deskthority

@XMIT: Sounds intriguing. BTW, here's how the case looks with feet installed to provide a slanted surface:

$12 Focus FK-2001

http://www.ebay.com/itm/vintage-Focus-E ... 1896424636?

^ Wow, obviously somebody else found that a pretty great find too xD .

Industrial model M. Bid starting from 150$:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1390653-CLICKY- ... 1788498669

omni key ANSI
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Northgate-Omni- ... 1685250096?

gogusrl wrote: omni key ANSI
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Northgate-Omni- ... 1685250096?

holy shit i want that but cannot afford it

That should be the sub-title of this thread .

Indeed.

Its just its the prefect donor for a custom alps build. But then you would still need some blues . Well second only to an SGI

another cherry fan edition keyboard:
http://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anze ... 6-93-16745

Interesting find.
Claims that he only used it for decoration, but it looks quite worn.

So basically, you get white-on-black doubleshots, with the exception of the off-centered, pad-printed bottom row?
In that case his prize is far from amazing.

andrewjoy wrote: Its just its the prefect donor for a custom alps build. But then you would still need some blues . Well second only to an SGI

What's so desirable about the Omnikey? It's only white Alps.



Those caps look yellowed to me. ABS? Or just a filthy owner!?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/151854059864?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT



I snapped this up without hesitation since I have a very special (for me anyway) Alps build planned and have been looking for these caps in particular for a while. Missed out on some on MechMarket (just the caps sold for $35, so this is a wonderful price!), but then THIS popped up.

I can finally say I found something great at goodwill!

I really wanted some very ordinary-looking standard WKL layout (yet THICK PBT) caps for an Alps "sleeper" build I plan on making, something that looked unassuming and almost completely standard, and there are very few Alps boards that have that. I like that many standard things in the Cherry world are inverse in the Alps world.

Woops, dammit I quoted instead of edited. Sorry xD

Some of the caps do look yellowed. Strange, because Omnikey's usually have nice Tai Hao ABS doubleshots. I have the same caps on one of my Focus FK boards.

ABS is exactly the stuff that yellows.

Which is why I find the enthusiasm for this board odd. Shouldn't people be chasing after PBT dyesubs like usual?

The Omni Key's caps are the right colour scheme to be PBT. But that yellowing makes me wonder. And other than the caps, what's any good about this board?

I know but they're still nice, especially without yellowing like mine which can be also be "fought" with chemicals as we all know. Omni Key's are solid Alps boards, nothing special though.

Hmm, that old logo Dell has thick dyesubs ? I had no clue.

gogusrl wrote: Hmm, that old logo Dell has thick dyesubs ? I had no clue.

Talk about yellowing on that.

Muirium wrote: ABS is exactly the stuff that yellows.

Which is why I find the enthusiasm for this board odd. Shouldn't people be chasing after PBT dyesubs like usual?

The Omni Key's caps are the right colour scheme to be PBT. But that yellowing makes me wonder. And other than the caps, what's any good about this board?

Yes, there are some suspiciously white caps on certain Alps boards, but I'm almost certain they are just ABS in unusually good condition. A yellowed space bar is the perfect indication for PBT, but the Omnikey doesn't even have that, and I'm damn sure they weren't making PBT space bars for any board back then.

Northgates have NKRO capabilities, layout swapping. I don't know much else, but they contain a lot of features and have DIP switches to switch between functions. So they are pretty desireable. They also have a metal bottom panel which is a bit uncommon on Alps boards getting into the mid-late 80s and beyond.

seebart wrote:

gogusrl wrote: Hmm, that old logo Dell has thick dyesubs ? I had no clue.

Talk about yellowing on that.

Hehe, yeah. Poor girl. Well, the caps still look nice, which are the real focus for me. Some denture tabs should brighten them right up. I don't know if I'll bother restoring the AT101 itself, but I do love the look of the bigfoot case style.

And yeah, as far as I know, the USA-made AT101, the originals that don't have the "SK" in the FCC ID have thick PBT dyesubs. They are pretty difficult to find. Either that or the sellers ask an obscene amount... Without even restoring them!

Right, this is my Focus I'm talking about, look at the spacebar:

http://deskthority.net/wiki/Focus_FK-2002

Trust me there is no trace of yellowing on there anywhere. Same Omnikey keycaps.

seebart wrote: Right, this is my Focus I'm talking about, look at the spacebar:

http://deskthority.net/wiki/Focus_FK-2002

Trust me there is no trace of yellowing on there anywhere. Same Omnikey keycaps.

It's amazing how well the ABS can hold up sometimes! And sometimes even on boards with ABS caps, you can see the case look a disgusting yellow while the caps are barely yellowed.

I really wonder how these boards got so screwy over the years. I can't imagine they were in the sun, unless they were in some heap or something. Normal use wouldn't do that, I think... Storage in a sweltering hot area probably would though.

E3Eves wrote: I'm damn sure they weren't making PBT space bars for any board back then.

Wanna bet?


http://deskthority.net/review-f45/nmb-r ... t8469.html

That's my NMB. Superb caps and a damn nice board overall. Just a pity they put an ABS case on it! There were some excellent PBT spacebars back in the day. Making them was a technology that was recently rediscovered, not invented for the first time.

Anyway, I'm still to hear from Andy why he raves about that Omni Key as a donor. The SGI I can understand. I've got one myself and the caps are epic.

I doubt it will ever be fully known why and how certain plastics yellow more. We've had quite a few threads on that here. I have yet to try kbdfr's new approach, but I will.

http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/g80- ... 10958.html

I'm quite sure my NMB has a PBT spacebar. Colour aside, the feel of it is completely unlike any ABS spacebar I've ever used. It's rough and dry like the other caps on the board, and quite similar to my Granite spacebars in sound and feel. Good and thick too. I wish I had some more of them!

Muirium wrote:

E3Eves wrote: I'm damn sure they weren't making PBT space bars for any board back then.

Wanna bet?


http://deskthority.net/review-f45/nmb-r ... t8469.html

That's my NMB. Superb caps and a damn nice board overall. Just a pity they put an ABS case on it! There were some excellent PBT spacebars back in the day. Making them was a technology that was recently rediscovered, not invented for the first time.

Anyway, I'm still to hear from Andy why he raves about that Omni Key as a donor. The SGI I can understand. I've got one myself and the caps are epic.

Well damn, don't tempt me to find one just so I can mod a space bar to take Alps switches, haha. Yeah, you know, I have noticed rubber dome and foam and foil boards with pristine white key caps, so I guess you're right! It's definitely not typical though. I'm not sure of any Alps boards that used PBT for the space bars.

Omnikey? I'm pretty sure it's because those are some high quality caps. Though they are the same kind used on many boards, like the Focus boards, AFAIK. Tai Hao might make a lot of knock off sets these days, but they were on top of the ABS doubleshot game when it came to Alps caps in the 80s.

This is all my humble opinion, hehe. x3 don't shoot me

EDIT: Like the SGI granite's space bar? But I'm fairly certain those are ABS judging from the ones I've been seeing on eBay.

Sorry for the doublepost, but I just wanted to make a separate post to show this example of really nice key caps for any Alps board.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Clicky- ... 3d04807a44



Probably some of the most unique and nicest Alps-compatible ABS caps you can get.

Nice big assed Alps doubleshots. Always gotta love it when a keyboard comes in its original box!

Sorry for the confusion, I meant the PBT spacebar in this "Granite" PBT DSA set:

http://keypuller.com/granite/

It's a masterpiece. Matteo's won awards for that amazing set. And we tend to just say "Granite" to mean it, forgetting all about the original!

Just to add to confusion, I do also have an SGI Granite keyboard. Mine is the original SGI protocol version with the nice thick caps. Bloody useless keyboard electrically, but a super looker. The spacebar is pearly white, because my one happens to be in great condition. But you're right: it is of course ABS. Just well looked after.

I like the split right shift on that APC board.

A pretty common trick on Big Ass layouts. You need to squeeze that lost key back in somewhere.

What it spells for us is: harvest matching Big Ass and ANSI keyboards, and combine the two into something more HHKB.

Actually, looking at that backspace key, you'd really need 3 fairly well matched boards to go HHKB style custom. That one has the 1.75u Shift, but you're still short a split Backspace on the top row.

Three donors and you still don't get accurate legends! I must remember this the next time I start to think I need to make an Alps custom…

Muirium wrote: Nice big assed Alps doubleshots. Always gotta love it when a keyboard comes in its original box!

Sorry for the confusion, I meant the PBT spacebar in this "Granite" PBT DSA set:

http://keypuller.com/granite/

It's a masterpiece. Matteo's won awards for that amazing set. And we tend to just say "Granite" to mean it, forgetting all about the original!

Just to add to confusion, I do also have an SGI Granite keyboard. Mine is the original SGI protocol version with the nice thick caps. Bloody useless keyboard electrically, but a super looker. The spacebar is pearly white, because my one happens to be in great condition. But you're right: it is of course ABS. Just well looked after.

Oh! Of course, of course! DSA Granite. I definitely love how it captures the vintage look in a profile that really never had such an ordinary colors before, at least not in custom sets. I know there's some old old keyboards that use a profile similar to DSA, but that was way before anything even ANSI-like, I think.

Does your SGI also have the typical bigfoot look, or is this one different?

I actually have a TH-5539 FAME keyboard (that board I linked a little earlier is based on the same PCB I would imagine).

https://imgur.com/a/cegqu

It looks like a Chicony 5161 and has blue alps, going against everything listed in the Wiki on http://deskthority.net/wiki/Fame_GOG3YLTH-5539

If it really is a Tai Hao brand, it's hilarious that on their own keyboard, they put some of the lousiest caps possible. Hideous, thin, pad printed. xD I modified the plate to take a switch where the ISO enter switch position just so happened to be to give it the ability to take an ANSI-like layout. And because the top of the enter was not stabilized. The bigass enter can still fit on, but I don't really like it.

It also came with NO stabilizers on the plate aside from the space bar. There were mounts for them, but no stabs to be found. Funky keyboard. I'm restoring it at the moment, heheh.