[Help] Is this little guy Alps?

[ImbaHue]

Hi Guys,

A little background.

Its from a Macintosh LC machine dated '91.
I already asked a shot from the back of the case before buying it but won't hear from it till tonight.

48095444.jpeg (72.21 KiB) Viewed 1462 times

Best Regards,
-ImbaHue

[seebart]

This little guy looks like the Apple Keyboard II which you can read all about in our wiki:

http://deskthority.net/wiki/Apple_Keyboard_II

[ImbaHue]

Thanks seebart!

-ImbaHue

[ImbaHue]

So it's not an Alps then?

Now I'm sad.

-ImbaHue

[seebart]

Sorry to hear that, next time check the wiki first or ask us. I've never tried the Tactile Mitsumi hybrid switch, don't know what it's like. I'm sure someone here can tell you though.

[HzFaq]

It's not alps, but it's not that bad, I've felt worse switches than those Mitsumi hybrid ones.

If you're after an alps board with a similar layout, there's always the M0116 or the Apple Desktop Bus keyboards.

http://deskthority.net/wiki/Apple_Standard_Keyboard
http://deskthority.net/wiki/Apple_Desktop_Bus_Keyboard

@seebart, they're sort of like a very snappy and tactile rubber dome IIRC. I don't think I had an ADB converter when I first got it so I didn't give it much of a chance, but I'll dig it out later and give it another whirl.

[ImbaHue]

No harm done to my wallet-o as I haven't bought it yet. Just got heartbroken (a little).

I appreciate the responses. Thank you guys.

Best Regards,
-ImbaHue

[Chyros]

I get Mitsumi hybrid boards pretty much every week, I've already given up disassembling them for parts as I simply have too many. They feel better than vanilla rubber domes, but not that much. The bottoming out is quite mushy too. Certainly not as much as you'd expect considering how relatively sophisticated they are in design. Tl;Dr, don't bother.

[HzFaq]

Yeah, I just dug mine out, totally not as good as I remember it being. Slightly snappier than a rubber dome and sounds a bit nicer but that's about it. Also, the construction on the Apple Keyboard II is pretty shit, feels really light a flimsy compared to the other Apple boards I have.

[Muirium]

Yeah, that's the one my (faulty) SE/30 came with. Domes, in my case. I can't complain really: the whole computer was free, via Freegle some years ago. But that SE/30 came with an Apple Extended Keyboard back in the day. A real Alps beauty. I did get the nice ring-bound owner's manual, though.

Some of Apple's compact keyboards were good and mechanical, but by the time the Apple Keyboard II came around, they'd really cheaped out.