So for a while now I've been watching Tek Syndicate, a video series about technology, and one of the members, Wendell, mentioned in a couple of videos that he loves his IBM Model M and that it's amazing etc.
Out of curiosity and given that I'm looking for a new keyboard (currently using a Cooler Master Devastator board..)
I figured let's look into this keyboard, see what Wendell's praise is all about. After checking it out I also found out about the Model F which interested me a bit more, and during the period when I was looking into these boards I was occasionally checking out a local auction website dedicated to bankrupt companies putting their stuff up for auction.
I had acquired a couple of items from the auction house before without any issues so I trust it.
Every now and then I would search for the term IT and usually a load of low spec thin clients/office pc's would come up and some networking equipment. Then one day, coincidentally, I saw an auction listed named 'Vintage IT'.
I didn't think much of it at first as the thumbnail only showed something which looked like a bunch of crt monitors, but it kept showing up so eventually I decided to check it out.
After opening the photos it showed there were a bunch of keyboards there as well which got cropped out in the thumbnail (a lesson was learned, don't trust thumbnails). Some of the boards looked a lot like Model F terminal boards. Unfortunately though the photos weren't very clear and the description said nothing other than 'monitors and keyboards from various brands'.
The photo's weren't sharp enough to determine the brand of the keyboards or any serial numbers, but I could make out that the logos on the keyboards were on the same spot as the logos on the Model F terminal boards.
Also the 'CRT's' showed IBM branding.
After searching for IBM crt's and not finding much I figured they were probably computer systems, so I thought there had to be at least some IBM branded keyboards in there as well. Eventually I placed the first bid, and for a while I was the highest bidder, until the last couple of hours that was.
In the last hours people started bidding like crazy. I was at work while the auction was ending. It uses this system to give all participants equal chances by extending an auction with 5 minutes if someone bids in the final 5 minutes and so people were playing tricks on each other, overbidding in the 5th minute or the last 15 seconds.
As bids had risen past 150 euros my mind started trying to reason with me and I was pacing through the room out of nervousness. 'Is it going to be worth it?', 'Think of all the other things you can buy with that money, or just save it?',
'This is ridiculous, I don't even know for certain if there are any ibm boards in there', 'But if I pass this up and there are IBM boards in there I probably won't get another chance like this' kind of thoughts were going through my head.
Eventually I decided to go through with it and so I won the auction for my first vintage hardware
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Last week a pallet of IT goodness got delivered. I left work earlier so I could unpack it all.
Never was I so excited for ‘new’ hardware haha.
So far I feel I like I've got my money's worth even though I don't even know if any of the boards work.
Just having such old computer hardware is nice, it has something to it.
If I can only get the NMB board to work I'm already going to be really happy
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