What Switch does my old laptop have?

[cineraphael]

Does everybody know what Switches is my 2002 Toshiba Satelite 5205-S703 was? I think it might be a same brand that made a keyboard for IBM Thinkpad but I have no clue.



It’s look very similar to IBM Thinkpad Keyboard!


Here is a full picture of my laptop

[kelvinhall05]

Generic scissors switch which is based on a rubber dome.


Some feel pretty nice but most are crap.

[sharktastica]

Yeah, it just looks like a generic scissor-switch. Since there's not much innovation to be had with them, most look the same.

Also, to add complication, IBM (and later Lenovo) never made a definitive ThinkPad keyboard internally and instead relied on multiple OEMs at the same time to produce them. Meaning even ThinkPads that were/are seemingly branded as the same model could have different feeling keyboards. The OEM list is a long one too, with Lexmark, Key Tronic, Acer, Alps, NMB, LITE-ON, Chicony and possibly others having made ThinkPad keyboards at some point, with the timeline of their tenures overlapping and the quality between them differing (to the point people in the ThinkPad community have their favourites). In the early '00s and IIRC, you could narrow that down to Acer (who specifically made i-Series ThinkPads), Alps, NMB, LITE-ON (who specifically made the discrete/desktop SK-8835/8840/8845 series keyboards) and possibly Chicony. Anyway, the only way to know for sure if your keyboard came from one of those OEMs would be to disassemble your laptop to see if there are stickers on the back, but even then as an FYI, having a keyboard that came from the same factory as ThinkPad keyboard doesn't make it one.

[cineraphael]

Yeah, it just looks like a generic scissor-switch. Since there's not much innovation to be had with them, most look the same.

Also, to add complication, IBM (and later Lenovo) never made a definitive ThinkPad keyboard internally and instead relied on multiple OEMs at the same time to produce them. Meaning even ThinkPads that were/are seemingly branded as the same model could have different feeling keyboards. The OEM list is a long one too, with Lexmark, Key Tronic, Acer, Alps, NMB, LITE-ON, Chicony and possibly others having made ThinkPad keyboards at some point, with the timeline of their tenures overlapping and the quality between them differing (to the point people in the ThinkPad community have their favourites). In the early '00s and IIRC, you could narrow that down to Acer (who specifically made i-Series ThinkPads), Alps, NMB, LITE-ON (who specifically made the discrete/desktop SK-8835/8840/8845 series keyboards) and possibly Chicony. Anyway, the only way to know for sure if your keyboard came from one of those OEMs would be to disassemble your laptop to see if there are stickers on the back, but even then as an FYI, having a keyboard that came from the same factory as ThinkPad keyboard doesn't make it one.

I had the feeling that it’s could be made by Alps. I’m surprised Toshiba had self-encapsulating mechanism too. Which, too many laptop especially in the same era don’t use mechanism like this.

Because, in this picture the IBM Thinkpad T4X had the similar look switch as my Toshiba Does