IBM SSK club!

[Muirium]

The nano's pricey, but really is the answer for a few of my longest waiting controller replacement jobs.

Yeah indeed. Would have been great if the no. of pin’s on v2 were the same as v1 (23). That alone would have been enough for this. But got forced to learn and use shift registers so was worth it. Now I can do my dolch pac next.

They made it worse? Where's that animated gif Kbdfr uses for such facepalms?

As I've often said: the ideal drop-in replacement, through hole USB keyboard controller would be Teensy++ (Intel MCS-48) sized, have ground, v++ and the two USB data pins broken out, and otherwise be crammed full with programmable pins for driving matrices directly. The USB socket on the top should be easily removable with appropriate heat, for cramming into cases when required.

Bluetooth adds a mid-board battery hookup to the mix, but otherwise an identical spec for replacing vintage Intel controller ICs. Or a little smaller for custom PCB jobs like this.

[tajpapa]

Hi, I'm new to this and my SSK is on the way shipping, and I'm wondering where to order the rgb keycaps as I understand SSK is 1-piece instead of 2-piece keycaps version?

Also nice clean looking one here.

I’m a bit late to this party, but here’s mine!


Had to be screw modded because the barrel plate was cracked, and there’s a regular model m controller as well because the ssk one was dead. Because the controller also had to be replaced I put in a usb c adapter in there as well.

Edit: Whoops. Looks like I necro’d a 1.5 year old thread

[Muirium]

1-piece and 2-piece caps are interchangeable. They fit on the same barrels, and you can mix them as you like.

Besides, bigger keys like Shift and Enter are 1-piece exclusively. Only 1u, 1.25u and 1.5 unit caps were moved to 2-piece.

[ITX-Fan]

Does this count?

mini-m.JPG (2.37 MiB) Viewed 9648 times

[depletedvespene]

YES.

[Muirium]

Notes thread title. Dons monocle. “Sir, this is patently not the Unicomp Mini Club and I recall no such circular notifying we members of such…”

It’s a nice looking board, presented and posed very well. But those lock lights say it all. You’re still an OG IBM SSK short of membership in this particular club.

[kmnov2017]

Does this count?

mini-m.JPG

Absolutely NOT!

[micrex22]

It’s a nice looking board, presented and posed very well. But those lock lights say it all. You’re still an OG IBM SSK short of membership in this particular club.

The OG Japanese SSKs already had lock lights though.
Unicomp should have just used that design in my opinion.

[Muirium]

Hey Brother, he may be Japanese, TKL and have lock lights in the right place: but despite his badge he ain’t no IBM buckling spring.

http://ex4.sakura.ne.jp/kb/tech_bucklingspring_e.htm

That said: it is a very handsome keyboard. I wouldn’t mind one myself. But it’s still no entrant to the SSK Club. Maybe an Honorary Member…

[Seirin-Blu]

IMO this counts more than a Unicomp one does. This was manufactured for IBM and is the same form-factor as an SSK more or less.

My 40%-using brain also loves that split bottom row (even if I primarily use big bar on my 40% keyboards).

[Muirium]

Definitely more than a Unicomp does. Well, maybe not “definitely” but I’m biased because I’d rather have IBM’s Brother over a Unicomp.

In either case: they’re not what comes to mind when you say IBM SSK Club, are they? But the Brother’s got some class, and the badge, if not the keyfeel.

[zrrion]

got an IBM badge? is a TKL? that's an SSK. To say otherwise is needless pedauntry

[TNT]

got an IBM badge? is a TKL? that's an SSK. To say otherwise is needless pedauntry

In the IBM SSK club we don't like boards of its kind very much around here

[depletedvespene]

Hey Brother, he may be Japanese, TKL and have lock lights in the right place: but despite his badge he ain’t no IBM buckling spring.

http://ex4.sakura.ne.jp/kb/tech_bucklingspring_e.htm

That said: it is a very handsome keyboard. I wouldn’t mind one myself. But it’s still no entrant to the SSK Club. Maybe an Honorary Member…

Unicomp is a direct successor to IBM, so it counts. Would you discard a Lexmark-branded SSK?

[Muirium]

Discard? No, I'd sell it.

Deny? No, as it would presumably be just a late batch IBM SSK.

I'd take the same approach with Unicomp if they were manufacturing SSKs to IBM's design. But they're not. Their tenkeyless M is much too different. This many years later, that's quite understandable. But unfortunately they let their dodgy taste quite loose on it, and made many poor decisions. Those clumsily placed lock lights—did they literally just drag them in and plop them down in CAD, freeform, without any rulers on for alignment?—are just the start of it.

[zrrion]

I for one have faith that if we simply keep talking without saying much of anything that eventually we'll find a true Scotsman

[RBC]

Now I need an ISO Mini M

[nihilist000]

I am somewhat late to the party/club but here goes. I recently acquired an SSK off eBay:



The previous owner has lined the interior with Kilmat 50 mil, which gives the spacebar a satisfying thud sound:



The interior was nice and clean on delivery:



All in all quite pleasing for a keyboard that is 31 years old:



I plan to get it converted to ISO. Then I hope to convert it to USB and, as a stretch goal, install a solenoid.

[Go-Kart]

Nice and tidy! I've seen two pop up this side of the water, recently.

[nihilist000]

Thanks to @TomTrev my SSK is now ISO. Of course, this required a screw mod. The next step is to change some of the keys to match UK layout.

[dcopellino]

Great. I like it! you don't see many of them around. Let me know which keycaps do you need specifically. Maybe I could be of some help.
Cheers