deskthority

First post...don't know if it's rude to start asking for help immediately, but...

A guy is selling me this keyboard for about 5 dollars. I'm bidding 30 on it if it turns out to be mechanical (to offer a fair price). He certainly says that it is mechanical, and it is listed as such, but i'm not sure. Is there a definitive way of checking, just by looking at it?



Side-note, my motherboard (P8Z68-V PRO) doesn't have a PS/2 port. What kind of PS/2 to USB adapter am i looking at?

Got any clearer pictures? The bag is fairly effective noise layer over the details. Also: the back would likely say more than the front.

i asked him to provide the details on the back of the keyboard (if there are any) and will get back as soon as i get them. Thanks.

Regarding the ps/2-usb converter, have a look at this thread:

http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/bes ... t5542.html

Thank you. Looking at that thread, I have come to believe that 'active' is the key word here. Since i am on a very tight budget, and i don't like the connector costing more than the keyboard itself...would this be an active converter? http://dx.com/p/slim-usb-2-0-to-ps-2-ad ... ongle-1440

All PS/2 adapters are "active". There's no other way to do it. Can't say this one will work for you – the keyboard is ISO (the L shape shift that UK and most European keyboards use instead of the American ANSI style) and people said there are sometimes issues with that – but it might. Especially if there's not fancy keys for multimedia controls you care about. Depends if you want to take the gamble.

I had a similar choice re: MIDI keyboards recently. Roland does a £30 USB adapter I knew worked just fine with iPad as well as Macs. But I tried a £3 generic from Amazon instead, guessing I'd just leave it hooked into whatever computer it wound up working with. Turned out just fine, works everywhere, saved 27 quid.

The battle tested PS/2 adapters people linked in that thread are cheap enough I'd go for one of those, for all of 5-10 pounds. Guess 30 quid is on the other side of my threshold.

Membraneuser wrote:First post...don't know if it's rude to start asking for help immediately, but...

It is not, and the mere fact that you considered this could be an issue would heal it if it was
Welcome to DT!

Thank you everyone, and thanks kbdfr.

The keyboard is apparantly a BTC 5201.

rubber dome

http://fr.apacelli.com/keyboard-mouse-s ... grey-ps-2/
french of course, but there is ugly word "membrane"

In globish :
http://www.btc.com.tw/english/2-7-keyboard.htm
no 5201 though
or
http://reviews.cnet.com/keyboards/btc-5 ... 94104.html

Damn...guess that's it for this thread then Thank you, all.

Closed...

Whenever the Esc key is 1.5 wide I first look if it is a BTC keyboard.

The 1.5u Esc and also the Power-Sleep-Wake buttons very strongly (let's say 98%) indicate a non-mechanical keyboard. Though there are exceptions (very few), if these two signs are manifested together you can be 99.9% sure it's non-mechanical. I hope this will be useful in your search for a mechanical keyboard.

Muirium wrote:All PS/2 adapters are "active". There's no other way to do it.

Actually, no, some are just a pin adapter. (Some PS/2 keyboards can also natively speak USB, and those pin adapters set them up for that. They're just like the ones to adapt a USB keyboard to PS/2.)

Ah, of course! I forgot about that. Like the reverse of My Intellimouse Explorer: its green USB to PS/2 adapter wouldn't work with other USB mice. The adapter was really just an extender: the conversion between protocols (or native support for them both) took place inside the mouse instead.

Looks rubberdome to me...