deskthority

I came across three of these for spares or repairs on eBay a few days ago. One of them was missing some keys, and showed what looked like blue ALPS peeping out, so I took a risk and managed to win two of the three (though not the one with the missing keys).

This is what they look like:



The one on the top is the one I didn’t win, and by looking at them, I’m assuming (hoping) they’re the same keyboard, but they may not be.

I tried googling it, but they’re from the pre-Google era, and seem quite rare, so I didn’t have any luck. All I managed to find out was that McDonnell Douglas were a big aerospace/defense firm that merged with Boeing in the late ’90s.

Does anyone know anything about the company’s keyboards?

They look a lot like the Alcatel Keyboard I bought a while ago with white complicated ALPS. If I remember it right they are identical to the Acer KB101-A. Not a bad keyboard IMHO, but I don't know much about ALPS switches to identify the ones on yours.

Edit: here's a link about them on Sandy's page: http://sandy55.fc2web.com/keyboard/acer_kb101a.html

Nice find! Besides ebay, are there other ways to find these classic keyboards locall? say at computer recycling centers before they get rid of them for good?

RC-1140 wrote:They look a lot like the Alcatel Keyboard I bought a while ago with white complicated ALPS. If I remember it right they are identical to the Acer KB101-A. Not a bad keyboard IMHO, but I don't know much about ALPS switches to identify the ones on yours.

Edit: here's a link about them on Sandy's page: http://sandy55.fc2web.com/keyboard/acer_kb101a.html

That Acer looks almost identical to these McDonnell Douglases, though I won’t know for sure until I actually get my hands on them. Glad to hear that they might be good keyboards though; I only spent £20 including postage, but I’d hate to end up with a pair of lemons.

My current plan with them is to pick the best of the two, then clean it up, possibly retrobright the case and keys, and strip the other one for switches and caps. They’re much easier to store than an entire keyboard. Any idea the best way to store switches? So far my best idea was to bag them up and put them inside a clean biscuit tin, maybe with some silica gel sachets.

kbfreak wrote:Nice find! Besides ebay, are there other ways to find these classic keyboards locall? say at computer recycling centers before they get rid of them for good?

Cheers. I’ve had luck in the past in charity shops, though not with keyboards. I got a mint-condition Apple eMate and an HP-12C in a British Heart Foundation shop for very little. I’ve seen keyboards in the past, but haven’t lucked out on any really nice ones. The problem is a lot of charity shops won’t accept electricals because they have to PAT test them, which usually costs more than the item is worth to them.

As for recycling centres, I’m not sure. Google would be your best bet for these. I didn’t have much luck finding any near me.

They make (or had somebody make) these nice joysticks : You'll find them here : Their keyboards probably cost 25.000$, I believe they are the same company that sold hammers for 2500$
and toilet-seats for 3000$ ....

...well now I know who outbid me. Glad they're going to someone who'll appreciate them.

So who grabbed the chicony 5170 out of my greedy little mitts?

hoggy wrote:...well now I know who outbid me. Glad they're going to someone who'll appreciate them.

So who grabbed the chicony 5170 out of my greedy little mitts?

That would have been me . I also got two IBMs, one "Akhter" (???) with what looks like ALPS swiches on the seller's horrible photo and one BT (???) in the same auction. (Un)fortunately I'm going to be on vacation from the day after tomorrow onwards, so it'll be two weeks before I can get my hands on the boards...

@koralatov - did you manage to get reduced shipping costs for the two boards you bought? I asked for it but communication with the seller has been somewhat difficult...

Peter wrote:Their keyboards probably cost 25.000$, I believe they are the same company that sold hammers for 2500$ and toilet-seats for 3000$ ....

I got a bargain!

hoggy wrote:...well now I know who outbid me.  Glad they're going to someone who'll appreciate them.

So who grabbed the chicony 5170 out of my greedy little mitts?

Guilty as charged.  I’ll definitely enjoy them!  As for the Chicony, that wasn’t me.  I saw it, wanted it, but knew I wouldn’t win it.

Did you win the third keyboard that I lost out on?  Or did some other Deskthority member manage to get it?

mhinsch wrote:I also got two IBMs, one "Akhter" (???) with what looks like ALPS swiches on the seller's horrible photo and one BT (???) in the same auction. (Un)fortunately I'm going to be on vacation from the day after tomorrow onwards, so it'll be two weeks before I can get my hands on the boards...

You should get them posted to hoggy or I. We’ll “look after them” got you…

@koralatov - did you manage to get reduced shipping costs for the two boards you bought? I asked for it but communication with the seller has been somewhat difficult...

Nope. I requested a consolidated postage quote last night, but got an invoice today for the full amount. The English accompanying the invoice was pretty unusual, so I just paid it. It looks like she sent them as two separate parcels: I got a tracking email from myHermes (?) for two separate packages. Hopefully they’ll get there for the weekend.

koralatov wrote:

mhinsch wrote:I also got two IBMs, one "Akhter" (???) with what looks like ALPS swiches on the seller's horrible photo and one BT (???) in the same auction. (Un)fortunately I'm going to be on vacation from the day after tomorrow onwards, so it'll be two weeks before I can get my hands on the boards...

You should get them posted to hoggy or I. We’ll “look after them” got you…

Ha, you wish! Actually... you don't by any chance live near Sheffield, do you?

The English accompanying the invoice was pretty unusual, so I just paid it.

Yeah, a bit weird. I *think* I managed to make the seller understand that he should hold the parcel until April, 12th, though.

I got three PS/2 Model M's from this seller. I picked them up in person, since I live very near Milton Keynes.

The ebay account holder and the vendors are not the same people. From the language, I'd say the ebay account belongs to someone educated in Africa. The vendors are a couple clearing out their son's "junk" for him.

One man's junk is another man's treasure, as they say.

It was a fairly chaotic scene, with a kitchen full of keyboards! They were having trouble matching listings and pictures to actual keyboards. I was aware there was a problem with the photos on the listings, since two of the boards I won had identical pictures.

I was really only after a SDL PS/2 cable for a Model M I recently got that was cable-less, so I though I'd enter this lottery. I wasn't entirely sure what I'd end up with, given the poor descriptions and mixed up photos (with the M's anyway).

In the end I got one SDL PS/2 cable (most inportant). One fully functional (dirty) 2.2kg SDL grey oval badge version missing its birth-date sticker. Another one of these but with a Blue badge, I forget the birthday. This one is missing a stem, a spring and a few caps, has faulty 'B' and 'N' keys, as well as some in the bottom row.

The thid one is missing a few caps, is blue badge captive cable version, and is DEAD.

Overall, I was quite happy, as all this only cost a few more £'s than shipping a new SDL cable from the USA.

It was a long time ago, but I think that they did some 3D graphics hardware. If I am correct, they developed it for their flight simulators, but they wanted to commercialize it for other uses too. I think that I saw them at a trade show back in '94 or so.

Seller cancelled the sale. Oh well, back to hunting for interesting keyboards...

cpl wrote:I got three PS/2 Model M's from this seller. I picked them up in person, since I live very near Milton Keynes.

The ebay account holder and the vendors are not the same people. From the language, I'd say the ebay account belongs to someone educated in Africa. The vendors are a couple clearing out their son's "junk" for him.

One man's junk is another man's treasure, as they say.

It was a fairly chaotic scene, with a kitchen full of keyboards! They were having trouble matching listings and pictures to actual keyboards. I was aware there was a problem with the photos on the listings, since two of the boards I won had identical pictures.

I was really only after a SDL PS/2 cable for a Model M I recently got that was cable-less, so I though I'd enter this lottery. I wasn't entirely sure what I'd end up with, given the poor descriptions and mixed up photos (with the M's anyway).

In the end I got one SDL PS/2 cable (most inportant). One fully functional (dirty) 2.2kg SDL grey oval badge version missing its birth-date sticker. Another one of these but with a Blue badge, I forget the birthday. This one is missing a stem, a spring and a few caps, has faulty 'B' and 'N' keys, as well as some in the bottom row.

The thid one is missing a few caps, is blue badge captive cable version, and is DEAD.

Overall, I was quite happy, as all this only cost a few more £'s than shipping a new SDL cable from the USA.

Wow. Sounds like an Aladdin’s cave! You seem to have done really well out of it, even accepting the dead keyboard. That would make a good parts mule if nothing else. You must have a bigger place, or a more tolerant woman in your life, than I do; I’d be thrown out of a second-floor window if I arrived home with that many keyboards.

I just hope they don’t mix up my keyboards with someone else’s!

Findecanor wrote:It was a long time ago, but I think that they did some 3D graphics hardware. If I am correct, they developed it for their flight simulators, but they wanted to commercialize it for other uses too. I think that I saw them at a trade show back in '94 or so.

Thanks for the informaiton. It’s always nice to get a little history to go with new toys.

hoggy wrote:Seller cancelled the sale. Oh well, back to hunting for interesting keyboards...

Cancelled as in cancelled your particular sale, or cancelled as in haven’t listed anything else? Mine was despatched two days ago using myHermes, so it looks like they haven’t cancelled everything.

Cancelled as in the item didn't actually meet the description they gave it. I suggested that it needn't have to have a 5 pin plug but it was too late - I got this in reply

Good Afternoon Thank You For Your Re Embitterment Was executed yesterday

Oh well...

cpl wrote:I got three PS/2 Model M's from this seller. I picked them up in person, since I live very near Milton Keynes.

The ebay account holder and the vendors are not the same people. From the language, I'd say the ebay account belongs to someone educated in Africa. The vendors are a couple clearing out their son's "junk" for him.

One man's junk is another man's treasure, as they say.

It was a fairly chaotic scene, with a kitchen full of keyboards! They were having trouble matching listings and pictures to actual keyboards. I was aware there was a problem with the photos on the listings, since two of the boards I won had identical pictures.

I was really only after a SDL PS/2 cable for a Model M I recently got that was cable-less, so I though I'd enter this lottery. I wasn't entirely sure what I'd end up with, given the poor descriptions and mixed up photos (with the M's anyway).

In the end I got one SDL PS/2 cable (most inportant). One fully functional (dirty) 2.2kg SDL grey oval badge version missing its birth-date sticker. Another one of these but with a Blue badge, I forget the birthday. This one is missing a stem, a spring and a few caps, has faulty 'B' and 'N' keys, as well as some in the bottom row.

The thid one is missing a few caps, is blue badge captive cable version, and is DEAD.

Overall, I was quite happy, as all this only cost a few more £'s than shipping a new SDL cable from the USA.

hoggy wrote:Cancelled as in the item didn't actually meet the description they gave it. I suggested that it needn't have to have a 5 pin plug but it was too late - I got this in reply

Good Afternoon Thank You For Your Re Embitterment Was executed yesterday

Oh well...

Embitterment? Nice vocab!

koralatov wrote: Wow. Sounds like an Aladdin’s cave! You seem to have done really well out of it, even accepting the dead keyboard. That would make a good parts mule if nothing else. You must have a bigger place, or a more tolerant woman in your life, than I do; I’d be thrown out of a second-floor window if I arrived home with that many keyboards.

I just hope they don’t mix up my keyboards with someone else’s!

My home is quite small; fortunately the lady of the house is extremely tolerant

Being an engineer, I have a strong impulse to try to fix the one with the faulty 'B' and 'N' keys. Hopefully it's just the same problem that this chap had: http://danson.grafidog.com/2009/02/model-m-repair.html. As you suggest, I expect I can use the dead one for parts.

ripster wrote: Embitterment? Nice vocab!

Good Game Guys.png

I also got some nice formal English, with random use of capital letters and strange spelling

In reply to my request to collect in person and pay in cash, I got back:
"off-coarse You May Collect These Items, Cash On Collection is amicable as This Is Convenient Too Both Parties"

germenglish

I have OFTEN found Germans Off-Coarse. Sometimes Uber-Coarse (excuse the lack of umlaut but I'm not on my iPad where I just sliiiiiide the U).

Here, imagine this sideways C:

You know that on a Mac you can type opt-u u to get a ü, right? On windoze it's something like alt-numpad (where numpad is the ASCII code of the character you want)

I should be getting my hands on the keyboards today; they were delivered to our other office yesterday afternoon, and will be with me by this afternoon. I’ll take them home tonight and post some decent pictures.

I got the keyboards at work today. They’re probably the ugliest, most yellowed keyboards I have ever seen, but seem to be in pretty good condition otherwise. I haven’t had a chance to look at the keyboards properly, or take them apart, but I pulled a keycap and found maybe-authentic blue ALPS:



There's no actual ALPS branding on the switches themselves, but they look identical to the ones in Sandy’s Acer keyboard. The keyboards themselves look *identical* to the Acer on his site, right down to the shape of the case and the serial number sticker. I’d say they were manufactured in the same factor and just badged accordingly.

Definitely authentic. 90% of all Blue ALPS have no ALPS label yet. If you desolder one you should find the logo at the bottom though.

sixty wrote:Definitely authentic. 90% of all Blue ALPS have no ALPS label yet. If you desolder one you should find the logo at the bottom though.

Thanks for clarifying that. I’ll be desoldering all the switches on one of the keyboards anyway, to keep as spares for the other, so I’ll have a look then. I don’t have the space to have too many keyboards lying around, so I figure a bank of donor parts is the better idea.

Speaking of desoldering and storing switches for spares, what’s the recommended way to store switches over the medium–long term? The best I’ve come up with so far is to desolder, clean thoroughly, then store inside a plastic bag with a sachet of silica gel and keep them out of the light. Anyone got any better ideas than that?

If you don't need the keycaps of the spares board I would be interested...

Any idea on how to take apart and reassemble these *without* cracking the case plastics?

I opened up the more yellowed of the two.  It was held together by a series of tabs along the edges of the case.  I managed to get pop them out using a screwdriver, but chipped the plastics a little.  When I was reassembling them, I cracked the front left edge of the case pushing it back over the tab.

Anyone know a better (less destructive) way of disassembling and reassembling them?

Whilst I was inside, I noticed a trio of “clocks” with the date of manufacture.  The bottom case was made August 1987, the top in 1988.

what is that cable in the first picture? looks like coax?!

off wrote:what is that cable in the first picture? looks like coax?!

They’re right-angled DIN connectors. Pretty standard, apart from the angle, but very old. I picked up some converters on eBay.

How do you like the blue alps? I have 110 on the way.