Wang Model 724 725-3770-US

[webwit]

Wang PC keyboard with orange (and some green) Alps. The actual color is orange with some pink in there. Has speaker for clicks. I'll update the wiki pages later.


Incoming & dirty...


Word Perfect stickers?


Shows orange Alps upon first inspection. Lots of oxidation, I guess this keyboard was stored in a damp environment.


Logic is covered by some weak alu cover.


Orange and green Alps. Both linear. The green Alps for the LED keys. I estimate 60g for activation for the orange Alps, the green Alps are like normal green Alps and somewhat lighter. Orange is comparable to Cherry Clear and Green to Cherry Red/Brown.




Alps logos visible in the right light. Also shows volume control which goes through the back cover.






Opened orange switch.




My tiny camera showing its macro limits. Also the orange is magically turning pink.








PCB with Alps and Wang logo.






Top cover.




Silly protection shield.




Inside bottom cover. Detachable cable and pcb, speaker.








Outside bottom cover, labels and adjustable feet.


Label for "Model 724". No years. The small barely readable label on the right reads "Wang 8925" or "Wang 8935" and "725-3770-US".




Adjustable foot, hole for volume control.


Wang branded cable.


Dye sub and double dye sub keycaps. Nice stabilizers.


All cleaned. Still looks filty because of the yellowing.


Concave low-profile bottom modifiers. Cupped F and J keys. Yellowed space bar.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Label for "Model 724". No years. The small barely readable label on the right reads "Wang 8925" or "Wang 8935" and "725-3770-US".

I imagine that's week 25 or week 35 of 1989. The FCC ID is dated to 1988, so this is an early production run.

Interestingly, MouseFan has salmon Alps as being last seen in 1991, while the Wang 725-3770 and 725-3771 I've found have salmon Alps from 1992. Orange Alps are listed as 1987–1991. I've added both dates here:

[wiki]Keyboards and switches by year[/wiki]

[rzwv]

1995-07
Alps SKCM Black , LED Alps SKCL Yellow

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[scottc]

Nice. I should have the ISO version of this board on the way soon.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Thanks rzwv! I have used this topic as a reference instead of KBDMania for the black+yellow Alps version, since we have a part number available.

[wiki]Wang 725-3770[/wiki]

It will be interesting to see a 1993 example: it should be black Alps.

[XMIT]

I got one of these from some trips to Electronics Plus. There were only a couple of them there. Fantastic keyboards. The speaker based click sound is a riot. It's like a cost reduced version of a solenoid. I've found that I really enjoy Alps Salmon switches. They are my favorite of all the Alps switches and may even be my favorite switch period. I just wish they were damped. I really wonder how the Matias quiet switches compare. I hope they are similar.

This keyboard, like some other Alps based keyboards from the era, has extremely scooped F and J homing keys. I think I would prefer a tactile line to the deep scooping. It means I need to lift my index fingers higher to get to G and H, or run them over the edge of the (sharper than usual) key cap.

[Magna224]

I thought the orange ALPS had a grey switchplate? My Salmon/Pink ALPS don't have the grey switchplate and I thought that was the difference? Or Since this is such a late Orange ALPS did the switchplate change?

EDIT: Or is that a grey switchplate and I am blind?