deskthority

IBM 77 Key 4704 Keyboard 6019303

One of xwhatsit's converters will soon bring this keyboard back to life! My bulk Model F controller order should arrive next week.

Does anyone else have one of these besides Parak? Let's see some new photos!

It's purdy and in great condition What's your story for getting it? Also, where did you pull the extra keycaps from, as the legends are not particularly common..

Yep! A lucky find I guess. No grinder will touch this one! The other keys are mostly from a 1988 1393464 airline-customized Model M with extra bold key caps to better match the original 4704 keys.

WOW what a find! Congrats!

btw what is that round thing?

seebart wrote: ↑btw what is that round thing?

I believe that’s for the buzzer volume.

Correct, it's the volume knob for the beeper.
Beautiful board!

Another 77 key. It's Christmas time, and I'm a kid peering through the candy store windowpane!

Got a picture of the original layout?

It's the very first photo Muirium!
Candy got your attention?

Too much drooling. Ignore me until I somehow get my paws on one of these!

@Ellipse: That "PD2" cap you freed up is very handy indeed to those of us who like an HHKB layout.

Also, that bar on the underside is different. Kishsavers naturally sit flat on the desk, on their rubber feet, which you can see still present beside it.

What a beautiful board!

argh, I need one...

These must be rarer than the F62 Kishsaver. It is my idea of what an SSK ought to be -- no F-key row and capacitive buckling spring switches. Superb!

Your lucky! I had all sorts of corrosion all over the barrel of my board. Looks great!

Very nice board. Its in immaculate condition too. It even looks like that is the stock foam still in one nice piece. A truly incredible find.

I see you also have a long bar foot on this one too! I actually really like the elevation that the foot gives, on my 107. Does anyone know if the Kishsaver also has a version of a long bar foot? I have yet to see a Kishsaver with one.

pyrelink - After seeing some photos of the bottoms of some F62s, it looks like a bottom plastic bar should exist for the F62. Some photos even had outlines of where the bar was, plus a plastic tab that broke off in the plastic bar socket on the bottom of the F62 (the bottoms were attached by plastic columns).

*cough*

I sent a letter to santa claus with only "kishsaver" written all over it, now I want to change that to "IBM 77 key".

I really like how you did the layout with the numpad and arrow key cluster together. Coming to think of it, I would rather have this than a Kishsaver. I wonder why I never see anything about this keyboard.

faceyourfaces wrote: ↑I really like how you did the layout with the numpad and arrow key cluster together. Coming to think of it, I would rather have this than a Kishsaver. I wonder why I never see anything about this keyboard.

cause it seems like there are currently only three out there (that we know about)

Exactly. The big 107 key and the little 62 key are both merely Super Rare, while the 77 key is pure, dazzling Unobtainium.

However, there’s also the AT keyboard, which can have its plate modified to support Alt keys, so it can turned into something overall fairly similar to the 77-key keyboard, but with the addition of 2 columns of keys on the left and 1 column on the right. (see wcass's guide; unfortunately no pictures remain https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=25919.0)

And for a superb Model F typing experience that is still quite obtainable, let us not forget the IBM XT. The current right-side layout is not to everyone's liking, but thanks to wcass and his Xtant project, the XT is being transformed for the 21st century.

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=51767.0