Now that's really weird. I've never heard of a "genuine" Alps Filco Zero, only "Fukka" and "XM".
The oldest date I can find for the Tactile Pro 2.0 from a quick search is May 2007:
http://www.bronzefinger.com/archives/20 ... ctile.html
The Tactile Pro 2.0 was reported by Matias to have swapped the white simplified Alps switches of the Tactile Pro (1) for grey "Strong Man switches", but we now know that most Tactile Pro (1) keyboards used grey Alps switches (I am not sure I've ever seen a photo of one with white switches). Strong Man's "Strong Man switch" claim with the TP2 was backed up by the switches being unbranded, at least on the top (I've never seen whether they say "FD" on the bottom). We can't prove who made the switches, but they're outwardly identical to those in the Tactile Pro 3, the "Fukka" Filco Zero, and (if you ignore the branding) genuine simplified Alps.
This puts a maximum date for the de-branding as May 2007. The joint venture between Alps and Forward (who I'm taking to have always made the simplified switches, as well as a lot of the complicated switches in the mid 90s, probably the ones with wobbly branding) ended in 2000. I don't know when the Tactile Pro (1) was released, but that date might also help.
Were Costar sourcing old stock switches as much as three years later? It's not inconceivable that some distributors still had batches of unsold switches.
What's more interesting is that the photo shows black Alps switches — I've never seen those in a Costar-made Filco. Now, the nearly identical ABS M1 had those switches:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1435017
http://www.overclock.net/t/714268/club-abs-m1/150
http://techreport.com/review/16616/abs- ... l-keyboard
http://www.abs.com/Products/ProductDetail.aspx?ID=9
The first page is from July 2009, and all four pages show unbranded switches. Interestingly, ABS themselves used a diagram of a four-tab clone, that looks to have come from either a Xiang Min or Hua-Jie datasheet (they use the same diagram!)
So, those Alps-branded black switches in 2010 are clearly an anomaly. Of course, not everything I get told turns out to be true, so there may be further backtracking.
Sadly, there are far fewer photos of Zero switches, that I can find, but I don't recall ever seen them with Alps branding.
The answer may lie in what's written on the bottom of the switch, i.e. when did "FD" appear, and do all the apparently unbranded switches say "FD" on them? My soldering is sufficiently bad that I don't want to risk damaging my TP3 to get a switch out ;-)
