deskthority

Finally I take a proper look at orange Alps, as well as the M0116 I've shown in several videos so far! Hope you enjoy the video!

I only had the salmon version, and the switches seemed stiff and not very tactile. It's hard to be sure, as I never tried typing on it, and I had no ADB converter at the time (ironically I didn't get one until after I'd stopped collecting keyboards and now I have no use for it). The keyboard was spotlessly clean though.

One thing I wish my Poker II (MX Red) had, is the deep sound you get from Alps switches. I'd keep the Cherry stabilisers, as I don't care for that excessively noisy space bar.

Daniel Beardsmore wrote: ↑I only had the salmon version, and the switches seemed stiff and not very tactile. It's hard to be sure, as I never tried typing on it, and I had no ADB converter at the time (ironically I didn't get one until after I'd stopped collecting keyboards and now I have no use for it). The keyboard was spotlessly clean though.

One thing I wish my Poker II (MX Red) had, is the deep sound you get from Alps switches. I'd keep the Cherry stabilisers, as I don't care for that excessively noisy space bar.

This is almost certainly because of poor switch condition. If they're clean, it'll be from heavy use rather than dirt - heavy use isn't always immediately apparent on keyboards with PBT keycaps.

I've had two salmon boards with uncharacteristically stiff and less-tactile keyfeel, pretty much exactly as you describe. At first I thought this was normal, and it might've inspired the thought that salmon Alps are a more stiff version of tactile Alps. However at some point I found my AEK with salmon Alps which was in great condition, which had the more well-known 70 gf weighting, and which felt both smoother and more tactile. It was then that I realised it might be the difference in condition, and indeed, it turned out the other two were in much worse condition. Several other salmon boards afterwards followed the same trend. I've still got to find a salmon AT102 with switches that DON'T feel like rubbish, goddammit D: . Ah, condition, Alps' one true Achilles' heel!

Even the AEK I showed in part 3 of my Alps Trilogy - the one in which I kinda glossed over the orange switches - was said to be in excellent condition, and it was clean, but I could tell it had been used, and indeed, this was later confirmed. This one might look orange as, well, an orange, but try them side by side and you can just immediately tell the difference. The M0116 in this video feels fantastic.

And this one isn't even NOS, which I'm sure would feel even better. I've found used Alps boards that had a feeling near-identical to NOS ones, though. Of course, all this is very qualitative, but I've had so many dozens of Alps boards now that I really got to know these boards well.

As a scientist, how would you explain stiffening in metal? Rubber domes can indeed stiffen (or go soft) but how would a metal-based arrangement suffer in this way?

You can see pictures of the switches on the wiki, and they too are perfectly clean inside.

Great review as ever, I think orange alps are my favourite alps switches. Definitely the loudest non-clicky switch in my collection though. I love the strange layout on older Apple boards, most of my collection at this point is odd layout Apple boards.

Fun fact, that converter (should, IIRC) let you daisy chain Apple boards using the ADB passthroughs; at one point I had 2 AAK's, an m0118 and I think an ADB mouse hooked up to mine.

Great review! I've got an ISO M0118 and the layout is a bit better but still not perfect:



Death to big-ass enter! Or big-ass enter on a diet on this keyboard, I suppose...

I think it'd lend itself well to remapping if I ever got my ADB adapter working.

HzFaq wrote: ↑Fun fact, that converter (should, IIRC) let you daisy chain Apple boards using the ADB passthroughs; at one point I had 2 AAK's, an m0118 and I think an ADB mouse hooked up to mine.

16 devices total, if I remember correctly.

The Macintosh II was an interesting machine. It was one of very few computers that was truly expandable. You had a slow digital bus, a fast digital bus, and expansion card slots. The slow and fast digital buses (ADB and SCSI) were both multiple-device capable and completely generic; for example, Dayna Communications made an Ethernet NIC that connected via SCSI (and I've joined an IRC channel from my Mac Classic using it, as well as served Web pages off it briefly).

Compare this to IBM's attempt, the PS/2: no slow digital port, and no fast digital port. There was no way to simply plug in anything generic into the computer at all! Every bus was specific to a peripheral, right down to both PS/2 ports. If you plugged the keyboard into the mouse port by mistake, the BIOS would terminate the boot process with nothing more than a meaningless number. (I actually thought I'd killed the computer I was working on until I realised my mistake.)

IBM should have stuck to keyboards: it was the one thing they ever figured out how to do, and they threw it all away.

As I recall, ADB was one of the last pieces of Woz at Apple. Note that ADB is also logically hotswap capable, even if the circuitry was never physically tolerant. I've unplugged and reconnected keyboards and mice from Macs many times quite happily, but I also did that once to a Windows NT PC and it crashed it instantly. However, everyone everywhere advises you not to do this with your Mac!

I really like what Apple did to the Macintosh with the II. Although Steve Jobs was right in many ways, the technology world wasn't ready for an appliance in 1984, and expansion was important. The Macintosh II took the Mac to where it needed to be.

scottc wrote: ↑Great review! I've got an ISO M0118 and the layout is a bit better but still not perfect:



Death to big-ass enter! Or big-ass enter on a diet on this keyboard, I suppose...

I think it'd lend itself well to remapping if I ever got my ADB adapter working.

Yeah, the ISO model is better. Strangely though, I often run into ANSI Apple boards here in the UK. I've had a few ISO ones too, but they're always in super shit condition.

Daniel Beardsmore wrote: ↑As a scientist, how would you explain stiffening in metal? Rubber domes can indeed stiffen (or go soft) but how would a metal-based arrangement suffer in this way?

Metal can embrittle or fatigue, but won't stiffen in the same manner as what you're suggesting. However, I don't think this is what's actually happening. I think heavy use wears the parts away, permanently damaging them over time. Dirty Alps boards you can clean and they'll feel a bit better. Heavily used ones are fucked for life, cleaning them won't help a damn. It also gives a different feel from dirty boards.

Now what you're probably trying to get to is how the wear would result in a stiffer switch, no? Well, quite simple; this would be caused by the additional friction present in the system. This explains why the switch feels stiffer (more work is needed to displace the slider, after all), and why the tactility appears weaker (the tactile element, as we established earlier, as not affected by the wear, so it doesn't grow with the force, so the difference in force before and after the bump becomes smaller, which is pretty much how we define tactility). If you made the switch so raspy that the weighting would be greater than that of the tactile bump, it would have no apparent tactility WHATSOEVER, for example.

Nice review.

It seems to me that SKCM Cream is the correct contemporary to SKCM Blue, and Alps themselves seem to agree.


SKCM Orange is still a great switch however. Have my SGI swapped with them.

Since you brought that up, I have this sitting in another browser tab waiting for me to decide what to do with it:
http://www.china.cn/zhijiankaiguan/3685654110.html

I always wondered what the deal was with that ivory/blue Alps photo; it's not possible with Google Translate to converse meaningfully with alps.tw and get a better idea of it. I only know that it is a photo taken in some Alps factory. Anything additional detail would have to come via a Chinese speaker who also speaks English.

This other photo I found shows that physically mounting switches is a real thing for Alps. This time, it's the SKE* family, which contains Alps integrated dome. It would appear to validate alps.tw's photo.

The two pairings are SKCMAF/SKCMAG (ivory/blue) and SKCMAP/SKCMAQ (black/white), but ivory and orange seem to be contemporary with each other, with salmon replacing orange (as seen with Apple and Wang keyboards) and black replacing ivory (as seen in NeXT keyboards). There were also two click switches (blue and amber) but this is more confusing as they were not the same inside: the amber click leaf has no bottom fold, which makes you wonder how both could exist at the same time.


I find it very difficult to believe that pristine switches that show no sign of use at all could be worn so badly that they'd be perfectly smooth and fully functional, but uniformly stiffer. I have a keyboard with white Alps switches that look to be in good condition, that are totally worn out, but those bind, which suggests that the slider shaft is worn and is allowing the slider to tilt far enough to wedge. Unfortunately, I never tested that salmon Alps keyboard — I could have connected it to one of my old Macs, but I never did. Nothing felt wrong with the salmon switches at all, though: they were stiff, but there was no indication that they were out of condition.

Daniel Beardsmore wrote: ↑I find it very difficult to believe that pristine switches that show no sign of use at all could be worn so badly that they'd be perfectly smooth and fully functional, but uniformly stiffer. I have a keyboard with white Alps switches that look to be in good condition, that are totally worn out, but those bind, which suggests that the slider shaft is worn and is allowing the slider to tilt far enough to wedge. Unfortunately, I never tested that salmon Alps keyboard — I could have connected it to one of my old Macs, but I never did. Nothing felt wrong with the salmon switches at all, though: they were stiff, but there was no indication that they were out of condition.

Fair enough, that does sound strange. Do you still have it, and do you have a good-condition one to compare it to?

Nope, I gave it to ne0phyte. I never even took a full set of photos :(

I don't collect keyboards any more — they take up too much space. The one radio rally I attend each year, hasn't had anything of interest for a couple of years now, otherwise I'd probably have a few more regardless. Last year I only found a filthy G84-4400, and I think there was a dirty G84-4100 the year before. That makes four years where I've seen a G84 series keyboard, one of which I bought NIB and is very nice to type on. I've not bought a new keyboard in over two years.

Just went to youtube to check out the old amber omron's review, and I see a new one, and for one of my favorite keyboards at that.

HzFaq wrote: ↑ Fun fact, that converter (should, IIRC) let you daisy chain Apple boards using the ADB passthroughs; at one point I had 2 AAK's, an m0118 and I think an ADB mouse hooked up to mine.

I did this also just for giggles. I had an m0115, m0116, 658-4081 and mouse connected

scottc wrote: ↑Great review! I've got an ISO M0118 and the layout is a bit better but still not perfect:

I like m0116 better because of BAE and CTRL position, but that m0118 bottom row is interesting. I'm actually on the lookout for one since last week.

Daniel Beardsmore wrote: ↑Since you brought that up, I have this sitting in another browser tab waiting for me to decide what to do with it:

2_392_111599_640_480.jpg

http://www.china.cn/zhijiankaiguan/3685654110.html

I always wondered what the deal was with that ivory/blue Alps photo; it's not possible with Google Translate to converse meaningfully with alps.tw and get a better idea of it. I only know that it is a photo taken in some Alps factory. Anything additional detail would have to come via a Chinese speaker who also speaks English.

This other photo I found shows that physically mounting switches is a real thing for Alps. This time, it's the SKE* family, which contains Alps integrated dome. It would appear to validate alps.tw's photo.

The two pairings are SKCMAF/SKCMAG (ivory/blue) and SKCMAP/SKCMAQ (black/white), but ivory and orange seem to be contemporary with each other, with salmon replacing orange (as seen with Apple and Wang keyboards) and black replacing ivory (as seen in NeXT keyboards). There were also two click switches (blue and amber) but this is more confusing as they were not the same inside: the amber click leaf has no bottom fold, which makes you wonder how both could exist at the same time.

Well SKCM Amber and Blue existing at the same time makes perfect sense since are significantly different switches that serve different purposes, so it makes sense that they had different parts.

SKCM Orange and SKCM Cream are a bit more confusing though. SKCM Orange is lighter than the standard Alps weighting while SKCM Cream had the standard weighting so its possible that they also served different purposes. It's not like the internal parts were the same and the sliders color is the only difference. They ran along side each other since they were different.

The pattern is seems to be SKCM Orange < SKCM Salmon < SKCM Black (pine) < SKCM Black (bamboo) though. However the NeXT's had Cream and Black so it could be SKCM Orange < SKCM Salmon < SKCM Cream < SKCM Black (pine) < SKCM Black (bamboo) But I bet its the first one. NeXT might have just switched to from SKCM Cream to Black b/c production ended of that switch.

This is a comparison between amber and white (as I didn't have any blue Alps switches to hand) but the difference is the same with blue:



The click leaves are quite different. It's not just my switches — this photo replaces one from geekhack showing the same thing.

Since white Alps and blue Alps have the same click leaf, this makes amber an exception, and for no clear reason. I would expect them to have the same click leaf, and for the return spring to be where the difference lies. The number of differences in the shape is more than I would expect to see for a difference in switch weight.

I think it's clear what the differences in the leaf spring were meant to achieve; greater tactility (and a louder clicky noise), which is exactly what it achieves. The leaft-out bottom lip, more angled teeth and smaller retention tabs are a dead giveaway IMO.

Chyros wrote: ↑I think it's clear what the differences in the leaf spring were meant to achieve; greater tactility (and a louder clicky noise), which is exactly what it achieves. The leaft-out bottom lip, more angled teeth and smaller retention tabs are a dead giveaway IMO.

Yea, why can't Alps have two clicky switches at the same time? Both are very quite from each other and serve diffrent purposes.

Aren't SKCM Blue and SKCM White click leaves a tiny bit different too?

Blue and white aren't different in the same way that amber differs from them. I'd be less sceptical if amber was a normal switch found in keyboards made for various customers, but so far it's only known from Apple keyboards and we can't determine if it was a custom product or whether they really felt (as Chyros suggests) that they needed a beefier version and this required tooling up a whole new click leaf to achieve it.

I guess it figures, Alps seemed pretty eager to churn out new switch types.

Yes, I don't believe that white Alps and blue Alps have the same leaves. The leaves of blue Alps switches seem to have more rounded bends on the click leaf legs versus white.

http://imgur.com/a/GdFSY

Daniel Beardsmore wrote: ↑Blue and white aren't different in the same way that amber differs from them. I'd be less sceptical if amber was a normal switch found in keyboards made for various customers, but so far it's only known from Apple keyboards and we can't determine if it was a custom product or whether they really felt (as Chyros suggests) that they needed a beefier version and this required tooling up a whole new click leaf to achieve it.

I guess it figures, Alps seemed pretty eager to churn out new switch types.

Yes, the amber leaf is pretty different. No idea with it. It's certainly one of the most tactile switches I've ever encountered, even though it's clicky. I somewhat regret trading my switches away. I'd like to try them again, but they were unpleasant in the custom board I put them in. They felt okay in the IIc. I need further testing!

Daniel Beardsmore wrote: ↑Blue and white aren't different in the same way that amber differs from them. I'd be less sceptical if amber was a normal switch found in keyboards made for various customers, but so far it's only known from Apple keyboards and we can't determine if it was a custom product or whether they really felt (as Chyros suggests) that they needed a beefier version and this required tooling up a whole new click leaf to achieve it.

I guess it figures, Alps seemed pretty eager to churn out new switch types.

Alps did custom orders and switch types for specific customers, the Alps guy I talked to confirmed that (you might've read the correspendence, I posted it a while back). I think it's definitely plausible that Apple requested a more tactile version of their clicky switches - blue at the time - and Alps responded by increasing the angle on the tactile hooks and removing part of the mechanism that keeps the clicker reined in. No other customers asked for it, or they couldn't market them to anyone else, so they went with that for a while and then, presumably due to low volume demand, they stopped making them, which explains why they went back to blue Alps for those late-production replacement keyboard modules (the ones with branded shells).

It's even more weird when you consider that Apple preferred quiet switches — why would they suddenly opt for a heavy, loud clicky switch? I guess someone at Cupertino fancied a change. They did design their own clicky switch ([wiki]Apple hairpin spring[/wiki]), which has its own mystery: this was later used in some other equipment with the Apple logo poorly removed from the moulds, and I don't know if they sold off the tooling and completely disowned it (instead of retaining credit for their patented design).

(Edit: Unsurprisingly, phpBB doesn't understand MediaWiki code)

Chyros wrote: ↑

Daniel Beardsmore wrote: ↑Blue and white aren't different in the same way that amber differs from them. I'd be less sceptical if amber was a normal switch found in keyboards made for various customers, but so far it's only known from Apple keyboards and we can't determine if it was a custom product or whether they really felt (as Chyros suggests) that they needed a beefier version and this required tooling up a whole new click leaf to achieve it.

I guess it figures, Alps seemed pretty eager to churn out new switch types.

Alps did custom orders and switch types for specific customers, the Alps guy I talked to confirmed that (you might've read the correspendence, I posted it a while back). I think it's definitely plausible that Apple requested a more tactile version of their clicky switches - blue at the time - and Alps responded by increasing the angle on the tactile hooks and removing part of the mechanism that keeps the clicker reined in. No other customers asked for it, or they couldn't market them to anyone else, so they went with that for a while and then, presumably due to low volume demand, they stopped making them, which explains why they went back to blue Alps for those late-production replacement keyboard modules (the ones with branded shells).

That makes sense. This also explains SKCL Striped Amber.

Daniel Beardsmore wrote: ↑It's even more weird when you consider that Apple preferred quiet switches — why would they suddenly opt for a heavy, loud clicky switch?

This is true, they had a habit of using silent stuff (later on), but at the same time, Apple had a habit of a diva-esque, whimsical capriciousness xD .