Model F AT arrived and it is different to others I've seen.

[486]

Posted this over at GH so I could get more opinions on this.
So the F AT arrived today and I am so happy. It is not in perfect condition as I had said before. Needs work but very good for the $154 i paid for it.
When I opened it though, I new something was different immediatly. The IBM badge colour was bronze rather than silver! I checked if it was dirt but it is not. It is actually bronze. Here's a comparision.
I have never seen a F AT with a bronze badge before. Weird isn't it.
But it gets stranger.
I looked on the back of the keyboard to find the Model number and found it to be a UK board.
I looked at the date and was shocked. 21 of April 1987! How is this possible?
Production of IBM AT's stopped on 2 April!
I checked the model number to see if the case was from a different keyboard but it is not!
The UK model number for F AT's is 6450200 and that is what was written on the back!
Has anybody got a Model F AT like this?
I checked over at clickykeyboards.com and they not seen a Model F AT out of 1985!

[JBert]

Must be that Greenock in the UK kept the production line going then...
Nice find!

[Peter]

Well, I have a truckload of IBM-manufactured Model M's from 1996-1998 .
NOT 'Lexmark', NOT 'Unicomp' but 'IBM' !!
Those shouldn't exist either .

To make sense of this, we'll probably need to find one of the lawyers involved in the tax-scam they made ....

[clickykeyboards]

Looks like a fine example of a 25-year-old PC/AT keyboard.

The color of the IBM badge is probably silver, but there is likely a thin plastic cover that the previous owner never removed and the adhesive may have aged and turned brown after 25 years. Removing the plastic may reveal the original metal.. but the metal might also be permanently stained. I'd probably leave it as is.

Most of the 40 or 50 PC AT keyboards that I have seen had a bar code and serial number and look like this
http://www.clickykeyboards.com/index.cf ... /id/133844

..but I have seen a couple of Made in the United Kingdom ones that look like this
http://www.clickykeyboards.com/index.cf ... /id/385227

[486]

Looks like a fine example of a 25-year-old PC/AT keyboard.

The color of the IBM badge is probably silver, but there is likely a thin plastic cover that the previous owner never removed and the adhesive may have aged and turned brown after 25 years. Removing the plastic may reveal the original metal.. but the metal might also be permanently stained. I'd probably leave it as is.

Most of the 40 or 50 PC AT keyboards that I have seen had a bar code and serial number and look like this
http://www.clickykeyboards.com/index.cf ... /id/133844

..but I have seen a couple of Made in the United Kingdom ones that look like this
http://www.clickykeyboards.com/index.cf ... /id/385227

Have you ever seen any other F AT's this late in production?
I recall Minskleip had one from Aug 1986 and that was the latest F AT I had seen until this.
But the thing is, why keep producing a keyboard that is incompatible with the then current PS/2?
I don't expect many of these late models sold.
Do you think it's worth $154?

[fossala]

Why are ps/2 keyboards still made now?

[486]

That's because we still use the same form factor. ATX can use PS/2 but AT cannot.Unless this was a replacement for another F AT under warranty, but these keyboards almost never break, I don't think that would be possible. Could just be stock they had to clear and thus assembled keyboards using spare parts they had in the factory.

UPDATE. it was the plastic. I tried getting it of but it was so stuck down. I managed to get it off and the badge is pristine!

[clickykeyboards]

IBM (International Business Machines) defines the term global corporation. Back in the day when they actually made computers in the United States, IBM was the dominant force in the PC market. Everything else back in the 1980s and early 1990s was just a PC clone (HP, Xerox, DEC, TI, Wang, Olivetti). I'm sure that IBM, as a corporation with military contracts and federal and state government purchasers, that they were contractually-bound to provide a guaranteed number of replacement components and spare parts for a fixed time.

We once had a lot of brand new silver label 1390131 from 1996 (10 years after most were made in 1986) that we purchased from a government spare parts warehouse/armory.
http://www.clickykeyboards.com/index.cf ... /id/156756

The 84-key PC/AT keyboard was made more than 25 years ago as part of a computer as a revolutionary business machine. Vintage keyboards like the IBM PC/AT and the original IBM model M's are special because they were made at special time in history at the start of the Age of Silicon.

IBM keyboards have proven to still be well-built tools that can still be used with modern PCs. As to the modern crop of USB mechanical keyboards,I am sure that they are fine. However only time will tell to see if they will still work and if they will hold their value 25 years from now.

As to $154, I'm sure that there are professors and entire academic departments in ivory towers who probably have weekly seminars, symposiums and annual international meetings to discuss the definitions of price, value and worth.

If one is happy with the purchase, then it is certainly worth the price paid.