deskthority

So I found a place where they had a few old keyboards. They weren't open during weekends so I had to go during the week. They said they'd pile some stuff into a box and I could go through it and take what I wanted. So I came over today, and what was the very first thing I saw in that box?



Yup, an industrial, black-badge Model M. It has no model sticker so I'm not sure what part it is, or how old, but judging by the codes on the controller I think it may be from 1988. It is a bit dusty, and the keys could do with some cleaning, but it's in great condition otherwise.



It has a beautiful rainbow brass backplate and it's missing only two rivets. The rivets appear to be hand-melted too, much rougher than those on my oval-badge Model Ms.



It even came with the original black detachable cable, with AT plug. The cable is absolutely immaculate and very shiny, just look at how great that looks .

The same guy gave me a few more keyboards that I'm not going to tell about yet, as they will feature in future reviews and I don't want to spoil them just yet. Looks like I'm going to be doing a lot of cleaning this weekend ^^ .

Woooow! That's seriously impressive. Very jealous indeed.

Holy shit, nice find! Interesting legends on the insert/delete keys too, it also looks like GB ANSI which I've not seen before either...

Didn't happen to get any more FK-2001s did you? I'm after some UK caps .

Yup, that old indie magic. If it was an SSK, you'd be minted! But even the fullsize ones are a touch of class. Especially with that great XT style cable.

Congrats. I still got to pay for my industrial case from webwit. But this is the whole package.

That is such a cool find, congratulations! There is still so much to be found in this kind of local offline places.

Muirium wrote: ↑Yup, that old indie magic. If it was an SSK, you'd be minted! But even the fullsize ones are a touch of class. Especially with that great XT style cable.

Yeah, it definitely looks classy . It's much darker grey than I thought it would've been, too - darker than the grey on the keys.

It's got some really weird things on it, too. The insert and delete legends are bizarre, the Caps Lock looks like it's one from a terminal board, the Num Lock says "NumLk" and as mentioned before, it's ANSI for some reason, even though it's a UK layout otherwise.

I'll post a picture of it after I've cleaned it up properly .

That thing is a beauty! Congratulations

I forgot to mention that, to make it even weirder, the lock lights appear to have German legends on them Oo . So it's a UK-layout ANSI board with German lock light legends and a terminal Caps Lock key.

seebart wrote: ↑Congrats. I still got to pay for my industrial case from webwit. But this is the whole package.

Just out of interest, how much would you reckon this thing is worth?

I love the craziness that is this keyboard so much I'm cross-forum-posting to both your threads

I think you can totally market this as a "One-of-a-Kind ANSISO Industrial Model M" for the bargain basement price of $900 "Never to be seen again!".

Congrats, Thomas! That's a great find! Cheers to Fridays!

I've seen industrial M's go for € 300 and more. But as you know its all relative. $ 900 seems steep but not unreal.

seebart wrote: ↑$900 seems elliptical but not unreal.

Fixed that for you!

You're right chzel but as you know some people go nuts for that grey tone.

That's why I didn't mess with the "not unreal" part!
By the way, great find! Congrats!

I just got fired today, so No, this is not the best day of the week.
Congrats on the find!

Bummer. Employers are even allowed to sack people in Sweden? You live, you learn.

It should be all of our goals to get Chyros top dollar pound for this beautiful board so he can buy more boards to review!

jbondeson wrote: ↑It should be all of our goals to get Chyros top dollar pound for this beautiful board so he can buy more boards to review!

Hahaha well I wasn't planning on selling this just yet xD . Hopefully the money I've saved up will be enough to cover my rent and livelihood until I've finished my PhD (I'm working unpaid at the moment) - otherwise I might just have to sell it off in the end... I've been using the proceeds from my classifieds sales to buy a new board that should make an interesting review, though . And I've got a few more in the pipeline!

Man thats nice , always wanted one of them black cords too , one day , one day

Nice find! I have one of those cables (got it with my 1390131) and it is marvelous!

Chyros wrote: ↑Yup, an industrial, black-badge Model M. It has no model sticker so I'm not sure what part it is, or how old, but judging by the codes on the controller I think it may be from 1988. It is a bit dusty, and the keys could do with some cleaning, but it's in great condition otherwise.

Congrats. Nice Find. I would say this is a IBM Model M 1388032 industrial.
See the DT Wiki http://deskthority.net/wiki/IBM_Enhance ... rd#1388032

This keyboard is not only cool and great looking and you got the original cable with it. This legend is the very first Model M that could be used with a PC. There was only one earlier Model M (1386303) and it was for use with a Terminal.

Could you please post a picture of the controller and also the inside of the bottom half of the case.

Some of the keys are from other keyboards.

This is what mine looked like when I got it:

Very nice! Do let us know what the others are in due time.

Today was the day that I finally got one of my Displaywriters working with an xwhatsit.

Findecanor - sorry to hear about your job.

Chyros wrote: ↑Just out of interest, how much would you reckon this thing is worth?

If you clean it and replace the wrong key caps depending on the manufacturing date up to in the range of 200 - 300.

Even if the label is missing there could be still be a clue left inside the case as to when this keyboard was produced. Usually IBM did stamp the date some where inside the case.

If it is a 1986 keyboard possibly more and if you have a 1985 I would say definitley more than 300 (to a collector)

Careful when cleaning the stamp comes of easily. Phosphorglow came up with a great idea how to preserve the stamp.
I posted some pictures some time ago: http://deskthority.net/photos-f62/model ... t7862.html

HAL wrote: ↑Congrats. Nice Find. I would say this is a IBM Model M 1388032 industrial.
See the DT Wiki http://deskthority.net/wiki/IBM_Enhance ... rd#1388032

This keyboard is not only cool and great looking and you got the original cable with it. This legend is the very first Model M that could be used with a PC. There was only one earlier Model M (1386303) and it was for use with a Terminal.

Could you please post a picture of the controller and also the inside of the bottom half of the case.

I see, cool! So is that part number the only Model M that has that square black badge? =o It looks really kickass, I'll post a picture tomorrow or so .If it really is the first PC Model M that'd be awesome, really a board with a story this is turning out to be. If the caps are from different boards, does that mean this was originally a pure ANSI board?

There are no stamps or time wheels in the inside of the case, btw. There are some numbers in them including one that I think is the part number for the case parts, but these numbers seem fairly irrelevant. I'll put up pictures of them tomorrow, too.

Also WHAT is that thing that
As for the controller: here it is:



It has "1386800" on a big sticker on it, which I suspect is the part number for the chip. As for the other things, I don't know. How you can make something out of it .

Also WHAT is that thing that says "4.00 MHZ" on it? Oo

BTW sorry to hear, Findecanor...

Very nice find! I love the square label industrials.

Cleaned it up, here's a few more pictures:







The badge is beautiful by the way. It's got the subtlest dark-reddish shine to it which looks really great .

Chyros wrote: ↑Also WHAT is that thing that says "4.00 MHZ" on it? Oo

Quartz crystal oscillator, provides timing for the microcontroller on the board.

I just realized, that the LED badge is in German. What a weird ANSI-ISO mix!

Nuum wrote: ↑I just realized, that the LED badge is in German. What a weird ANSI-ISO mix!

I just realized I had a major blackout whilst looking at this yesterday! Square label (badge) industrial !! That's $$$ Chyros. Too bad the sticker is missing. No sticker on the plate either?