deskthority

I was looking at a Model M on eBay and came across this bizarre review... almost sounds like they're trying to devalue it to get a better deal

http://www.ebay.co.uk/p/ibm-enhanced-13 ... serReviews

Goes unstable, causes crashes , returned, expensive usb converter used. Incompatible for modern computers. Specialists could not fix , a common problem, do not buy. Mine was like new & all rivets perfect . Very nice but tooooo old .

Hard to say, but it's very plausible. I don't understand why PS/2 is so painful to deal with. The Model M is known for its high current draw and is one of the keyboards that has the most trouble with PS/2 converters, but PS/2 converters are always hit and miss in general anyway. I have a Blue Cube (or two, I think) and that's meant to be the gold standard (even though it's a no-name product of completely unknown origin), but I have at least one keyboard where it simply won't work at all. For that, I need my Belkin, and that's a proper well-known brand and product, but it's the rubbish version that frequently hangs and then resets (the best version is reported to use the same converter chip as the blue cube). I plugged in some keyboard the other day using a Mechanical Keyboards (?) converter, and it was stone dead, so I had to try a different keyboard that would work.

Instability (spurious keystrokes/crazy behaviour) I thought was more likely to be a keyboard fault, but I can't recall the outcomes when it's occurred in the past, as I think that too may be resolved by trying another converter. It does happen from time to time.

What I do wonder, therefore: how does ADB compare for conversion reliability? You hear a lot less about ADB conversion, but I don't recall anyone having any trouble with it. PS/2 goes back to the 80s — it's hardly new, so after all this time, why is it so hard to implement?

Goes unstable, causes crashes , returned, expensive usb converter used. Incompatible for modern computers. Specialists could not fix , a common problem, do not buy. Mine was like new & all rivets perfect . Very nice but tooooo old .

Very rare to see such an honest seller, on the other hand why the auction then?

seebart wrote:

Goes unstable, causes crashes , returned, expensive usb converter used. Incompatible for modern computers. Specialists could not fix , a common problem, do not buy. Mine was like new & all rivets perfect . Very nice but tooooo old .

Very rare to see such an honest seller, on the other hand why the auction then?

Maybe to lower everyone's expectation and to encourage successful claims against the company he works for. Seen it before where they confess to selling a rubbish product yet demanding a high price for it.

Either way he covers all the bases and the buyer is almost guaranteed a successful claim.

Also always good to buy motherboards with PS/2 connectors on them, so that any keyboard bought with that connector works from the get go. Just beware of certain SGI keyboards that can really burn out your PS/2 socket (from experience here).

Is the review really from the seller?

Elrick wrote: Maybe to lower everyone's expectation and to encourage successful claims against the company he works for. Seen it before where they confess to selling a rubbish product yet demanding a high price for it.

Good point! "Do not buy" is somewhat extreme though.