(Preview) Blaise's Current Keyboard Collection

[Blaise170]

I still haven't had the time to photograph most of my boards but I did take some time yesterday to figure out exactly what I have and have them listed, in alphabetical order, below. Also including a few photographs of what I do have photographed.

Apple M0110A Assembly (Alps SKCC Cream)
Avid KB654 (Cherry MX Brown)
Chicony KB-9801 (Futaba MA41 MX)




Data911 M2C-TG3-TP (Cherry MX Black)
Ericsson C3 Maestro (Keytronic Butterfly)
Everex NMB Enhanced Keyboard (Black NMB Space Invaders)
Fairlight MFX3+ ESP-MFK (MFX Switch)
Filco FKB-91JU (Cherry MX Black)
GAMDIAS Hermes GKB2000 (Cherry MX Red)
General Instrument 900181 Assembly (GI S95010E9)
IBM Model M 1394167 (Buckling Spring)
Keycool Hero 104 (Kailh Blue)
Matias Laptop Pro (Matias Quiet Click)



Microterm 5510 (Alps SKCL Green)
NEC PC-9800 (NEC White Ovals)




NEC PC-9801 (NEC Black Ovals)



3 x NEC PC 8801 (Alps SKCM Blue)



NEC PC-9801mkII (Futaba MA)
NEC PC-9801V (NEC Cream Ovals)
2 x NEC PC-9801V (NEC White Ovals)
Pinnacle Deko Fast Action Keyboard (Cherry MX Black)
Qtronix Scorpius 22 (Cherry MX Multi)
Ricoh Alps 56AAA1446C (Alps Integrated White)
Sharp X1 DSETK0015CE01 (Alps SKCL Green)
Thermaltake Poseidon ZX (Kailh Blue)
USB Sharp X68K DSETK0016CE01 (Alps SKCL Green)



USB Sharp X68K DSETK0023CE02 (Alps SKCL Yellow)
Varmilo VB87M (Gateron Clear)
Yamaha QX3 (Cherry MX Orange)



Yingkeer Y12 (Kaicheng Blue)

[idlethock]

I really love seeing all these different kinds of boards. The NEC's in particular.

I also saw the Kingyeer in that awful boards thread last night. That is a real piece of work.

[Blaise170]

NEC used a lot of interesting switches over the years. Anything from Alps to Futaba to their own oval switches. It's actually a bit curious what prompted them to be so diverse.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Cost perhaps — whichever manufacturer was cheaper at the time. I assume that's what the deal was with Chicony and Monterey and their switch-swapping. (Some brands such as Nan Tan and Ortek offered high and low end switch options, which with Chicony at least seems not to have been the case, but that is not confirmed.)

However, in some cases (Atari and Texas Instruments for example) it seems like each keyboard factory couldn't provide the quantity needed, requiring multiple sources. Dell still source their OptiPlex keyboards from two concurrent suppliers (currently Primax and Lite-On as I recall).

I've not spent any time studying NEC's arrangements.