deskthority

Honestly, not sure I know of any vintage doubleshot PBT caps. Then again, I’m no expert on keycap materials.

There are a lot of vintage doubleshots that don’t yellow, but I think they were mostly made before bromine was added as a flame retardant to the ABS or something from what I recall.

Do you know for sure that they are doubleshot PBT? I think there’s like an acetone test that would maybe tell you?

A buyer asked me to list them that way to get combined shipping to figure correctly, so not insane, just good customer service. It’s possible they decide not to end up buying, but that’s ok if that turns out to be the case. Free market lets buyers vote with their dollars. If you don’t want to buy so...

If it was me, I'd probably just get a different capsense PCB or I suppose a desoldered chip from someone who's parted their XT out if you're 100% sure that's the problem. Other thing you can do is cut the original controller part off and replace with an Xwhatsit as I have done here: https://deskthor...

You could always put the converter inside of the keyboard (like a Soarer's Converter or TMK/QMK converter) and just run a USB C cable out of the keyboard, so no external adapters will be required. I believe there's also some bluetooth conversion options, so no adapters or cables would be required at...

Just curious, does this same thing happen with other Xwhatsit controllers, or is it just the batch that was used in Ellipse's reproductions? I believe he used a more "compact" version, just wondering if the full size version has that issue as well as this is the first I've heard about it. Webwit, do...

Looks like it's in pretty decent shape! It's when the return springs or stems are rusted through that you're in real trouble!

I have some 3178's without barrels/hammers/solenoids, but not sure if that's something you want to mess with or not. PM me if interested.

Very impressive collection indeed! I see I'm not the only "M-Style" fan out there (I call them grandfather ergodoxes :D ) That's also only the second numpad I've seen for the ASkeyboard/ASCII/Reudo keyboards! Any of the older ones that you want to convert to USB, but haven't yet? With an expansive c...

3277 Full Size Beamspring. Keep in mind this requires a custom replacement capsense PCB to convert. Should be a thread elsewhere on DT with the PCB files.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/264653394359

I haven’t come across this too often as a seller, but it at least used to be that for auction items that the winning buyer cancelled, second highest bidder could be offered a “second chance” to the next highest bidder. Would think they’d have gone that route unless the >$420 bid was a fake bid by a ...

Very impressive progress! Out of curiosity, which of the below are the ones that are difficult to convert? (from https://deskthority.net/wiki/Micro_Switch_SD_Series ) A - Sink level (4 pins, 2 redundant sense lines) B - Sink pulse C - Source level E - 3 pins, 1 sense line K - Timed repeat (4 pins, 2...

I probably have one kicking around that you can have for the cost of shipping if I can find it

2 Gallons of 40 vol developer? Where I am that would make up a significant portion of what the keyboard is worth, or maybe I just haven't found it in very large containers or something to make it a little less expensive? Heat apparently can be used as a substitute for sunlight and that will be evenl...

Hmm. Hard to say without having one in hand to try. At least one IBM board outputs a mix of all 3 code sets (the 1397000 I believe in particular, which is a vintage M122 with lock LEDS). There's also at least one third party branded (Lynk) M122 that the most recent version of Soarer's converter does...

Haha, I didn't think that SSK owner knew what it was worth, otherwise would have put that in the title

Click leaf on the right is a first gen (Grey Plate) Blue ALPS (and looks like it's got some original lubricant on it as well). Feel is pretty similar but maybe a bit smoother. You can kind of see that the plastic on the ligthter blue sliders is smoother/less textured/more slippery, Springs appear to...

The replacement IIc made it to me today with (sky?) blue ALPS. A couple of the switches had broken top housings, which I replaced those without any problems. See pics below for difference in slider color and click leaves compared to regular blue ALPS. Newer (sky?) blue stem is the one in the middle ...

You might first want to look into whether your terminal supports hot plugging of keyboards or not, guessing they do, but I (and probably most of us) have not used a terminal keyboard with its original hardware. If hot plugging isn't supported, you'd have to reboot the terminal each time you wanted t...

Very interesting indeed! How many rows and how many columns are supported? Would be pretty cool if you could go beyond the 24x4 and 16x8 of the existing beamsprings/model F's so they could be adapted to other custom projects potentially? Wondering if there could be optional components to install for...

Yes, the middle 4 pins cary the keyboard signal and the outer two must cary the mouse signals. A regular SDL cable plugged into a Trackpoint keyboard will just ignore the mouse. I'd just take the pinouts from a regular SDL cable and if you get the outer pins reversed, it shouldn't cause any damage. ...

I won that one! I had a real NOS one about 5 years ago, but ended up trading it soon after I got it. See here: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=71488.0 Money shot from NOS board of yore: IMG_0848.jpg I was too afraid to open them for fear of damaging them, but I've gained a lot of experience in ...

I have a couple of the M122's and was mainly interested in them for the caps, but if anyone wants the rest of the board, would be willing to sell for about half of what I paid, something like $45 plus actual shipping without the alpha-numeric APL caps. I do have some original M122/101 key caps of th...

Tron had one and restored his, see pictures here:

https://imgur.com/a/D1XHKll

My guess is that it came from the same batch, so might be nice other than the caps?

Seems M 5-1’s don’t show up too often in my experience in the USA, not sure if they were more common in Europe or not. Those alphanumeric POS keyboards I think are most often found in China for some reason. I’ve got some parts blue switch boards (which are missing barrels, barrels, hammers, and sole...

Those C. Itoh caps are beautiful! Though I somehow expected them to look "more?" spherical. They look almost flat? I'm sure it's something that needs to be experienced in person regardless. Would love a set for myself someday

I have a couple of those manuals, but they aren’t in very good shape. They have something like oil on the pages, but I think it’s all still readable. Maybe not the best candidate for a restoration?

Look at all those wing nuts! There's so many great projects on DT that it's hard to think of specific ones that stand out from memory. I've always enjoyed OldIsNew's and SnacksTheCat's restorations, though hard to name a specific one. Now I just have to come up with a memorable project that I can po...

Awesome project! I've always loved the idea of split spacebars if it's possible to implement something that would handle two "Code" keys from a wheelwriter in the spacebar area, I'd be all over that. I don't think this is suggesting much of a major change, just some extra capsense pads PCB for some ...

Do you have the original omnikey PS/2 cable yet? If so, you'd just need one of these: https://www.ebay.com/itm/282575686221

That can be used with any PS/2 keyboard and the existing key rollover will be preserved.