Today’s madness involved calling a local recycling facility to see if they had amassed any old computer keyboards. They indicated that they were doing inventory, so most of their stuff was gone – but suggested I look at local computer shops. Thanks, but…
Then I called an outfit in a big city that takes old computers for recycling. I gave them my number, told them what I was looking for (computers with “big round connectors that you can’t even plug into a modern-day computer, and has keys that click when you press them”) and besides probably thinking that I was quite odd, they did take my number down and said they would call if they got something in – which was nice.
My brother had mentioned that he had a keyboard in his basement that might have mechanical switches in it, so today I hounded him to pull it out and check it out. When he told me it was a Chicony KB-5981 with clicky keyswitches, I almost jumped out of my chair. What keyswitches were they? He sent me an intriguing photo.
Look at that! A crossed stem? I thought for sure it would have been a rectangular-style Alps stem, but no! A Cherry? What was it? Why wasn’t the Cherry logo stamped on it?
Of course, when I don’t know, I ask on geekhack.org. ComradeSniper from Montana and CptBadAss from Ohio promptly responded that it was probably a Cherry clone, and CptBadAss gave me the link to a deskthority.net article on Cherry MX clones. These switches are dubbed “Aristotle” and I did not know of their existence before today.
I’m not sure if my brother is going to hold on to the board or not, but in any case – I learned something new today. Thanks, brother! I want to type on that! I’ll give it back. Really…
One more nod to my brother, who checked a charity thrift store and a pawn shop in his town this morning, to no avail. The effort was very appreciated, regardless! Thank you!
For once, I’m actually looking forward to a Monday – next Monday, when I get the Omni Key 102 in from my friend.
Updated 10/26/2015, more pictures:
Dang.
You got me interested now. Funny how much I hated the original mechanical PC metal monster keyboards because when I had to fix them at work the little springs would go flying everywhere. When those went away I thought “good riddance”. After a few years all semblance of tactile feedback in keyboards seemed to disappear. I actually became notorious at work for having the loudest keyboards in the office.
It was fun popping a key on that Chicony and seeing that it was mechanical. I bought it for $7 at a thrift store just because I liked the tactile feedback.
I’m probably going to get kicked out of thrift stores for popping keys off the keyboards. “Hey, don’t be breaking the stuff unless you’re going to buy it!”
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Shoot, I was going to recommend checking recyclers, but that seems to be a dead end. You truly don’t know what you’ve got, until it’s gone. If only you had started 10 years ago, you could have your pick. To think what you want is rotting in a landfill somewhere… tre sad. 😦 Hang in there, we’ll all keep looking.
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I can comfortably say that I’ve never thrown out a mechanical keyboard. I have parted with many mushy dome-switch boards, but I never really came across any mechanicals in my years (other than those on my Amigas) – which is why I can safely state that I haven’t parted with any!
I was a bit disheartened when I talked to the recycler in the big city- the gal there said that when they get those old keyboards, they typically cut the cord off and it goes to one recycler, and the board itself goes to another recycler – possibly for the gold in its switch contacts? Not sure.
What I AM sure about is that the Omni Key 102 left Spokane at 12:26AM this morning. Is it at high altitude right now, flying to a sorting center? Is it a companion to a bunch of other boxes in a semi trailer? Can I possibly over-romanticize this any further? Next time I will ship Erik a GPS-based package tracker so we know (I see that SparkFun has discontinued theirs).
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Hello there
Do you have any pictures posted showing the key details (whole keyboard, rear label, controller chip with date)?
I do believe you (I’ve found this same keyboard listed on eBay) but eBay listings cannot be used as references, as they and the images frequently disappear with time. (Supposedly there’s also a rubber dome version and a Cherry MX Clear version, but these claims were made without references. Cherry MX Clear in a Chicony would be very uncharacteristic!)
I’ve added your keyboard to my database already, but it would still be good to get the serial and year posted to a page that can be used as a reference.
http://telcontar.net/KBK/Keycombo/family.php?id=6
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Whoa! Hi, Daniel! I’m familiar with your past Wiki work on Deskthority and you have my respect! I will put it in my queue to take the board apart and take pictures for you. It might take a couple of days.
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Thank you.
Interesting date on the case (Minguo 81: 1992) — I presume this means that they were using up surplus cases. (I’ve declined to record this date, as it would cause the whole keyboard to sort under 1992 🙂
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Yes, that is quite interesting. I noticed the differing part number (KB-5181) but didn’t even really look at the date! Makes complete sense.
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I’ve noted that nugget in the notes for that keyboard in case it in itself proves useful. At some point I’ll add the rest of your keyboards with accessible dates to the database — I added the linear OA2 Nan Tan this morning.
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I’m honored. If you don’t see what you’re looking for or need more information I didn’t post, I am willing to open up any of them for further pictures.
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Basically, I’m recording the make/OEM and model, year of manufacture, and the switch types, with a link back to a reliable URL offering documentary evidence — just getting this basic information is pretty difficult.
Normally, all the details are present on the controller chip and rear label (this also gives me the serial and FCC ID), although there are awkward gotchas like the headache of removing and replacing the space bar to see if it has a different switch.
You can see all the other details I’m recording from the site itself — this may increase with time: I’m currently not bothering with things like the connector or protocol, keycap type or types, size, weight, form factor etc. Currently up to a staggering 57 entries 😛 (And I’m still not certain about the data model yet. I’m just in the process of supporting up to three reference URLs, to deal with cases where the source data comes from more than one page.)
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Yep, I checked it out earlier and just did again – looking really good! Although I’m currently getting some errors when I try to click on any of the keyboard links-
“Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_IF in /home/telcontar/www/www/KBK/Keycombo/keyboard.php on line 130”
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Yeah that was me thinking it was Perl 😛 Works now.
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