Until yesterday I was not even sure these existed...

sixty · 05 Dec 2011, 17:51

Ever seen a black G80/G81 without windows keys? Nope? Thought so. Me neither. I have seen this prototype, but that was it. Then today, this arrived at my door:

Going by the serial number (0000004) chances are it is a prototype or sample too, but at least there it is... a black winkeyless G81-3000. Probably one of the rarest keyboards I own now. My collection is coming close to an end.

Daemon Raccoon · 05 Dec 2011, 18:04

Nice ANSI Doubleshots, too bad its a G81. Still a very beautiful keyboard.

sixty · 05 Dec 2011, 18:07

Daemon Raccoon wrote:Nice ANSI Doubleshots, too bad its a G81. Still a very beautiful keyboard.

I will be replacing the innards with a G80

kaiserreich · 05 Dec 2011, 18:27

How common are ANSI 1800 Black winkeyless?
It appears Cherry makes more winkeyless in beige, but more winkeyfull keyboards in black.

Spharx · 05 Dec 2011, 20:27

sixty wrote:Then today, this arrived at my door

They just arrive at your door ? No no no no .. tell us a bit more. What do you have to do to get rare keyboards arrived at your door

sixty wrote:I will be replacing the innards with a G80

You will do what

?? Isn't it even bad to open the box of this thing if you are a collector?
You are changing the innards, in other words destroying the 'originality'. I am pretty sure there is someone, somewhere who is gonna go pretty mad about your sentences

7bit · 05 Dec 2011, 22:08

I'm quite sure the bottom row consits of SP Moogle kit keys!

It's all a fake!

Right?

squarebox · 06 Dec 2011, 05:17

7bit wrote:I'm quite sure the bottom row consits of SP Moogle kit keys!

It's all a fake!

Right?

I believe those are genuine cherry doubleshot.
SP doubleshot profile and texture is very obvious.

You should know that, shouldn't you?

DraJin · 06 Dec 2011, 06:22

Wow~ Real rare!!!

Minskleip · 06 Dec 2011, 15:56

Why mod it if it's so rare?

Sugoi · 06 Dec 2011, 17:20

Spharx wrote:
sixty wrote:I will be replacing the innards with a G80
You will do what ?? Isn't it even bad to open the box of this thing if you are a collector?
You are changing the innards, in other words destroying the 'originality'...

Exactly what I'm thinking. I mean what's the point in getting a collector's item and then "destroying" it. If it was about "restoration" that would be something different.

sixty · 06 Dec 2011, 17:56

Because a G81 is utter garbage and I would never ever touch it even once.

kbdfr · 06 Dec 2011, 18:15

But isn't such a unique item something one has in a showcase and does not touch anyway, at least not without gloves?

sixty · 06 Dec 2011, 18:31

kbdfr wrote:But isn't such a unique item something one has in a showcase and does not touch anyway, at least not without gloves?

Nope. I have no sympathy for any G81 in my collection. In fact if you go through my collection on my website you will notice that no G81 makes it out alive without having the PCB swapped for a G80. I at least take out most of my boards with a usable layout once a year or something and type on them for a day or a even a couple of days. I get no fascination of collecting terrible keyboards that I will literally never use even once. So why not make the board usable?

In case of doubt I can always restore the original state of the board again within minutes, because G81s are so damn common

7bit · 08 Dec 2011, 23:25

sixty wrote:
kbdfr wrote:But isn't such a unique item something one has in a showcase and does not touch anyway, at least not without gloves?
Nope. I have no sympathy for any G81 in my collection. In fact if you go through my collection on my website you will notice that no G81 makes it out alive without having the PCB swapped for a G80. I at least take out most of my boards with a usable layout once a year or something and type on them for a day or a even a couple of days. I get no fascination of collecting terrible keyboards that I will literally never use even once. So why not make the board usable?

In case of doubt I can always restore the original state of the board again within minutes, because G81s are so damn common

But we demand that it is kept untouched in its original box!!!!

N8N · 17 Dec 2011, 12:40

kaiserreich wrote:How common are ANSI 1800 Black winkeyless?
It appears Cherry makes more winkeyless in beige, but more winkeyfull keyboards in black.

Hopefully not super-rare; I was given a NIB one and actually used it for a while, then realized that it felt like arse (and not in a good way) and stripped the caps off of it.

kaiserreich · 15 Jan 2012, 20:22

N8N wrote:
kaiserreich wrote:How common are ANSI 1800 Black winkeyless?
It appears Cherry makes more winkeyless in beige, but more winkeyfull keyboards in black.
Hopefully not super-rare; I was given a NIB one and actually used it for a while, then realized that it felt like arse (and not in a good way) and stripped the caps off of it.

They really seem hard to come by.
It took me a while, but I manage to get a winkeyless Black DS.

These Black 1.5x Control and Alt keys have a similar profile to modern front row keys.
This suggests that these come out from a different mold than the beige versions.

sixty · 16 Jan 2012, 23:40

kaiserreich wrote:
N8N wrote:
kaiserreich wrote:How common are ANSI 1800 Black winkeyless?
It appears Cherry makes more winkeyless in beige, but more winkeyfull keyboards in black.
Hopefully not super-rare; I was given a NIB one and actually used it for a while, then realized that it felt like arse (and not in a good way) and stripped the caps off of it.
They really seem hard to come by.
It took me a while, but I manage to get a winkeyless Black DS.

These Black 1.5x Control and Alt keys have a similar profile to modern front row keys.
This suggests that these come out from a different mold than the beige versions.

Actually on all G80-1800 the front row is always flat. The rules Cherry picked which keys are flat and which are not is very odd. I once used to think late G80-1000 = always angled front row, G80-3000 = always flat. But I later learned that this is wrong. I have 1988 G81-3000 from Schneider, and it already has the flat keys.

I think it was just at random.