deskthority

How is it? These pop up on Czech sites all the time, but I've been hesitant for some reason.

Feels like any other vintage Hall-Efect Board to me. Not too surprising since those switches are soviet Microswitch SD-Series clones. Very decent keyfeel, but the horizontal keys that are 2u bind kinda badly on offcenter keypresses. Havent lubed them yet, but am going to try some dry PTFE spray on some. Maybe it will disappear when I use it for a while. Spacebar was like that too in the beginning but is ok now.

Sound is great and build quality is amazing! The caps are thick ABS doubleshots, the case is some sturdy plastic. They sure have a very distinct look, I especially like the single wire foot on the back

I'd say they're equally as good as your standard Microswitch SD board that pops up on eBay now and then but are actually usable since the 262.9 and 262.12 should work with an XT-converter or just via AT respectively right out of the box. 262.12 also has a modern layout + locklights. Maybe even the only vintage Hall Effect board in a modern layout that works without any additional conversion work.
Both have inherent NKRO. If you have the chance to get one in decent condition, I can definitely recommend it.


Small Update: PTFE did wonders on the Spacebar, but didn't do anything on the 2u keys. Those do not have the same stab design. 2 Switches in the corners, the one on the right being dummy switch with slightly different dimensions. If you try to press right on top of that one, it's kinda awful tbh. This only concerns 3 keys: R & L Shift and Numpad 0. Not an issue for me when I used it.

My main keyboard, an IBM Model M 122: This keyboard was made on 10 March 1987 and the part number is 1390888.

So happy this finally arrived. Not sure if the previous owner did a writeup, but I think it's really cute.

I've got two cool keyboards to show, both of which I am giving away for FREE (viewtopic.php?f=55&p=481910)

First up I have an AT&T terminal keyboard with ITW Magnetic Valve low profile. It feels very nice and is in excellent condition. It is built well and is among the most beautiful keyboards I've seen.
Next up I have a Dah Yang Unitek K151L date code 1987 that originally came with vintage Cherry MX Blacks. It's 5-pin din and works with a soarer's converter.
This thing is built like a freaking tank. It has:

1. n-key rollover
2. thick steel back plate
3. brass screw sockets, and no clips anywhere
4. a thick steel mounting plate which is top mounted to the case[/li]
5. a thick coiled cable, with a metal plug terminal

it's only downsides are that the thick abs keycaps are pad printed, and it has an AT layout.

IBM UNSABRE:

dr-lipschitz wrote: ↑

28 Mar 2021, 05:35

I've got two cool keyboards to show, both of which I am giving away for FREE (viewtopic.php?f=55&p=481910)
Next up I have a Dah Yang Unitek K151L date code 1987 that originally came with vintage Cherry MX Blacks. It's 5-pin din and works with a soarer's converter.
This thing is built like a freaking tank. It has:

1. n-key rollover
2. thick steel back plate
3. brass screw sockets, and no clips anywhere
4. a thick steel mounting plate which is top mounted to the case[/li]
5. a thick coiled cable, with a metal plug terminal

it's only downsides are that the thick abs keycaps are pad printed, and it has an AT layout.

Spoiler:

That Unitrek is a very nice specimen. I'll have to be on the lookout for one of those. If anyone is looking to offload one, feel free to pm.

All I can say is get you a spouse that celebrates your birthday like this!

I also recommend being and marrying rich, ha ha screw you poors without beamsprings!
/s

If the beamer was a surprise to you, then she's positively supernatural!

WoB and blue mods on a Unicomp Mini M:

sharktastica wrote: ↑

10 Apr 2021, 19:31

WoB and blue mods on a Unicomp Mini M:
protomini_black-blue.jpg

Imho, I think one of the nicest combo of keeb and keycaps lately seen around. Kudos to you mate. Really a cute sample....

I'm generally a fan of beige kbs over black, but I do have to admit this looks very cool.

Jan Pospisil wrote: ↑

10 Apr 2021, 22:50

I'm generally a fan of beige kbs over black, but I do have to admit this looks very cool.

Same here.
Although well, it does look cool, but to me it would be a work hindrance since my screen displays black on light grey and all the paper documents I constantly need for reference are printed black on white. Even if I only rarely take a look at my keyboard, having to reaccommodate would simply ruin my eyes.

They should have made black keyboards way back then when screens were unable to display anything else than white characters on black.ground. And the cursor blinked and blinked…

What caps are those? Looks sick, I love the stepped bottom row keys.

TNT wrote: ↑

11 Apr 2021, 18:42

What caps are those? Looks sick, I love the stepped bottom row keys.

Yeah, they've got a lot of charm, don't they? I love them.

They are caps from a GD-722 keyboard.

dcopellino wrote: ↑

10 Apr 2021, 21:52

Imho, I think one of the nicest combo of keeb and keycaps lately seen around. Kudos to you mate. Really a cute sample....

Jan Pospisil wrote: ↑

10 Apr 2021, 22:50

I'm generally a fan of beige kbs over black, but I do have to admit this looks very cool.

Aye! Coming from a beige lover, the combo here is awesome!

kbdfr wrote: ↑

11 Apr 2021, 08:43

Same here.
Although well, it does look cool, but to me it would be a work hindrance since my screen displays black on light grey and all the paper documents I constantly need for reference are printed black on white. Even if I only rarely take a look at my keyboard, having to reaccommodate would simply ruin my eyes.

They should have made black keyboards way back then when screens were unable to display anything else than white characters on black.ground. And the cursor blinked and blinked…

Invert your screen colours!

Jokes aside, I understand this isn't for everyone. Indeed, I still prefer beige for basically the same reason - my centre vertical monitor I use for reading papers to review is of course mostly displaying black on white, and the keyboard is right under it. So, it's easy on the eyes for sure. It's still not a major problem for my eyes (at least, I don't have bad strain (yet)), but everyone's different.

Speaking of black and blue... I went with a '00s ThinkPad vibe for this M13:

had some fun while waiting for the keycaps of this new acquisition to dry, more to follow

DSCF2306_edited by Myoth, sur Flickr

nothing too special, but got this 89 m122 a couple days ago was very dirty, much more than expected, but that's alright (it was like this through the whole board) gave it a bit of a wash, swapped some caps from a unicomp board i own, and i'm pretty happy with the results

Sparkly clean! What an improvement.

Here’s my AT. It may be Texan, and born in the 80s, but it’s quite progressive.

I assembled this set of caps from the GrabBag I had \ I really liked the ISO layout in the 1800 series.

Legit use for those frivolous extra keys, I reckon.

Jack/> wrote: ↑

10 May 2021, 00:58

I assembled this set of caps from the GrabBag I had \ I really liked the ISO layout in the 1800 series.

Bolshevik recognises Bolshevik, comrade.

Light Blue sub-legends ...

Gotta love multi legend colour dyesub. I'm not quite convinced by that relegendable for the vital Enter key, or quite what comma *and* period are doing there together, but tab and backtab are 100% right.

Muirium wrote: ↑

14 May 2021, 13:12

Gotta love multi legend colour dyesub. I'm not quite convinced by that relegendable for the vital Enter key, or quite what comma *and* period are doing there together, but tab and backtab are 100% right.

I needed a comma for the weird reason that the German decimal ... point is ... a comma (and I just type IP addresses too often to not having a period on the num pad). Shall I sneak a comma from a German Model M?
I already used my 1U enter on my F107, so I had to be creative.

Damn that looks good.

Someone finally appears to have purchased the $450 M50 from eBay that I'd been watching for months without a single price reduction. Oh well.