Recently, people have been asking, "Are these white Alps any good?"
(e.g. http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=39054.0)



Indeed, there's the distinctive shape of the Alps keycap mount, and the rectangular body looks quite reminiscent of an Alps switch, except of course that it is white, not black.

To an untrained eye, this may well look like another Alps variety, especially if only one keycap was removed for the photo, just like an Ebay seller would probably do.

Since I happen to own one of those keyboards, I have decided to post a review.



The keyboard we are looking today has the OEM designation APC F-21, and I think they were sold under many different brands. This partucular specimen bears the "Clicker" logo.

A close-up of the label. FCC ID GOGAPC-21, Made in Taiwan.



It appears that the F-21 model code does not really identify it very well, as another keyboard was spotted under the same F-21 code, but with a different design and switch type (http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~duelist/F-21/index.htm) So, I will simply call this one "the Clicker."

The keys are tactile and clicky (and quite loud! We will see why.)



CLICKER Patent Approved Germany No. G71960E

I had not yet cleaned the keyboard after receiving it, so now I am going to disassemble it to prepare it for cleaning, and also take a look at what is inside.

This is the lower half of the case, fastened with as many as 12 small screws. Contrast this with Cherry cases which are held together by 4 plastic latches. The case is very sturdily built, with little to no flex. The rubber anti-slip feet are still in place after all these years - Cherry's peel off within a year or two. The foldable angle-adjusters still work perfectly.



Cracking open the case and revealing the innards.



Looks like a typical membrane keyboard. Why does it click, then?

Taking a peek under the sheets:



Inside each of the switch housings, I count 1 stem (slider), 1 spring, and, unlike Alps, not one but two click plates.



The stems and click plates look similar to those used in real Alps mechanical switches. The springs are not Alps-compatible, however: same diameter but shorter in the F-21.

Switches in different stages of disassembly:



The second click plate goes in where the contacts would be in the Alps switch. Having two of them must account for the strongly pronounced tactile bump and loud ping.

The membrane is the standard pad-hole-pad sandwich.



Now it should be clear why it is called a semi-mechanical hybrid. From mechanical keyboards it borrows the sliders, springs, and click plates. It omits the printed circuit board, individual contacts, and separate switch housings. From membrane keyboards it borrows the membrane sheets.

As an end result, the keys behave more like those of a mechanical keyboard. Membrane or rubber dome switches have to bottom out to activate. These semi-mechanical switches activate halfway in, when the spring is sufficiently compressed that it exerts enough pressure on the membrane. I am typing this review on the Clicker, and I must say the keys feel surprisingly pleasant, not too much unlike MX Blues. Even though I would not choose the Clicker over the MX Blacks in my G80-1800, it is miles ahead of any rubberdome.

Sandy55 once reviwed this keyboard (I think so, could not find the page now) and he did not like it. The biggest problem he mentioned was that sometimes a keypress would register earlier than the click and tactile bump. I do not see how it is a problem. It is just how Alps and Alps-like switches work; you always want to press the key down to the tactile point anyway. If you had to go past that for the keypress to register, now that would be a problem.



The membrane and controller assembly.



Close-up of the controller. The cable (on the left) is attached through a proper connector; Cherry also used to do this before they started cheapening out, at about the same time they abandoned doubleshots.



The upper half of the case.



Off to cleaning.

I actually had removed the keycaps before I started working on the case. This is how the Clicker looks stripped of its caps.



And here, some of the caps.

All the long keys are stabilized. Check out the double stabilizer on the BigAss Enter.



The keycaps are two-shot injection molded from ABS plastic. ABS is susceptible to yellowing over time, but on this particular keyboard I cannot see any, or it is very slight. The Russian legends are pad printed, as usual, with what I call the Russian Alps font - more or less standard on Alps-compatible Russian keyboards of the 1990s. The pad printing looks high quality, with no signs of thinning or wearing through. The Break/SysRq legends on the side wall are also pad printed, which is typical.

Overall this is the vintage black, grey, and ivory color scheme. The RGB modifiers (Ctrl, Alt, Shift) are double shot using a plastic of their respective color instead of black, and the red Esc adds a nice touch.



The caps are ready for their bath, too.

Afterwards I put it all back together, and just for kicks, typed this review on it. Enjoy!

It's nice to see after years of people buying old keyboard, new stuff is still showing up.
Nice work.

Good stuff!

Great find & great photos.

mbodrov wrote:Afterwards I put it all back together, and just for kicks, typed this review on it. Enjoy!

Thank you so much for this BRILLIANT review. You had clearly taken the time to show this type of keyboard and all of it's glory.

You are the reason why that in 2013, these keyboards will still be lusted after, that is why I spend a lot of time on Ebay. Unfortunately still miss out on your type of purchase.

semi-mechanical…

In a way reminds me of membrane Buckling springs, with the difference being that with buckling springs you at least have a relation between the cause of the tactility and the actuation.

LOL! I did wonder what was inside that keyboard, as Ripster posted a photo of one as effectively a teaser. Basically it's like the Acer board on steroids. Unlike Acer, they haven't glued (!!!) the membrane to the controller. (The Acer I took apart doesn't work properly any more, as there's no way to reattach the membrane. Useless POS.)

Firstly, wiki it!

Secondly, your link to http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~duelist/F-21/index.htm is broken — you'll want to enclose URLs in [url] tags if you need to follow them with punctuation.

By the way, APC is a brand of Taiwan Tai-Hao, and my suspicion is that they were the originator of the four-tab Alps clone, as they gave me 1984 or 1985 as the start date of their APC range of switches. I would not be surprised if Xiang Min's KSB series ("XM" switches) are just a copy of the APC family, as they came along much later. Speculation, though. We still have not one single photo anywhere of the internals of a confirmed XM switch (i.e. from a Ducky 1008XM/1087XM or Filco Zero XM — keyboards proven to have XM switches).

Here is what looks like a further development (i.e. simplification) of this type.

This is a noname keyboard, made in Taiwan.



The large external springs sit directly under the keycaps.

If you peek inside the sliders, small internal springs can also be seen:



The slider has a simple rectangular cross-section, unlike the elaborate Alps slider.

No tactile/click leaf is there; two springs, slider, and membrane - and that's it. As you can guess, the switch is linear, and its feel is on par with some of the worst switches ever. So I think I'll just harvest the Alps-mount doubleshots, and throw the rest away. Which is a shame because it looks sort of cute with all those blue sliders.

Interesting. The little spring should be giving you mid-travel actuation — is that correct?

The large exterior spring is used by quite a few switch designs. The sliders are more like KPT rectangular in colour and shape, so maybe this is related to KPT.

Any FCC ID or date?

I guess we can technically call it mid-travel actuation, but for some reason it's erratic and incosistent from switch to switch. Very different from the Clicker F-21. Poor quality springs maybe?
FCC ID : IZEOTCOK100M

FCC ID gives it as Oriental Tech Co Ltd of Taiwan, with a registration date of 1991.

A number of keyboards around this time were made by random brands such as Podworld (who used yellow KPT or KPT clone switches) who are no longer around. Even Keypot seemed to have only a briefl visible life, but their few keyboards were a lot more prominent.

Because you mentioned the KPT switch, which I wasn't familiar with, I felt that I must open this thing up and compare. But no, quite a bit different. The biggest surprise came in the form of the inner spring:

Ooo, very cool finds.

Must keep an eye out for future mbodrov posts

I found one of those with white sliders.







Using a camera phone, the white is not right here:

That case looks familiar. I have one that looks a lot like it, but had fake Cherry switches.

Here's one I had a couple of years ago but passed along, I think it had vintage blue Cherries.



EDIT: Oh I see it's not quite the same.

There are a lot of similar designs. East Asia's manufacturing model is very odd.

webwit wrote:Here's one I had a couple of years ago but passed along, I think it had vintage blue Cherries.

But that is a Chicony 5191, isn't it?

Yeah I think I remember it was a Chicony.
It has a bigger top bevel, but it has the same thing going on around the cursor area and between Esc and 1 and bottom modifiers.

I like the keycaps a lot. (Not the russian font, but the keycaps looks to be nice)

I love Cyrillic … it would be cool to have a black keyboard with the red Cyrillic letters on it. At the moment, I just have a Soviet flag Esc key :)

Ha, I've got a couple of APC Clickers, can't seem to get rid of 'em. I'll have to do some really nice photos and try again

Aha, here they are: APC Clicker photos

mbodrov wrote:Here is what looks like a further development (i.e. simplification) of this type.

This is a noname keyboard, made in Taiwan.

The keyboard has since been identified as the Chicony OK-100M (with many OEM variants)

I don't suppose that has shed any light on whose switches Chicony bought in?

No information besides the model number. On a second look, I find it a little suspicious, as Chicony keyboards typically are designated KB-xxxx. So I am going to rephrase it as this: the keyboad is definitely model number OK-100M, and claimed to have been made by Chicony.

keyskincover.com lists it as Chicony, while also citing the same FCC ID that clearly points to Oriental Tech Co Ltd. That's all I can find; a Polish website indicates that the identification as Chicony lies elsewhere on the web, without citing a reference.

Rebranding is very common, but in most cases, the FCC ID refers to the OEM. That is, Chicony would get it certified, and then provided unbranded/rebranded stock to other companies (for example, if I'd realised this at the time, I wouldn't have bothered asking SIIG about the MiniTouch, since the OEMs are clearly identified by the FCC IDs!)

The FCC ID will only relate to the purchaser if the product was a custom order for a company who handled their own certification, e.g. Apple keyboards have FCC grantee ID BCG on their keyboards, even though they were manufactured by Alps, NMB, Mitsumi etc.

Is this keyboard really a Chicony? Doubtful … I suspect that any unravelling of all the one-hit-wonder companies of East Asia would have to be done by Asian keyboard enthusiasts.

Mine has "OTC" engraved under the feet as well.

Inside of case has markings "OTC" and "OK-100". Controller is marked OTC-0308B. Even the logic chip by Intel has OTC marks. The white switch is quite horrible btw. Rubber dome mushy like. If I take away the big spring, it feels like the worst switch ever. It's like they tried to make something of a fail of a design by adding the big spring. And failed.

So probably not Chicony then :)

Daniel Beardsmore wrote:So probably not Chicony then

Daniel, just FYI...there is something relevant to this thread in your package...i hope it gets there soon