Great/Interesting Finds

mr_a500 · 26 Jul 2014, 12:45

Muirium wrote: ↑The beam spring you've already got is pretty damn fancy. Can't quite put my finger on any reason for you to choke down any others… besides greed, of course!

You think I'm greedy looking for my second beam spring - Hypersphere is now attempting to get his fourth! Now that's greed. How many pairs of hands does he have anyway? Is he some kind of octopus or something?

Sayso · 26 Jul 2014, 13:08

Or something like this

bazh · 26 Jul 2014, 13:12

Muirium wrote: ↑I like the slimline look when it's still obscured by the drawer:

Damn, 10/10 would use it straight in that case.

//I can't read German, does it available for international shipping?

Muirium · 26 Jul 2014, 13:15

"Versand nach: Deutschland" means "Ships to: Germany." So you'll need a proxy.

mr_a500 wrote: ↑
Muirium wrote: ↑The beam spring you've already got is pretty damn fancy. Can't quite put my finger on any reason for you to choke down any others… besides greed, of course!
You think I'm greedy looking for my second beam spring - Hypersphere is now attempting to get his fourth! Now that's greed. How many pairs of hands does he have anyway? Is he some kind of octopus or something?

I know a place where that would come in handy.

Piano keyboards are the opposite of computer keyboards: more is always more.

xwhatsit · 26 Jul 2014, 13:26

No, I think it applied to typing keyboards too---why was there no 122-key beam spring?! If it wasn't so sacrilegious I'd Frankenstein my 5251 and 3727... Maybe 3D printing will get there soon

CeeSA · 26 Jul 2014, 13:27

bazh wrote: ↑
Muirium wrote: ↑I like the slimline look when it's still obscured by the drawer:

Damn, 10/10 would use it straight in that case.

//I can't read German, does it available for international shipping?

hmm, I might be interested to get it....

scottc · 26 Jul 2014, 13:36

I'd like it too. Already on my watch list...

Muirium · 26 Jul 2014, 13:36

xwhatsit wrote: ↑No, I think it applied to typing keyboards too---why was there no 122-key beam spring?! If it wasn't so sacrilegious I'd Frankenstein my 5251 and 3727... Maybe 3D printing will get there soon

Didn't beam springs cost something like $10 per key? Cost might have had something to do with it.

Of course, you know who'd be interested in those dinky ones too small for your tastes! Dinkier the better.

urbancamo · 26 Jul 2014, 17:34

Looks interesting: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Digital-Tandy ... 1505096958 - is that bucking spring, a rebadged Model M?

scottc · 26 Jul 2014, 17:37

The similarities are striking, actually. The case looks somewhat like that of a terminal M - no LEDs. The feet on the bottom are rotated from their usual position, though. In fact, the whole bottom of the case looks completely different, come to think of it!

The / and \ legends are noticeably longer than the normal IBM legends. Is that just me?

The caps lock and scroll lock windowed keys are also quite strange. Would be interesting if it were buckling spring after all!

Custom made for Digital by Tandy Corporation? Very odd!

The combination of USA and 1991 seems odd to me - can anyone with some IBM knowledge remind me when operations were moved over to the US from Greenock?

Hak Foo · 26 Jul 2014, 17:52

The LED keycaps and large bottom area make me think Fujitsu FKB4700 series with Peerless switches.

I know some of the Tandy machines did come with Peerless boards.

The weird thing is the relationship. Made for DEC by Tandy is weird, like saying "the new Volvo, subcontracted out to Hyundai."

BlueBär · 26 Jul 2014, 17:53

The case bezels are different: left, right and top are smaller, the bottom one is bigger.

shreebles · 26 Jul 2014, 17:56

kbdfr wrote: ↑
It is simply a Cherry G80-1800 mounted in a rack drawer, similar to the Cherry G80-0778 shown in the wiki:
http://deskthority.net/wiki/Cherry_G80-0778

BUT it seems to have the old doubleshots, which are usually winkeyless, but this one has winkeys, and a context menu key! So it's got that going for it, which is nice...

Nuum · 26 Jul 2014, 18:15

The Menu and Windows keys on these are usually padprinted.

kbdfr · 26 Jul 2014, 18:22

I have a G80-1800 HPMDE. Doubleshots (except, as Nuum notes, for the Menu and Window keys), 1u mods and 6u spacebar.
Same as the one offered on eBay, except it is German ISO instead of ANSI.

Daniel Beardsmore · 26 Jul 2014, 19:06

Hak Foo wrote: ↑The LED keycaps and large bottom area make me think Fujitsu FKB4700 series with Peerless switches.

That's what I was thinking. Also, if you look at the bottom right, you can see, under the numeric keypad enter key, the type of clip-in stabiliser piece used in the FKB4700. If you look at the wiki photos of the FK4700 you can see the same part in the same place.

scottc · 26 Jul 2014, 19:10

kbdfr wrote: ↑I have a G80-1800 HPMDE. Doubleshots (except, as Nuum notes, for the Menu and Window keys), 1u mods and 6u spacebar.
Same as the one offered on eBay, except it is German ISO instead of ANSI.

Interesting! I need just a handful of keycaps from a similar board (the pad-printed keys, spacebar and shift key) to complete another board of mine. Sometimes I think that it would be easier to just buy a winkeyless ISO PCB instead of trying to complete the awkward bottom row.

photekq · 26 Jul 2014, 19:12

kbdfr wrote: ↑I have a G80-1800 HPMDE. Doubleshots (except, as Nuum notes, for the Menu and Window keys), 1u mods and 6u spacebar.
Same as the one offered on eBay, except it is German ISO instead of ANSI.

I hadn't actually seen a beige 1800 with the 'modern' bottom row before, which is why I said the bottom row was rare. I don't know much about 1800s..

bazh · 27 Jul 2014, 14:17

The G81-3000SAU bid on eBay just ended with a snipe at 134Eur and the reserve's still not met yet, the seller definitely knows keyboard stuffs very well :v

tinnie · 27 Jul 2014, 15:18

He actually asked how much its worth here.

scottc · 27 Jul 2014, 15:27

Yeah, just before kbdfr promptly pointed out his suspicions of the seller shill-bidding. Doesn't surprise me that it didn't go nearly as high this time.

kbdfr · 27 Jul 2014, 16:04

Suspicions? It was more than just suspicions

http://deskthority.net/help-f53/price-c ... ml#p174322

See here how the only real bidder on one of his other items gets tricked into a bidding war
by the seller’s "little helper" h***t (2) and in the end pays 60.60€ instead of 49€:
http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 7675.l2565

That "little helper" h***t (2) is the very same who had "bought" the (very same) G81-3000 SAU for 424€ before it was put for sale again:
http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 7675.l2565

If he hadn’t tricked that first time (in fact using two shill-bidders), he would have sold the keyboard for 371€
instead of not even hitting his reserve price the second time

scottc · 27 Jul 2014, 16:11

Poor phrasing on my part, you're absolutely right.

In any case, I'm glad to see that the shill-bidding is getting him nowhere now.

seebart · 27 Jul 2014, 17:22

Hypersphere · 27 Jul 2014, 18:31

Left-handed Sejin w/ Futaba clicky switches.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sejin-Electron- ... 27e81436f9

Daniel Beardsmore · 27 Jul 2014, 18:53

Interesting — that looks nothing like a [wiki]Sejin Electron SKM-1040[/wiki].

That one on eBay uses this photo:

http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/lef ... -t205.html

That photo is from here:

http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard/beig ... nd-usb.asp

That is the now discontinued beige/white version of this:

http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard/blac ... nd-usb.asp

That is a confusing product, but currently it's made by Datacomp as I understand it. It was also made by Strong Man — IIRC Datacomp bought out Strong Man's assets, and Strong Man itself was founded by an ex-Datacomp employee, the mysterious Mr Wang. Something like that, anyway.

Not only that, but the SKM-1040 is supposed to be linear! This report has never been independently verified.

The real irony is that the auction listing actually contains the infobox off the SKM-1040 wiki page (including where I recorded the switch as linear), yet he's used the wrong photo! Either that, or Sejin and Strong Man/Datacomp got together at some stage … The Strong Man/Datacomp design looks a lot nicer than Sejin's!

Hypersphere · 27 Jul 2014, 23:15

Wow! What a confusing pedigree! I naively thought that eBay sellers were required to post an actual photo of the item that was up for auction or sale.

Daniel Beardsmore · 27 Jul 2014, 23:53

I suspect they are, but as previously mentioned, eBay are more interested in profits than the integrity of the service that bears their name. eBay is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

jacobolus · 28 Jul 2014, 08:38

seebart wrote: ↑ ATARI 800 XL

http://www.ebay.de/itm/ATARI-800-XL-Kel ... 2c879dbadf

It’s the kind with Hi-Tek/Stackpole switches. You don’t want that one.

Daniel Beardsmore · 28 Jul 2014, 09:24

Could be useful for research purposes ;-)