IBM 5251

[nourathar]

recently received the IBM 5251 beamspring keyboard I had been ogling on Ebay for too long already, and took it apart today to clean and see what it is like on the inside. Next step will be to make xwhatsit's converter and connect it, but dry typing on it feels very good indeed: very smooth and nicely tactile. Somewhere in between my two favourite switches so far: dampened white complicated Alps and buckling spring, but a definite improvement on both I think. And I find out that I like keyboards to be heavy !

Pictures are probably hardly unique and not very good due to my skill, crappy camera and gloomy lighting conditions, but still.

I really like the keycaps: very tall, nice rubbery feel and great font. On the whole the keyboard seems to be in very good shape: no external damage really and keys nicely lined up. The 'field+'-key on the far right missed its stabilizer, but I found it inside the keyboard. The part of that key that has the hole for it has come off on one side, in the not so recent past it seems, so I need to figure out if I can re-attach it somehow.

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I don't really understand what date it says here, I thought 1976, but that is not right, see later...

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the rubber shielding under the keycaps is disintegrating and little flakes get into the switches, so I removed it completely.
Here http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=46134.0 is a description how to replace it with poly, but I'm think I'm going to try and find some more rubbery material first.

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Some dust and mostly traces of plant life, not so many human remnants, considering its age.

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This was a surprise; the picture is very crappy, but this says the keyboard was assembled on the 6th of may 1979, almost 35 years ago.

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I took out the metal keyboard assembly, and attached it to the base upside down, so that I could take off the bottom plate without risking that the switches fall apart. Here a great look (but crappy picture) on the fly plates and the rows of individual switch units:

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and here the pcb:

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[mr_a500]

I was one of those unfortunate wretches waiting for the seller to come to his senses and lower the price.

You want to trade those "HELP" and "DEL" keycaps for a "DUP" and squirrely "a"? Come on, everybody wants a "DUP" and squirrely "a".

[nourathar]

yes, it was not cheap, but the last 3278 board auctioned on Ebay sold for a similar price, so I figured I might as well go for it. And that seller seems to be very patient, since this board has been on his site for ages..
I guess the only cheaper way to find one would have been on some local variant of Ebay or in the real world off-Ebay, but then in Europe I have not yet seen any of these boards come up. But then I haven't been around for that long in keyboardland...

[mr_a500]

...in the real world off-Ebay...

When I read that, I thought you said "off-world Ebay"... as if they just opened an eBay in the Blade Runner off world colonies.

"A new life awaits you in the Off-World colonies. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!"

[127001]

Nice one. I almost bought this one myself so that I could use my other as a loner board. I haven't had the time to take mine apart yet

[Muirium]

Nice sequence of pictures and descriptions. Especially as you got right down to the PCB. This beam spring's in good hands!

I'm yet to get a (computer) keyboard older than I am. This beam spring's date of birth puts it a few months ahead of me. All these eighties IBMs are such whippersnappers…

[mr_a500]

I don't have a keyboard older than you either. You're pretty damn old.

Actually I don't think even HaaTa has a keyboard older than me. I'm from the era when they used typewriter keyboards and toggle switches on computers. My only hope for a computer keyboard older than me is to find this thing from The Thomas Crown Affair:

[Muirium]

Nice IBM Executive typewriter they're ignoring on the right. Of course, typewriters are just cheating. There's plenty a full century old still out there.

[HaaTa]

mr_a500, is this a challenge?

I have a bunch from approx 1971, like this one.

Computer Communications 303 Keyboard


Univac Uniscope 100

Around 1970.

GRI ASCII Keyboard 2-103-001-A-10

A couple from around 1969

Univac F-1355-00


Mirco Switch 64SW1-4

Cheating a bit, but the switches in this one were patented in 1965.

Quotron 855

And the oldest "keyboard" that I have (once I get some replacement gears, I could convert this easily with a Teensy).

Teletype Model 28 KSR Keyboard
Unfortunately, I don't really have any way of properly figuring out the date of the keyboard...but according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletype_Model_28) could have been built in the 50's!


I should dig through my TODO pile, might have some older ones

[mr_a500]

OK, you might have one or two that are older than me... barely.

I'm still shocked that you managed to find a NOS keyboard from 1970! How the hell did you find that? That must be a world record or something. (...for keyboards - I found what looked like a NOS rotary phone from 1953)

[scottc]

Wow, beautiful keyboard... I'm jealous, I'd love a chance to get my hands on one of these beauties!

[nourathar]

Around 1970.

GRI ASCII Keyboard 2-103-001-A-10

I'm not superstitious or anything, but I do notice I have this attraction towards seventies design, which might mean I might unconsciously be tending toward a recreation of elements of my childhood environment (or whatever, you might have noticed I'm not an expert).
Anyway, somehow it makes sense that this would be the keyboard I really want, and that my path so far will inexorably lead me to this box.

so what switches are those in there ???

[Aleksander]

I think that one was designed before the word "ergonomic" was invented.. just imagine the wrist-rest needed for that

[HaaTa]

OK, you might have one or two that are older than me... barely.

I'm still shocked that you managed to find a NOS keyboard from 1970! How the hell did you find that? That must be a world record or something. (...for keyboards - I found what looked like a NOS rotary phone from 1953)

There were a couple on ebay late 2011
Needless to say, insta-buy once I saw it it

[HaaTa]

Around 1970.

GRI ASCII Keyboard 2-103-001-A-10

I'm not superstitious or anything, but I do notice I have this attraction towards seventies design, which might mean I might unconsciously be tending toward a recreation of elements of my childhood environment (or whatever, you might have noticed I'm not an expert).
Anyway, somehow it makes sense that this would be the keyboard I really want, and that my path so far will inexorably lead me to this box.

so what switches are those in there ???

Those are George Risk Magnetic Reed switches (http://www.grisk.com/pushbutton/series_kb.html).
I got to talk to a guy that worked at George Risk Industries this fall. Interesting guy, but damn, George Risk was a crook (at least his son was principled).

[nourathar]

Those are George Risk Magnetic Reed switches (http://www.grisk.com/pushbutton/series_kb.html).
I got to talk to a guy that worked at George Risk Industries this fall. Interesting guy, but damn, George Risk was a crook (at least his son was principled).

Interesting that they still make XT/AT keyboards in boxy design, but they seem hard to come by, any ideas of pricing ? And great name for a company specializing in security products ofcourse.

[HaaTa]

I have attempted to buy keyboards from them before. But all email attempts have failed...

There is still 1 GRI switch I don't have: http://grisk.com/pushbutton/series_kblp.html
I'd like to get my hands on some...someday, preferably in a keyboard

[mr_a500]

Yes, I tried to contact them a few years ago. I don't even know if they're still in business. Their website looks like it's stuck in the 90's. The "updated" date changes, but nothing else does.

I wanted one of their newer magnetic reed keyboards like this:

[nourathar]

Yes, that one looks particularly desirable..
I checked some of the distributors / wholesale partners they list in Europe, but found none that actually had any of their products in their catalogue, so yeah..

[Daniel Beardsmore]

It took a long time, but I was able to obtain a bag of KBM-LP switches (Futaba low-profile linear) from Chaldon International, a UK distributor. I don't know whether they're old stock or old stock.

[dorkvader]

Thanks for the awesome pictures, nourathar! I was somewhat displeased with the small number of good images on beamsprings, so when I wrote my photo essay takeapart, I made sure to include interestingand awesome pictures like the PCB. I'm glad you have done the same here. I love to compare things.

About the date, my practise is usually to just pick the most recent date on it and call it that, but that might not necessarily be the case. If IBM makes up 100 housings in 1976 and keeps them around as production uses them, you might end up with a KB that's from 1976, but the cable is from 1979. Also, the cable could have been replaced at some point in the KB's lifetime.

I think in mine the cable is a good year older than the rest of the KB, so I would imagine KBs and cables were paired up at some late point in manufacture.

That's a good idea with attaching the keyboard assembly upside down when you take off the bottom. I just held it, and it was much harder to get a good picture.

Using Webwit's "unique" beamspring naming convention, this is a "C R CLARE CANADA" keyboard.

Also thanks for including the keycap profile picture. The function keycaps look to be the same profile, but is the rest of the KB like that? On my displaywriter, the functions are on the same profile (as it should be, same with tenkeys.) but the alphanumerics are all sculpted.

As another interesting note: I had to be very careful when replacing the H key, as the center profile is almost (but not quite) flat. It's like 0.5mm or less of difference between straight and flipped, but noticeable nontheless. I took a picture to show this and can upload it if anyone is interested.

[nourathar]

Hi Dorkvader,

funny you say that about the 'H', as I was flipping out when putting the 'Z' key back on. I noticed the profile was weird and for a moment I thought that the keyboard must have had a german layout originally and that the seller had swapped the 'T' and 'Z' keys to sell for more.. But then I realized that 'Z', 'X' and 'N' are all keys you can put on in two ways....

It is true the function keys all have the same profile, but the alphanumeric keys certainly don't, also on the 5251. But the numeric bloc is again all the same (top row) profile.

It seems that you actually understand the date number on the back; can you explain ? I can see that it starts with 76, and that is sort of suggestive, but for the rest i do not get it at all..

ciao,

J.

[nourathar]

ok, here some picts to, show the sculpted profile in the middle and the uniform profile of the function keys on the left and the numeric block on the right:

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