The board uses a pretty common AT case design but since I don't have any other boards with this case style I can't offer a direct comparison. The case is very similar to apparently every AT keyboard ever made or at least enough models that it gives that impression.
the picture on the box shows a keyboard with a black bottom and black feet while the one I have has a beige bottom and beige feet.
And I love the text on this box too. "New with click sound switch" and "Denish" as a supported language are so very good. If anyone who speaks Denish knows what country that's spoken in LMK lol. And even this far back they're advertising the switches as mechanical. In this case specifically as high reliability ones too, and the click features on the box as well so I get the feeling that KPT or whoever actually developed the switch was super proud of them. Weird since at this point I'm not familiar with many "non-mechanical" switches you would need to distinguish yourself from, but I guess when you're using the most common case design under the sun you have to make sure people know that the keyboard doesn't suck. Not sure what exactly the box means by PC-R.
Taking a peak inside you'll see the plastic protector is still on, which wasn't in the listing pictures so I'm pretty surprised to see it. Not complaining though since it's obvious that this is an unused keyboard in the OG box, it for sure isn't a pristine keyboard. The shape the box is in has for sure let stuff get in and without the protector over the switches they'd likely be at least a little dusty whereas they're pristine as is.
The caps are focus caps, which is weird since every other KPT board I have uses tai hao caps (or those weird shitty thick caps that don't have a good name yet) Not especially interesting honestly aside from the BAE stab being more of a BAE-ISO than the typical BAE-ANSI that you see on later boards. That is to say that the switch position is similar to that of an ISO enter, with a rod stab to the right of the quotation mark key. I actually prefer this sort of stabilization to the BAE-ANSI style as the rod stab is responsible for the stabilization of a smaller surface area of the key and the proper stabilizer is responsible for the stabilization of the entirety of the middle of the cap, making it a much more stable experience overall. Downside is you can't mod in an HHKB backspace but the nature of a plastic plate with integrated rod stabs is you would have a hard time doing that anyway so that may be a moot point here anyway.
The spacebar stabilization is a little weird on this one. There's an integrated rod stab as well as an alps style one that would have needed an insert. Additionally the plate has a spot for an extra switch which IIRC was something you'd see on boards with alps made caps every so often. No idea why that's here or if it was ever used. The wiki has a pic of the manual for a podworld 102 and the picture of the caps shows them as being stepped. Maybe they sourced caps from somewhere different at some point and those caps make use of this extra switch cutout? more likely it's vestigial and is left over from development.
Another weird thing about the space bar switch is that even though it is outwardly identical to the other switches it is actually a heavier version.
The switches are about what you would expect, like white alps but if they were worn out a little. And these are (basically) NOS switches too so this is about the best you can expect them to feel without opening them up and modding them yourself. The tactility and sound are both good and the ping is pretty heavy as well. All in all it's a nice board if you don't mind the switches. They do chatter but I suspect this will work itself out after a while. None of my other good condition KPT switches have this issue and the design hasn't changed at all between any of the flavors I have good examples of so I can't see much being different here either. If it was especially bad the contacts could probably be sprayed with contact cleaner or something and you'd be right as rain. If I ever give that a try I'll be sure to waxboil them as well to see how well they take to it. Can't hurt honestly.
The PCB shape is very similar to how Tai hao's boards that use this case are shaped. As close as KPT/PDC/JTC/whoever are to tai hao I wouldn't be surprised if there was either some direct lineage (IIRC there's a fame board with blue-black KPT in it somewhere) or if they were simply cloning tai hao.
The top case is darker than the beige paint of the metal case bottom which gives it a nice look IMO. I like the case and would love to get some other, actually good boards in this case. Cyan omrons or aruz switches sound like they'd be lovely in this case.
I suspect these cases were B stock or something because I can't really figure what sense it would make to have a case with fancy pants brass screw inserts but then skimp out on ultra cheap plastic plates. My best guess is that these cases are like B stock or something. The kinda bad molding on display does lend a little weight to that theory.
Overall build quality is better than later KPT boards with this board having a much sturdier top case as well as a metal bottom case. However, the plate is still plastic and any key smaller than the right shift key just don't have wire stabilizers despite the cutouts in the plate for them. I have no idea what the pattern for this is as some of the later KPT that I have have stabilizers everywhere and others do not. This seems unrelated to switch type, case type, and age. Maybe the ones that have all their stabilizers were made on a Wednesday and all the other keyboards are Monday/Friday models? While the build quality is better than later KPT models (with maybe 2 exceptions) the build quality isn't in service of keyfeel or typing experience. It feels like everything they got right was an accident or was done because they had parts laying around rather than as a conscious design in service of an aesthetic goal or to make the typing feel good. Same deal with later KPT boards honestly, but the difference there is that the later boards feel cheap in every aspect. Here the solid case and metal bottom could make you think this keyboard is nicer than it actually is.
Should you get this keyboard? Not really honestly. Caps are cool but the rod stabs are integrated into the plate mean that you can't really use them anywhere except for as replacements, the switches are okay but as far as alps mount clickies you'd be better off getting a clone that was PCB compatible or just get white alps since those are super common anyway and if you need switches for this PCB footprint Omrons are a much more interesting choice of switch. I typed most of this post on the podworld and while I didn't dislike any aspect of it (aside from where AT layout sticks Ctrl and Alt) it's not something I;ll be getting cravings for or anything after I'm done here.
