deskthority

Hi Everyone,

Since today is election day in the US, I wanted to hold a celebratory raffle and see what the community thinks about a couple of different keyboards at the same time.

As many of you know, I recently started working on restoring a bunch of Televideo keyboards that I bought from @elecplus (shout out). I have my own opinions on which board is the coolest but I'm more interested in other peoples' opinions and thoughts.

Out of the ~40 keyboards, they break out nicely into 5 groups which I've nicknamed in my workshop thread.

To enter the raffle, all you have to do is vote on the poll then reply to this post, telling which keyboard you think is the best and why. You don't need to end up siding with the winning board; your opinion alone enters you into the raffle.

Then on this Friday evening (Nov 9th), I'll mix up all the names of people who replied and choose one at random. The selected winner will receive one free keyboard of their choice from this cast of characters (if you have a particular board in mind, I'll do my best to accommodate but I've already sold a few of them). I'll ship the board to you for free, regardless of location.

Below is my 1-sheet'er about the 5 different keyboards. If you have any other questions or need additional information to make your decision, I'd be more than happy to provide any information that I can. I'll provide photos, videos, researched data, really anything.

	The Soldier	The Pawn	The Unknown	The Patriot	The Imposter
Manufacturer	nmb	nmb	nmb(?)	nmb(?)	wyse
Count	12 boards	15 boards	4 boards	2 boards	4 boards
Switch	linear white space invaders	linear white space invaders	linear white space invaders	linear white space invaders	linear cherry mx blacks
Variety	1 eye	2 small eyes	2 large eyes	2 small eyes	vintage
Connector	6p6c	4p4c	ps2	6p6c	4p4c
Power	voltage regulator	labeled 5v	labeled 5v	voltage regulator	presume 5v
Protocol (guess)	something over serial	something over serial	at/xt	something over serial	wyse

The Soldier
The Pawn
The Unknown
The Patriot
The Imposter

I like the Patriot one the most - it looks like a WY60, which is a beast of a board, but subtly different.

The imposter. Fan of vint blacks, more regular numpad layout and unnecessarily red keys.

Honestly, the Soldier is definitely the coolest out of the bunchm its industrial colourway, classic keycaps without windows for the lock lights, its massive case and the most important part of it ... the holy F0 !

Thank you for doing this and good luck to everyone !

Myoth wrote: ↑and the most important part of it ... the holy F0 !

lmao, I've spent a crazy amount of time with these keyboards and have not noticed this till you pointed it out

I have voted for the Imposter—impostor—... impostœr.

Why? Soldier, Pawn and Unknown all have a 1U backspace key and an ANSILHE (ANSI + Low Height Extension) Enter key that I seriously dislike — together, those two misfeatures (YMMV) are enough to far surpass the attractiveness of the "fat numpad" and the supranumpad cluster above it.

Patriot and Impostor share the same layout, with a mostly normal ANSI Enter; the main alphanum block can more or less be beaten into being a quirky 75% (plus a numpad and an F row, where Esc could be moved above without too much fuss). With that tied, the next step is the switches... where the impostor wins, as I guess it would be easier to get blank keycaps for it, to replace a select few of the extant ones.

I voted for the Patriot.

Liberty branded space invaders!

I think that the Patriot has what it takes to save this keyboard country.

Give me liberty or give me...uh well you know where my allegiance lies.

The unknown, nice and simple, yet mysterious

Ame_r wrote: ↑The unknown, nice and simple, yet mysterious

The unknown soldier.

SOLDIER: First Class.

The patriot... clearly. Liberty is the most 'murican thing I can think of

The Impostor,I'm a sucker for Cherry switches.

//gainsborough wrote: ↑SOLDIER: First Class.

Ooof, that one's a real goober to convert. But it has a bell/buzzer! That has to count for something right?



By the way, here are some sound samples of each.

Mongo just pawn in game of life.

I voted Pawn, the splash of red and space invader combo was calling to me.

I gotta side with the Pawn. Interesting back, best cap color scheme with sharp bold legends and colors. And a layout that seems like a lot of fun once you can bind keys to whatever you want.

Meh. I would only need to pay shipping for a keyboard I do not want.

snacksthecat wrote: ↑
Ooof, that one's a real goober to convert. But it has a bell/buzzer! That has to count for something right?

By the way, here are some sound samples of each.

Mmmmmmmm - SOLDIER sounds the best too!

Findecanor wrote: ↑Meh. I would only need to pay shipping for a keyboard I do not want.

Uhhh... okay? wtf? Hahaha.

I voted for the pawn, because I already have one and love it! The white keycaps with gray modifiers and red accents look awesome on the beige yellow case! (please don't enter me in the raffle)

Keyboard layout is the most important for me. It doesn't matter how pretty it looks and how good the switches are if the layout requires me to bend over backwards too much. Keyboards like that will just end up as show pieces and I don't have space for that. With that in mind, the patriot and imposter does not have enough modifier keys for daily use. I can deal with the small backspace by pressing both shift keys to do backspace. This leaves the soldier, pawn, and the unknown. Of the three, I like the soldier best because of the industrial look.

Since I never had the chance to try the space invaders, I'd say the Unknown best fits the description
Also, being able to simply connect it to a PS2 port is a huge benefit as I have no idea how to convert the other ones.

The Stratus branded Solider looks like a General to me. Boss board.

The pawns are my second favourite pick, though every one of these families has its own pros, cons and charm. Even the MX!

Looking at the layouts, ANSI Return is so much nicer than Big Ass, but then I look left of the spacebar. Really got to have at least two mods down there, my main guys, so General Stratus it is!

I choose the soldier, because
- black coiled cable
- IBM industrial look
- wacky layout, but usable with programming
- linear switches so commando units remain silent for the enemy.
My second pick is the unknown, because he's a poor underdog

The soldier cause it has a nice layout and a pretty industrial look

I choose the Patriot, a little more compact, and the colors + "Liberty" give it a though personality

Please put me down for the Soldier. Looks like he's got some stories to tell...

I think that one-eyed or large two-eyed (eeeeevil-eyes) Space invaders are the coolest-looking switches, but "The Patriot" and "The Impostor" have the most useful layouts.
"The Soldier"'s layout is a bit too weird IMHO.

Well, You know that I like the Pawn, the red caps give that touch of happyness that makes it stand out

What type of keycaps they all have?

The Impostor. I already have a Wyse ASCII as my daily driver and love it.