A video collection of modded ALPS Filcos

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Julle

14 Aug 2011, 00:04

Now this is an interesting collection of Filco ALPS keyboards. These videos have been uploaded fairly recently, and they're uploaded by someone in Japan, so I'm assuming not many people have seen these.

Here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UU ... ature=plcp

A couple of interesting points:
  • The green ALPS seems to have a 'ping' like no other. Apparently, older ALPS boards suffered from that too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0aGI9RtxJU. On a related note, I tried two different specimens of Filco Majestouch-2 in a silent, closed space recently, one with browns and one with reds. The brown had a constant hum from all the harmonics, and the one with reds had a minor ping issue. Although the pinging itself doesn't bother me, I do apologize for calling those complaining about the pinging neurotic bitches.
  • The yellow ALPS seems to have, by the sound of it, a very pronounced tactile bump. I remember reading on Sandy's web site that yellows are linear. How peculiar. Maybe it's just the sound of bottoming out. Or maybe another variety of yellow switches exists.
  • The Geiger counter videos have more views than any of the keyboard videos. Priorities, priorities...
Last edited by Julle on 29 Aug 2011, 17:51, edited 1 time in total.

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webwit
Wild Duck

14 Aug 2011, 00:25

Not sure what that ping is, but I doubt it is the switch. The green Alps are like red Cherries - light, linear, non clicky. I have complicated and fake green alps, and neither ping in any way. Maybe it's the board and/or desk, the mounting of the resoldered switches, or the microphone. Speaking of which, I find most sound recordings of switches on the Internet useless and sounding alike, because most mics and encodings don't allow for the frequencies to produce a sound like the switches really sound.

ripster

14 Aug 2011, 02:54

Whoah, listen to all those Pingy keyboards. ALPS should RMA all those vintage switches.

And the Yellow ALPS one is what I want. The Filco has matching Yellow LEDS. How awesome is that? Always wondered why the engineer didn't just match the LED color to the Switch color.

And they ARE neurotic bitches about them switches.
Image

False_Dmitry_II

29 Aug 2011, 15:43

There's a guy at geekhack who has a couple of zenith's and he says his greens sound just like that filco.

User avatar
Julle

29 Aug 2011, 17:49

Apparently that link in my original post doesn't work. Let me fix that. It's a really nice collection.

Edit: fixed in the OP, http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UU ... ature=plcp

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