image attachment.

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Muirium
µ

17 Apr 2015, 20:40

Control A. Control C. Alt + Tab. Control V.

Text is text.

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XMIT
[ XMIT ]

17 Apr 2015, 20:41

Maybe I'm missing something - all of the text in the document was copy-pasted in the original post?

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Touch_It

17 Apr 2015, 20:57

Keyboards with soft rubber media control keys. Can all of those be ruled out?

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Chyros

17 Apr 2015, 22:02

Chuck everything that is a rubber dome. To determine;

-Press a couple of keys. Listen to the sound (keep anything that makes more than the tiniest noise, even dampened tactile switches make much more noise than rubber domes) and feel the keyfeel (all linears are mechanical, if it feels squishy, like you could press it more than 100%, it's almost certainly rubber). It should be possible to recognise at least 90% of all rubber domes this way.
-Look at the keyboard. If it is black, looks cheap, or has extra buttons that are stupid (music, internet, email, that sort of rubbish), or is NOT rectangular when looked at from above, it's probably rubber dome.
-Feel the keyboard. If it feels very light, as if it has no metal parts in it, it's almost certainly rubber dome. Even the lightest mechanical keyboards are heavier than membrane ones (the lightest I've found so far is my 6312-TW, and that has a nice giveaway metal back panel and is very clicky).
-Look at the brand. Brands on the front may be rebadges, so try to look at the back-side sticker if there is one. The mechanical series of manufacturers usually look substantially different from their (later) rubber dome series. Brands to look out for are IBM (buckling springs on old ones; very easy to recognise), Chicony (practically all their mechanicals start with KB-5***), Cherry (G80, G81, and G84), Focus (keep *001 and *000 keyboards, will almost always be a 2001), Dell (keep it if it says AT101), Acer (keep 60** and 63**), Apple (toss it if it's not old or if it's called "AppleDesign Keyboard"), keep all Northgates, all Zeniths, all Montereys that make a noise. Key Tronic is almost always rubber domes, but apparently they're just about the best rubber domes on the market.
-Keep everything that's SUPER old. If it's 1990 or older, it will almost always be mechanical.
-Keep everything that ROUGHLY resembles a Model M, F XT, F AT, or Alps Bigfoot. There are fucktons of clones of these, but the vast majority of them are mechanical.
-Pull a key cap on everything you're not sure of. If you can't directly see a rubber dome underneath it or the cap you pulled doesn't have the slider integrated into it, it's almost certainly mechanical.

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photekq
Cherry Picker

17 Apr 2015, 22:13

For Cherry..

Keep ANYTHING that is G80.

Keep ANYTHING that is G81 WITH first letter H or S.

Also, there are some Cherry rebranded things that don't actually say Cherry on them :

Keep any NCR keyboards. Not many of them will be Cherry, but the Cherry ones are very nice.

Keep any Olivetti keyboards.

Keep any Peacock keyboards.

There are lots of others too, but I can't remember most off the top of my head.

Although really the best way to identify Cherry is to familiarise yourself with Cherry profile keycaps, and familiarise yourself with Cherry font! No other keyboard has a font like Cherry's. If you know the font, you can spot a Cherry from a mile off!

Also, remember.. Not all Cherries are clicky!

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XMIT
[ XMIT ]

17 Apr 2015, 22:21

Thanks Chyros. I will incorporate your feedback and all other feedback I get in an eventual version 2 of my document. Hopefully this thread is useful to other keyboard hunters as well.

Only to play devil's advocate, and to demonstrate how frustrating a problem this is, I'm going to try to provide a common exception to as many of your suggestions as I can. :evilgeek:
Chyros wrote: Chuck everything that is a rubber dome. To determine;

-Press a couple of keys. Listen to the sound (keep anything that makes more than the tiniest noise, even dampened tactile switches make much more noise than rubber domes) and feel the keyfeel (all linears are mechanical, if it feels squishy, like you could press it more than 100%, it's almost certainly rubber). It should be possible to recognise at least 90% of all rubber domes this way.
Exception: ITW/Cortron magnetic valve switches with buckling rubber sleeves. They feel like rubber domes - and are - but are rather more interesting and can become very nice linear switches by replacing the sleeve with a spring.
Chyros wrote: -Look at the keyboard. If it is black, looks cheap, or has extra buttons that are stupid (music, internet, email, that sort of rubbish), or is NOT rectangular when looked at from above, it's probably rubber dome.
Exceptions: Apple Adjustable Keyboard, Addison KB-7001
Chyros wrote: -Feel the keyboard. If it feels very light, as if it has no metal parts in it, it's almost certainly rubber dome. Even the lightest mechanical keyboards are heavier than membrane ones (the lightest I've found so far is my 6312-TW, and that has a nice giveaway metal back panel and is very clicky).
Not that you're likely to see one in a trash heap but I expect the HHKB is fairly light.

I do agree that weight is a good test. In another thread we introduced the "float" test. Cheap-o Dell rubber dome keyboards float.
Chyros wrote: -Look at the brand. Brands on the front may be rebadges, so try to look at the back-side sticker if there is one. The mechanical series of manufacturers usually look substantially different from their (later) rubber dome series.
Exception: rubber dome IBM Model M - Cindy has about 50 of these.
Chyros wrote: Brands to look out for are IBM (buckling springs on old ones; very easy to recognise), Chicony (practically all their mechanicals start with KB-5***), Cherry (G80, G81, and G84), Focus (keep *001 and *000 keyboards, will almost always be a 2001), Dell (keep it if it says AT101), Acer (keep 60** and 63**), Apple (toss it if it's not old or if it's called "AppleDesign Keyboard")
Exception: Apple Desktop Bus Keyboard II. Some Apple Design Keyboards have nice key caps.
Chyros wrote: , keep all Northgates, all Zeniths, all Montereys that make a noise. Key Tronic is almost always rubber domes, but apparently they're just about the best rubber domes on the market.
-Keep everything that's SUPER old. If it's 1990 or older, it will almost always be mechanical.
Early 1980s keyboards include a large number of Key Tronic foam and foil. These are okay with some work but are not always popular. I remember the Commodore 64 keyboard being particularly awful.
Chyros wrote: -Keep everything that ROUGHLY resembles a Model M, F XT, F AT, or Alps Bigfoot. There are fucktons of clones of these, but the vast majority of them are mechanical.
-Pull a key cap on everything you're not sure of. If you can't directly see a rubber dome underneath it or the cap you pulled doesn't have the slider integrated into it, it's almost certainly mechanical.
Pulling a cap is ideal. It is also time consuming and invites damage. I managed to destroy a NEC blue oval switch by pulling straight up as I usually do for Alps. Now I try wiggling side to side first. It is possible to avoid damage with experience and much easier if you know the switch type a priori. But this is possibly a bit much to expect of a recycling center volunteer.

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elecplus

17 Apr 2015, 23:14

Learn the "Cherry font"? What is this?
I have lots of vintage Cherry blacks, and each different brand has a different looking set of legends!
Even the Model M 1391401 don't have the same font weight, or height, or color. Some have beige for the numpad, and some have blue. Some have 1 piece caps, and some have 2 piece. There do not seem to be too many standards in these things.
Even the 2 Wang keyboards that I am getting ready to ship have the same PN, but 2 different switches!

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chzel

17 Apr 2015, 23:45

Photekq meant the font used on boards made by Cherry Corp. (G80, G81 etc) not any board using Cherry switches.
Cherry's font and keycap profile is distinctive and Cherry's double-shot and dye-subbed caps are really nice!

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Chyros

18 Apr 2015, 01:10

XMIT wrote: Thanks Chyros. I will incorporate your feedback and all other feedback I get in an eventual version 2 of my document. Hopefully this thread is useful to other keyboard hunters as well.
*lots of stuff*
Yeah I know, this is more meant as a general pointer :) . It will not work in 100% of the cases, just in the vast majority of them. I tried to make it in such a way you're more likely to accidentally keep a rubber dome board than to chuck a mechanical one.

The handlers at the recycling centre(s) I go to just keep everything for me, I go through them myself. It's piss easy to sort through them if you have a little bit of experience with older boards (I'm not very interested in new boards). And they only cost 50 pence apiece, so I wouldn't mind even if I did get a rubber dome one every once in a while :) .

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Muirium
µ

18 Apr 2015, 09:59

How about some sort of visual flowchart? We recognise things by sight, after all. So much easier to check something against pictures than to process (necessarily complex) words.
XMIT wrote: Maybe I'm missing something - all of the text in the document was copy-pasted in the original post?
Oops, my bad. Was on the little iPhone all day.

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XMIT
[ XMIT ]

18 Apr 2015, 11:54

Muirium wrote: How about some sort of visual flowchart? We recognise things by sight, after all. So much easier to check something against pictures than to process (necessarily complex) words.
Perhaps. I am considering a longer field guide to give to managers and others who are willing and able to read through a longer document and/or can watch video and listen to audio. The one page guide above is designed to be given to a volunteer with no training. I keep the procedure and the language super simple.

davkol

18 Apr 2015, 12:44

The switch feel recommendations don't make much sense to me. Remember, sorting lots of equipment can be hard work. The perception is different then—e.g., Cherry MY switches are designed to feel fine under such conditions—and any subtleties are miniscule or beyond recognition. The same might be true for noise.

There are a few points worth adding:
  • Cherry If the keyboard has no nibs on F and J, but the keycaps are scooped instead, it's YES.
  • POS keyboards If the keyboard has long-travel keys in a grid (i.e., not staggered), it's MAYBE. If it's Cherry G80-1950 or branded as Access-IS, Tipro, Elcom (others may know other brands), it's YES.
  • ergonomic keyboards If it has a gap between left and right half, or they're fully separated, it's MAYBE. If it looks like the obscure keyboard from Men in Black (i.e., Kinesis Contoured, but also Kinesis Advantage or Maltron), it's YES.
Other than that:
  • probably NO: wireless, low-profile, a plastic wrist rest, power/sleep keys between navigation cluster and arrow keys
  • MAYBE: an integrated trackball (and save external trackballs!)

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klikkyklik

18 Apr 2015, 17:04

It's a cool thing you're trying to do. However, the more instructions they have, I think the less likely they will want to mess with the whole thing.

My opinion is to keep it super-simple. If it's heavy or clicky, keep it.

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