Great/Interesting Finds

[fohat]

industrial grey 107! with blue nav cluster hmmmm

Heh, I'm planning on painting mine industrial gray as well when it floats to the top of my project stack. Keyboard sales first.

If I ever got an actual metal keyboard I would not even consider covering the metal with paint!

[Muirium]

But what ifit were already painted, with it's original colour in good shape? My beamsprings and Kishsaver are in that category. I'd prefer them bare, but I'm not a vandal.

—Typed incompetently from my iPad

[pyrelink]

The paint on my F107 was pretty dreadful. I left it with its paint for a while, but as I am in the process of stripping the paint, I think I even like the bare unfinished metal better then the chipped, dirty, and uneven paint it had. If the paint was in good condition though, I would have probably kept it.

[Redmaus]

I would get mine powdercoated like dorkvaders: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dork_vade ... 9093257174

[derzemel]

DMD 1000 Computer with an interesting keyboard in Italy (350E):

http://www.kijiji.it/annunci/computer-e ... e/79886357

[XMIT]

pyrelink what are you using to remove the paint on your F107? I would use aircraft stripper.

[andrewjoy]

If depends how good the paint is in the flesh, if its not that nice i will just get the industrial grey sprayed over the existing paint so that it retains the texture

[XMIT]

I definitely think powder coat is the way to go. I believe these were originally powder coated.

[Touch_It]

I would get mine powdercoated like dorkvaders: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dork_vade ... 9093257174

Yep, I need that. SO pretty.

[Touch_It]

I would get mine powdercoated like dorkvaders: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dork_vade ... 9093257174

Yep, I need that. SO pretty.

[XMIT]

Touch_It avatar pool thermometer, available at your local Home Depot.

touch_it.jpg (115.51 KiB) Viewed 4955 times

[Anticube]

DMD 1000 Computer with an interesting keyboard in Italy (350E):
http://www.kijiji.it/annunci/computer-e ... e/79886357

I was going to consider it, but there's something strange. The computer switch on but he says operating system doesn't start so it's a pity not to have the complete system working. And keyboard is capacitive, I'm not sure if this would necessarily be a synonym of quality.
On the other hand if the only keyboard would cost much less that would be nice to find out.

[ramnes]

IBM AT in the USA
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-IBM-Per ... 7175&rt=nc

[XMIT]

[…] One is missing many of the clear relegendable key caps […]

Do you mean the whole caps or just the transparent covers? If the former, which? If the latter, how many?
After all you've been and still are doing for others here on DT, It's time your needs are cared for

I just got a very nice package from Berlin! Thank you kbdfr! Let me buy you a beer sometime.

kbdfr_before.jpg (241.21 KiB) Viewed 4818 times

It took 37 covers to replace the missing ones. I have two extra now!

kbdfr_after.jpg (269.25 KiB) Viewed 4818 times

[Redmaus]

Is that black square a trackpad or something? Looks nice but the ISO enter is making me sick.

[gogusrl]

What are you talking about ? You get the best of both worlds. I love that layout (got the BoW version with browns).


edit : yes, that's a trackpad.

[Redmaus]

Whoa check this out! : http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Model-F-Cli ... 2350d9329b

Those keys are very interesting and looks like this one was made pretty early for a F122, April of 1984.

Too bad its priced high up there.

gogusrl, the reason I don't like ISO is unlike ANSI which has the enter close to the finger so you can reach it, ISO literally has it BEND AROUND the area you actually hit enter and move the part you need to be lower farther up for some reason.

Plus, instead of nice looking horizontal bars all around, you get an ugly oversized enter keys that ruins the symmetry.

[Nuum]

[...]
gogusrl, the reason I don't like ISO is unlike ANSI which has the enter close to the finger so you can reach it, ISO literally has it BEND AROUND the area you actually hit enter and move the part you need to be lower farther up for some reason.
[...]

That's just a matter of taste/habit, there is not THE spot where everyone is trying to hit Enter and then missing it on ISO Enter.

[kbdfr]

[…] Plus, instead of nice looking horizontal bars all around, you get an ugly oversized enter keys that ruins the symmetry.

Did you say "an ugly oversized […] key that ruins the symmetry"?
Some three and a half years ago:

[…] Other arguments against ANSI: […], and the most important argument in my eyes: the silly shape of the key above the Enter key, which is bigger not because its use justifies it, but just because there is room to fill.
I always wonder how people can spend such a lot on keyboards because of their "awesome" looks without objecting to such a design abomination

[Muirium]

One of the several reasons it's Backspace on my keyboards. Perfectly visually balanced against Tab, and far preferable to backslash getting such a prized place.

The real problem is staggering, though. Poor ISO with its malformed Return key. Better than Big Ass Enter, but what isn't?

[andrewjoy]

i use it as escape on my beamspring .

On IBM boards you could split backspace and use them for whatever and then use |\ ( ansi) as backspace as you do.

I like the physical layout of ansi, for a long time i hated it but i used it and found that the longer mods are just so nice on the fingers (less strain) sure the @ is in a bloody stupid place that there is no £ symbol or euro symbol. Also whats with calling # the pound symbol US people ? i don't get it its a hash sign, its been called that for years way before twitter, is a hashtag called a poundtag in the US ?

It could be worse you could have a totally useless § key or have <> on the same key like AZERTY does grrrrr.

IMO the best key layout is the unix layout with caps lock moved back to where it should be and control next to A, but with ISO assignments for symbols.

[gogusrl]

I've had mostly ISO keyboards with US locale so I'm used with that enter but I have no need for 2 backslash so I want a big left shift.

[photekq]

You're forgetting the one true layout.

[andrewjoy]

oh yeah and a split + on the numbered you have to have that!

[GuilleAcoustic]

You're forgetting the one true layout.

Nice, but I'd love the ~` key to be next to the " ' one for easy composed accentuated characters (should be easy with an ISO enter). Then move the |\ in place of the ~` and throw a double size backspace.

[derzemel]

You're forgetting the one true layout.

Oh... that Cherry is an work of art!

[ramnes]

IBM XT
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-IBM-Mod ... 1740245850?

[kbdfr]

[…] a totally useless § key […]

Here again usages differ, I use characters like # rarely and \ next to never,
but in legal texts I often have do deal with there are quite a lot of §
and all the uppercase headers and subheaders would be just a pain to type without CapsLock.

[kbdfr]

You're forgetting the one true layout.

I still wonder how many years I have been content with only those 24 programmable keys

[Muirium]

Big Ass. Ugh. Why not merge other keys together and be even more supremely stupid? At least on a Model F, where it came from, I can split the key myself!

As usual, Kbdfr, combos are how I handle things. Option+6 on OS X. There is no one true layout. So long as there are different languages and uses.