deskthority

I recently found this keyboard in the trash and i decided to save it from it's certain doom. However it has this weird mark at the top right corner that i have never seen before. You can see it in the pictures below.





Anybody know what this symbol is supposed to be? Is it letters, and if so what does it say?

Was this made at the factory or might it have been done by the seller or previous owner?

I would really appreciate the help identifying this thing since it's been boggling my mind ever since i found it.

Nice Model M. It is indeed an Ambra:

http://deskthority.net/wiki/ICPI

No mention of that mysterious symbol though.

Dasen wrote: I would really appreciate the help identifying this thing since it's been boggling my mind ever since i found it.

No idea what this is is but my Ambra looks like yours, but without that mysterious logo in the upper right corner.

On the back the etiquette is nearly the same : mine is a tiny little bit older: ICPI / part no AMB1003 / mfg date 18-10-93 / c.o.o. U.K.

Just some random ass logo of a company or university which once bought a bunch of these keyboards.

^ I'm not even sure what letters the logo are supposed to represent but I wouldn't call it an ass logo .

Yup. The closeup photo shows how variable the lines are. Looks hand drawn, with some half decent tool, and quite a nice piece of work. But not a professional branding job you would see for a boxed product. I'm thinking someone applied that logo to everything in the building! Didn't see any more stuff in the trash?

Fortunately, it's a nice, mysterious logo. Doesn't harm the Ambra look. So you got a nice board out of it.

<Wonders how Ambra / industrial Model M combinations look, but has zero of either.>

Muirium wrote: <Wonders how Ambra / industrial Model M combinations look, but has zero of either.>

Ah since you ask... My daily is an HHKB Pro JP but it's sitting next to an industrial Model M with Ambra keys hooked to a Raspberry Pi 2 (using a "blue cube" PS/2 / USB adapter). That one is a "fake" industrial made from an industrial shell and IBM + scroll-lock/caps-lock/num-lock labels taken on a black M13. The red GeekHack keycap (it's only the upper part) comes from a very very old groupbuys back in the old days on GH.

To me it looks plain gorgeous (sorry for the crap pic I did just take now with a shitty camera) :

The esc key in the middle of the board is a bit weird, but otherwise, definitely gorgeous, yeah! Best of the three worlds!

webwit wrote: Just some random ass logo of a company or university which once bought a bunch of these keyboards.

Now I’ve considered this and it was actually my first thought. I live next to a university and the L (if it's even an L) font looks a bit like the L in the university logo.



I've talked to some people who study there and nobody recognized the symbol. I emailed the university yesterday and asked them if they recognized the logo but they haven’t returned to me yet.

Muirium wrote: Yup. The closeup photo shows how variable the lines are. Looks hand drawn, with some half decent tool, and quite a nice piece of work. But not a professional branding job you would see for a boxed product. I'm thinking someone applied that logo to everything in the building!

Now I’m not sure about that. It's definitely not hand drawn. In person the symbol look almost burnt in, you can tell that the plastic was melted around the logo indentation. The fact that it's both stamped with a hot enough stamp to melt the plastic and probably painted at the same time, it seems to me that there must have been some sort of relatively advanced tool involved.

Muirium wrote: Didn't see any more stuff in the trash?

Yes actually there was. An old membrane keyboard, no stamp on that one though.

terrycherry wrote:

Very interesting. It's not that far-fetched that it actually says ISW in the logo itself.



I sent them an email and asked if they knew anything about the logo.

The local university L looks the best lead to me.

And the tool I meant earlier was something hot and sharp for inscribing plastic. Back at school they let us write on wood with some hot thing like that, but I can't remember the name. Pyro something or another. Wood chars, so you get a nice black line from it. Plastic melts the same colour, so you need to add ink to the engraving instead, which is exactly how I see that image. I wonder if it's trapped inside the plastic or if a good hard clean would make the black dye run?

Nice enough for internal branding, but way too manual for a true mass production item, like the Ambra logo proper.

Chyros wrote: The esc key in the middle of the board is a bit weird, but otherwise, definitely gorgeous, yeah! Best of the three worlds!

Good catch! I didn't have much choice: the Ambra I bought had the 'H' key missing... The 'esc' key is free seen that I have the GH key: I could maybe put the 'esc' key somewhere else so it's less obvious (maybe swap 'esc' and '-' or something)

I got a Model M with burned in logo recently, too:
Given that the seller was from Frankfurt, I guess it used to belong to Frankfurt University. I thought it was just a sticker before I actually got it in my hands…

The assholes could have put it on the back! I never understood logo stamping Asset tag sure but a huge logo whats the point ? I always try to hide my asset tags. I am a big fan of equipment that has a space on its label for a tag. Asset tags are a standard size pretty much, at least if you are not a cheap arse and get the 3M metal ones.

Talked to a professor and he claimed it was an old logo for the university.

Guess that settles it then.

Old men telling stories: what history itself is made of!

Greybeard lore!

They are like a wiki to the past!

Even better. They tell a different version of the story every time you reload. And none of them have citations!

[Citation Needed][Original Research?][Hairy Dog Story]

Greybeards don't need citations , they have a grey beard . Thats all you need to know.

I cannot wait till my beard is grey, but then my hair will be grey so the pony tail will have to go .

I used to rock the Doc Brown look… in blond! But I haven't the psychotic energy to really make it fly.