deskthority

This is not adding up. This is the topic that gives us the current definitions of Type A (proto-green) and Type (proto-blue):

photos-f62/white-vs-clear-vs-clicky-cle ... t2017.html

Now compare with this topic:

photos-f62/nixdorf-soft-click-g80-0801-t517.html

The second topic does not specifically state which switch is lighter (excessively terse sentences) but it appears to say that click clear is lighter than MX Blue. Neither Type A nor Type B is lighter than MX Blue by definition, per topic 1.

I thought that more spring turns indicated lighter, and fewer turns indicated heavier, and in the first topic you can see that Type B has fewer turns, as you'd expect for a heavier switch (this is consistent with modern white and green).

This next topic goes on to suggest the same, that click clear is lighter than MX Blue, but here it clearly shows the springs with fewer turns, which would make it a heavier switch assuming the same wire gauge and material:

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=17221.0

(The wire gauge looks to be the same, but the springs seem to be made of different materials.)

So which is it? Is Type B White lighter than MX Blue (per topics 2 and 3) or heavier (per topic 1)?

Topic 1 also gives Type A as 1987 onwards, while topic 2 shows a 1986 keyboard, and topic 3 notes that the switches were "probably already produced in late 1985". So even that isn't consistent. Where does 1987 come from?

All three topics are from the same author, sixty.

Where is this going wrong?

only sixty can give us the answer I guess ...

I'd probably ream sixty if I contacted him directly, so someone else should try that. I see that Blaise posted a photo of one, but he's vanished without trace, so its characteristics remain unknown.

Basically, unrelated switches may not share the same wiki page, as it's too confusing. However, the Cherry MX White page can't be split until we know what the other switches actually are. There's never been any suggestion that there's more than two types, but I can't reconcile the above forum topics without there being three types that were mistaken for two types.

I know that these switches (which, I don't know) do show up occasionally in keyboards, so it should be possible to gather some hard data, and maybe enough to conclusively split the wiki page.

I got a fucking Nixdorf CT06 with MX Whites ... still have the switches but killed the board in rage

*blink*

Wodan wrote: I got a fucking Nixdorf CT06 with MX Whites ... still have the switches but killed the board in rage

...why?

Don't just kill boards in rage! Offer them to me first.

Daniel Beardsmore wrote: *blink*

would you like samples of the MX Whites from that board? I can take some macro shorts first.

XMIT wrote:

Wodan wrote: I got a fucking Nixdorf CT06 with MX Whites ... still have the switches but killed the board in rage

...why?

Don't just kill boards in rage! Offer them to me first.

Well it was from the huge Nixdorf haul last year where everyone got 1-3 Nixie CT06 for 50€ each and mine turned out to be this:

ONE FUCKING NIXIE

Oh yeah followed by this:

@Wodan, would you sell the white mx switches? Or at least 60 of them? Never tried those.

I can share a handfull of those MX Whites but I wanted to keep enough for a small build

Ah, thanks - "small build" was also in my mind

Wodan wrote: ONE FUCKING NIXIE

It's not all that fun having the same thing as everyone else — you got lucky and scored a keyboard with a pretty rare switch.

It appears that you have [wiki]Cherry MX Click Grey[/wiki] too — I don't know if this is extremely rare, or whether it's more common but nobody examines the space bar switch. I am not sure if I've ever seen one before.

Cherry MX Click Grey isn't listed as clicky, so it may be lubricated to limit clicking — I noticed that one of the vintage "white" switches was also lubricated, suggesting that there really is a connection to modern MX White (even if the force is different).

I don't have any scientific instruments: the person best suited to collecting these switches is HaaTa, as he could prove conclusively what the specification is on them and begin the process of identifying just how many types there are.

If there are any switches left over afterwards, it won't hurt to have one or two.

OK, well, making some progress now, with a page scan from Michael Schmid at Cherry.

In July 1985 (not shown on the page), the MX range comprised:

MX1A-11… — linear ("ohne Druckpunkt")
MX1A-21… — linear, space bar
MX1A-A1… — tactile ("mit Druckpunkt" — with pressure point)
MX1A-B1… — tactile, space bar

The tactile version is shown to have hysteresis, but nothing seems to be said about any sound being emitted. Lifetime is 20 M for all types.

Hopefully I can add this scan to the wiki.

So now we know that the numeric types (1, 2, 3) are linear, and the alphabetic types (A, B, C) are tactile. This seems to have got forgotten as MX Red should be MX1A-41… but mistakenly it was not!

No mention of colour is given, and only one image is given, of MX Black.

The tactile forces are 75 and 95 cN for A1 and B1 respectively.

So "MX White" goes back to 1985 and is paired with Click Grey. This is likely to be Type A vintage MX White.

As for MX Dark Blue and the lighter Type B MX White, this is still a mystery. My Dark Blue does not click and appears to be greased, as though Type B MX White was made a dark blue colour while Type A was made pure white.

Interestingly, we have:

A1, B1 — vintage white and its space bar switch; C1, D1 — clear and its space bar switch (and clear was the next in line according to Michael Schmid); E1, F1 — blue and its space bar switch; and all by itself, G1 — brown (what does that have on space bars?) … and then it stops.

There is a large gap after that: H1, I1, J1 and K1 are all unknown, and then we have L1 that should have been 41 (red).

So where do vintage white type B and dark blue come in?

The paucity of dating information for white of any variety makes this more trouble than it needs to be, but it seems fair to assume that type A vintage white is the same switch (A1) as modern white. sixty has some with the expected anti-click grease.

So what's type B white? Are those greased to avoid clicking? Does that make them proto-blue, or are they a separate model (light-weight white)? Since sixty's type B example is from a Nixdorf keyboard, type B white could easily be another custom switch along the lines of Nixies. We already have a number of confirmed part numbers for custom types (in the range MX1A-_G__) including customised black and customised blue, heavier weight and lighter weight.

It does seem that Cherry never intended for MX switches to click, and that (maybe by popular demand) a version with a intentional click sound was introduced later.