deskthority

Tried that tracking number in Parcelforce or Royal Mail tracking?

China, man. One day shipping across the world. The volume is such that the plane loading and take-offs are non-stop.

And typically then it waits on Schiphol near to me for days, and it takes a week in total to deliver in the last 20km. And they will charge heavily for this "service".

... and now imagine, your neighbour threw that keyboard into the electronics container a few months ago!

So I gather we've all been through this a few times, then!

Soarer's suggestion has given me a lead, Parcelforce have it in some depot or another in town, with a new (UK specific) number. So I'll inquire…

https://www.pfwcustomercontact.co.uk/PCIAPSPublic/ <-- pay here!

(linked from http://www.parcelforce.com/receiving-pa ... s-charging, in case you think the url looks iffy).

Muirium wrote:

Tendered for delivery without success because of outstanding payment of charges. The item is being held and the addressee is being notified.

Argh! Royal Mail's holding on to my SSK! Just bring it to my door and I'll pay, I promise!

I'm in the same position - unfortunately my local Parcelforce depot is over 30 miles away from my house... I was hoping it would be delivered by Royal Mail so I could just collect it from my RM depot (which isn't 30 miles away!)

Hmmm....

Edit: Also there's never really anyone in during the day to take delivery of stuff... I hope they'll leave it with a neighbour or maybe deliver it to my work address...

Soarer wrote:https://www.pfwcustomercontact.co.uk/PCIAPSPublic/ <-- pay here!

(linked from http://www.parcelforce.com/receiving-pa ... s-charging, in case you think the url looks iffy).

Thanks for the link. Doesn't work for me though because I haven't had the letter yet with the required reference number. I'm en route to the depot in person instead.

HULK WANT SSK!

webwit wrote:China, man. One day shipping across the world. The volume is such that the plane loading and take-offs are non-stop.

Meh. China =/= Hong Kong.

It is. Just like Taiwan!

*Ducks*

tinnie wrote:

webwit wrote:China, man. One day shipping across the world. The volume is such that the plane loading and take-offs are non-stop.

Meh. China =/= Hong Kong.

Very true! HK -> UK = days. CN -> UK = weeks.

Sixty and me had a contest once when we got shipped two review versions of the KBC Poker at the same time. The tracking was detailed to post office level. The boards got on a plane in 2.5 hours after the post office got it. I think it was Shanghai, not sure. China -> Germany was 12 hours after shipment and China -> Netherlands was 14 or 15 hours. He got it next day, mine decided to check out the scene at Schiphol and I got it 5 days later.

Later I needed a specific power adapter for my camera, and such a simple thing would have cost me 50 eur or more at all Dutch shops. So I got one from China for $4,95 and it arrived the next day. Maaaagic. I suspect that at one point the Chinese will just get rid of the middle man/local retailers. They have the logistics.

webwit wrote:*Ducks*

Quack!

SSK is here, typing and looking good! I'll take some pictures for the IBM SSK Club during the next 35 minutes of daylight we get tomorrow. Can't stand to shoot potato pics…

The tax man scored 8 quid off me on this one, as did Parcel Force for its commission. No sign they bothered themselves to actually open the box or anything ungentlemanly like that. It's just "custom" for people to sit on their arse around here, right enough.

I plugged it straight into Soarer's converter, of course. Now my config files have a new ID to look out for (AB84), and my mouse has some breathing space at last.

Quack.

cool !

You all got this so fast

Sent last Friday, arrived today. Practically overnight, as Webwit said, then customs!

Looking forward to your trip to Der Zoll to pick up a crate of Kishsavers, Snoopy?

I don't like Der Zoll. They are pure evil.

Apart from wanting £16 for making me wait in their dingy office, Parcel Force are happiness and joy.

One day I will pee on the frontdoor of the Zoll

But please not on the day you want to pick up all our Kishsavers!
Preferably after that date.

definitely after that.

Muirium wrote:SSK is here, typing and looking good! I'll take some pictures for the IBM SSK Club during the next 35 minutes of daylight we get tomorrow. Can't stand to shoot potato pics…

The tax man scored 8 quid off me on this one, as did Parcel Force for its commission. No sign they bothered themselves to actually open the box or anything ungentlemanly like that. It's just "custom" for people to sit on their arse around here, right enough.

I plugged it straight into Soarer's converter, of course. Now my config files have a new ID to look out for (AB84), and my mouse has some breathing space at last.

Quack.

Jealous! Mine's still sitting half way across Kent unfortunately... £16 could be worse I suppose - I hope mine's the same... Did yours come with a cable?

Yes! Good job too, because I'd be buggered without it. Every other IBM I have is fixed cable, so I don't have any spares.

Muirium wrote:Kish got his original score for an amazing price. Don't forget the work he put into finding it.

Yes, 13 CAD before shipping. But I really didn't do that much work to find them; all of that credit goes to dw_junon who might still hang around here, though I believe he stepped away from computer-related hobbies for a bit.

I bought the mysterious keyboard labeled as being for a 4074 (sic) with no photo because of his suggestion of what it probably was, and it turned out to be exactly that. The parts reseller had a pricing algorithm which would decrement the price by some percentage per amount of time that an item did not sell; I believe they originally set them at 150 or something like that and because it (was) an almost zero demand item, the price lowered itself over time.

I bought two, one went to dfj. Another member bought 4 or 5, one of those went to Soarer, a couple are MIA, some went I-don't-know-where. A couple other members (of a development and old-board-oriented subset of GH's IRC channel) grabbed some. The same reseller also had 50-key units but they realized the mistake with the 62s and didn't let the prices drop on those...I think they went for around 60 CAD? But that supplier is now out of business for unknown reasons and their remaining stock is nowhere to be found.

Anyway, I did spend many hours, some on the phone long distance with places all over the US, trying to track more of these down. I can confidently say that no supplier in North America who either has a website or has decent connections to other suppliers has any, with one exception, but he's got really poor reviews among other enthusiasts/hobbyists and generally tries to jerk you around, changing the price midway through discussions, refusing to quote shipping costs until after it's billed, wanting a card number before you've committed to buy and so on. If someone finds who I'm talking about and makes a deal, awesome, but I can't in good conscience send anyone to him knowing the way he operates.

It is true that these keyboards are currently not converted, but Soarer's got a decent understanding of them and I believe dfj is making progress as well. I think even HaaTa is working on something, or will be. Everyone's in it for the long haul though, so if you've bought one, prepare a nice display case for it until one of the above has produced something for you to test, unless you're an EE at heart and decide to take a stab at it yourself.

(and yes, 4 wires. +5V, ground, clock, data, I have a pinout written down somewhere)

And I completely forgot to get the dimensions. This time I've written an actual note to myself, let's see how that works...

Then it's going right beside the Honeywell until the quest is conquered. Fortunately, the right people are on this so I can choose to believe! The Honeywell isn't nearly as likely to open up its mysteries for a long time. So I'll do what everyone else does and make believe with some caps!

Muirium wrote:Yes! Good job too, because I'd be buggered without it. Every other IBM I have is fixed cable, so I don't have any spares.

Awesome thanks Also I presume yours has one piece caps?

Haven't looked yet. And I'm just back from the pub, so it's not the best time to try popping them off. That can wait till it gets a good clean tomorrow. Not that it's dirty, I'm just OCD!

Hopefully someone will not pay, really want one of these *sniff*

I think I might have misjudged that they wouldn't sell all for this price.

^