[Trip Report]
I've been looking for unusual keyboards for some time - spherical key caps, unusual key layouts, unusual switches and protocols, etc. When I found out that Electronics Plus was only a two hour drive from home I knew it was a trip I wanted to make!
I contacted Cindy (elecplus) via PM about three weeks ago. This being a busy month for me I had to schedule the trip several weeks out. This turned out to be good for several reasons. One I had plenty of time to research various keyboards here and on the Wiki, and build an inventory of items to collect through the Marketplace. Two I had plenty of time to pack a bag with odds and ends. Three it was a little warmer today than a few weeks ago, low of 16C and high of 25C. This matters because the attic at Electronics Plus is not climate controlled!
I left home at about 0625 this morning and arrived at 0825. Cindy was already inside and let me in when I called.
Once I set my things down she asked, "well, where do you want to start?" "How about the grand tour?" I responded. So, Cindy showed me around the entire shop, taking about an hour do to so.
Electronics Plus is located in a 10000 square foot facility that was, in previous lives, a flea market, a furniture factory, and a Bible factory. It is a long, relatively narrow two story warehouse with few windows (just the ones in front). All of the shelves and most surfaces are covered with seventeen years of electronics surplus stockpiling: not just keyboards, but also floppy drives, monitors, terminals, video cards, old CPUs, RAM. There are not just an abundance of keyboards - there is an abundance of everything. The Marketplace postings and even the Web site reflect a relatively small proportion of what is actually available.
After the tour, Cindy told me, basically, to go nuts. My task was to sort through a pile of about a thousand keyboards in the attic looking for gems. I cleared some shelf space and started stacking. Cindy came upstairs too from time to time and helped (greatly) with sorting. She knows the vintage switches much better than I do. I had never seen a Space Invader switch in person before today.
Some of my findings, which I originally reported in
http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/fie ... 49-60.html, were:
Model M buckling spring - about 30.
Model M 122-key Unsaver - about 10.
Burroughs terminal keyboards - about 7
Sperry terminal - about 4
Space invaders - about 10 in various colors.
Model F XT - 1-2 I think.
Model M rubber dome - about 20
Model M2 rubber dome - about 50
Olivetti - vintage MX black
MX mount Futabas - they appear to be linear.
I asked Cindy about some of these, and why she still had them. She replied, "no one was interested" or "someone didn't answer e-mails." She does you a favor by acquiring and storing these great finds and selling them at a good price - do her a favor and be a good customer!
My eventual haul, as noted above, was fourteen keyboards. As originally reported in
http://deskthority.net/vendors-f52/scro ... 77-30.html :
First column, top to bottom:
???
???
Model M 122-key - PS/2, Unicomp, 2006
Custom FAA Air Traffic Control keyboard - backlit Cherry MX Black
Mini Sperry?
SSK
Model M 122-key - terminal, 1986
Second column, top to bottom:
Model M dated July of 1989 - for parts
Model F XT
Burroughs terminal keyboard
Sperry keyboard
Model F Bigfoot terminal
Model M rubber dome (just because)
Cindy also sent home some freebies: some old flash units that interface and work with my Nikon camera, a numeric keypad, and some Duplo blocks for the little one.
She definitely deserves the Golden Wingnut - which I even got to see in person!
