Model M Problems

[bakkadilla]

I have an old Model M 05FEB 86 that I bought through Reddit and brought to work to be a daily driver for myself. One of my co-workers thought it would be funny to unplug my cable from the back of my keyboard. Now it doesn't register presses, double registers presses and just it f*cked in general. Can anyone give me any advice on how this could be remedied?

[Muirium]

Sounds like they did worse things than just pull out the SDL cable. Sure it didn’t get liquid damage?

[Chyros]

Stupid question maybe, but someone's gotta ask; when you re-plugged it, did you cold- or hot-plug it?

[imdatperson]

Might have screwed up something in the SDL port, since he pulled it out and probably didn't push the 2 clips on the cable inward. Not sure if that's what he did, but I just thought I'd bring it up. Sorry that happened that realllly blows. Best of luck getting it working!

[AJM]

Probably one of the wires in the cable already had a weak spot and when your colleague messed with it, that finally broke.
I would expect such a spot probably close to the SDL connector.
When you bend the cable carefully to and fro in that area, while pressing keys, and you then notice a clear difference in behavior, that would confirm it and then your colleague could buy you a new cable.

[fohat]

My first response is to shut everything down completely cold, unplug all the connections and examine them, carefully re-seat all the connections, and then restart from dead cold.

[Muirium]

Reboot the keyboard. If this fails to resolve the issue, reboot the responsible workmate.

[kbdfr]

Not sure I dare suggest that perhaps pulling the cable may have resulted in broken rivets,
in turn causing the erratic keyboard behaviour described.

[Muirium]

Model M: not the battle hardened tank of keyboards it’s made out to be.

Honestly, I’d smack someone upside the head with a plate mounted Cherry over an M any day. Only the Model Fs were made for street fighting.

[seebart]

Model M: not the battle hardened tank of keyboards it’s made out to be.

Honestly, I’d smack someone upside the head with a plate mounted Cherry over an M any day. Only the Model Fs were made for street fighting.

Very true, bigblue obviously started saving $$$ in production by then.

[kbdfr]

Come on, guys, there's someone needing help, let's restrict oursevles to constructive posts

[snacksthecat]

Try to pinpoint where the problem is. What I would do is open the keyboard and hook jumper wires to the pins where the cable normally plugs in. If that works, then you know the problem is either the port or the cable.

You could also take the reverse approach and make sure the port/cable are working. If you have a multimeter, check to make sure each of the wires has continuity from the din connector all the way back to the port.

[mattlach]

Model M: not the battle hardened tank of keyboards it’s made out to be.

Honestly, I’d smack someone upside the head with a plate mounted Cherry over an M any day. Only the Model Fs were made for street fighting.

I can't speak to Model F's (or all Chery boards) but my Model M's would likely make way better home defense weapons than my Ducky's. The ducky's are impressive for a modern keyboard, but feel way less solid than those old tanks.

Also keep in mind, it's not the 90's anymore. An early Model M is getting close to 35 years old now. Everything with moving parts eventually fails.

[kbdfr]

Model M: not the battle hardened tank of keyboards it’s made out to be.

Honestly, I’d smack someone upside the head with a plate mounted Cherry over an M any day. Only the Model Fs were made for street fighting.

I can't speak to Model F's (or all Chery boards) but my Model M's would likely make way better home defense weapons than my Ducky's. The ducky's are impressive for a modern keyboard, but feel way less solid than those old tanks.

A Ducky may have Cherry switches, but is not a Cherry.

Also keep in mind, it's not the 90's anymore. An early Model M is getting close to 35 years old now. Everything with moving parts eventually fails.

I have been using Cherry boards for 25+ years, not a single one failed.
Not a single one.

[mattlach]

A Ducky may have Cherry switches, but is not a Cherry.

Fair. I have absolutely no experience at all with Cherry's own boards.

I have been using Cherry boards for 25+ years, not a single one failed.
Not a single one.

Except for that one time there was a ceiling leak at work that dumped a ton of dirty water into my 90's vintage Lexmark Model M, I can say the same for my Model M experience. Never had anything go wrong with them.

Anecdotal experiences are rarely of any value though. In order to say anything about reliability and quality we need to examine large sample sizes, and I don't have those.

[Muirium]

Well, seeing as we’re not helping!

Ms always fail through rivet rot in the end. Sure, you need a lot of that for the board to completely cease typing, but I’ve seen a few Ms that are badly upfucked in part. And, come on, completely knackered arrow keys? Broken keyboard! I’ve had two like that, and neither still had blood on it from a good fight.

The M design is merely adequate. A pretty thorough cost cutting exercise that somehow got the immortal rep of all of IBM’s much better keyboards.

Plastic rivets? Cheap! Real weapons use bolts.

[elecplus]

I have hundreds of Ms. I can tell you that rivets are the most common problem, but there are quite a few that are electrically fubar. You plug them in and get nothing, no response at all. Disassembly shows nothing visibly wrong, except of course the rivets. Replacing the controller almost always solves the problem. I have killed over 50 defective M122s because of defective controllers.

[mattlach]

Well, seeing as we’re not helping!

Ms always fail through rivet rot in the end. Sure, you need a lot of that for the board to completely cease typing, but I’ve seen a few Ms that are badly upfucked in part. And, come on, completely knackered arrow keys? Broken keyboard! I’ve had two like that, and neither still had blood on it from a good fight.

The M design is merely adequate. A pretty thorough cost cutting exercise that somehow got the immortal rep of all of IBM’s much better keyboards.

Plastic rivets? Cheap! Real weapons use bolts.

Agreed. The M's had some serious cost cutting applied to them compared to their predecessors (Model F's and Beamsprings) but they are still way more solid and heavy than anything that came after them.

The problem with those predecessors are that they have some just plain atrocious key layouts rendering them - at least to me - practically unusable. There is a reason the IBM Enhanced Layout took over the world the way it did. (The pinging of the switches can also be annoying compared to the M's comparatively loud, but tone neutral "thwack".)

Tradeoffs.

I've never had a rivet problem on any of my M's (but maybe I baby them?) but even if you do, a bolt mod doesn't look THAT difficult to do.

[fohat]

a bolt mod doesn't look THAT difficult to do.

It isn't. The first time is quite intimidating, but after doing it a few times it gets much easier.

The frustrating part is that any mistake requires completely dismantling and reassembling it, and those are bound to happen. Figure at least 20 minutes per iteration.

[bakkadilla]

Sounds like they did worse things than just pull out the SDL cable. Sure it didn’t get liquid damage?

No, that's all he did.

[bakkadilla]

Stupid question maybe, but someone's gotta ask; when you re-plugged it, did you cold- or hot-plug it?

I hot plugged it. I needed it when a customer walked up to the counter and once I realized what had happened I quick-plugged it back into the board and started typing.

[bakkadilla]

My first response is to shut everything down completely cold, unplug all the connections and examine them, carefully re-seat all the connections, and then restart from dead cold.

Unfortunately, that ship has long since sailed. I plugged it back in immediately once I realized what had happened needing it for a customer. So I'm hoping no more damage was sustained by my immediate plugging back in.

[fohat]

So you have done a complete shutdown and cold boot by now, haven't you?

[bakkadilla]

So you have done a complete shutdown and cold boot by now, haven't you?

Yes I have

[Howard81]

I used to do this all the time and never once had any issues with my Model M keboards... You may have just been unlucky (or myself super lucky!).

Double-register presses are usually the tell-tale sign of a liquid spill that is causing havoc with the membrane.

Do you have any spare cables or even a controller board you could try a swap with to try and identify what exactly is at fault?

[bakkadilla]

I used to do this all the time and never once had any issues with my Model M keboards... You may have just been unlucky (or myself super lucky!).

Double-register presses are usually the tell-tale sign of a liquid spill that is causing havoc with the membrane.

Do you have any spare cables or even a controller board you could try a swap with to try and identify what exactly is at fault?

I ordered another cable through clickykeyboards.com and that didn't help unfortunately. I don't have another controller board either.

[Muirium]

Hmm. Seems unlikely the controller is to blame anyway, as those are typically a total failure. Sounds like the board's been damaged where it hurts most: snapped rivets.

See if you can find the right "nut spinner" (5 mm if I recall, but I'm horrendous with numbers so someone else correct me!) to open up the case and take a look. The rivets are immediately visible once you're inside. Indeed, you can even hear the snapped ones' heads rolling around in there like dirt if you simply tilt the keyboard from end to end.

[fohat]

7/32" socket but 5.5mm will work.

Just be sure that it is "long" and "thin-walled"