Alps Appreciation

[keycap]

I have a question. Out of the three most common tactile (undamped) Alps SKCM switches, which variant has the more defined tactile bump?

[Blaise170]

Which three switches are you talking about?

[alh84001]

I would guess brown, orange and salmon? But maybe I'm mistaken

[Blaise170]

Brown is pretty rare. But then oranges are pretty uncommon too. Blacks are the most common tactile switch (Cream Damped notwithstanding), followed most likely by Salmon. Dunno what the third "most common" would be considered.

[keycap]

Which three switches are you talking about?

Orange, Salmon and Black Alps.

[jacobolus]

Orange, salmon, cream, “ivory”, and “pine” black switches all seem to me to have fairly comparable tactile leaves, but slightly different spring weights: the black switches are a bit heavier, the orange switches are a bit lighter, and the other three are in the middle. Switch condition plays a bigger role in how tactile they feel than switch type in my opinion. If you want to make sure you get something consistent and a bit more tactile (if for no other reason than being new), you could try swapping the tactile leaves from new Matias quiet switches into whatever type of SKCM switch. Alternately, if you want something extra tactile you can try disassembling the switches and VERY CAREFULLY bending the tactile leaves to a slightly less acute angle.

Tactile brown and green (are we on “lime” now?) switches have a different feel to them. I wouldn’t call them more or less tactile, per se, but it’s a more “rounded” kind of switch feel, similar to Topre or Burroughs switches.

The later production “bamboo” tactile black and damped tactile white switches, which you can most easily find in Dell AT101W keyboards (W = with Windows keys) and late (~1995) Apple Extended Keyboard II keyboards, respectively, and can distinguish by the lack of "slits" in the top of the switch housing, are widely considered inferior to other Alps SKCM switches.

[Redmaus]

I have pine black if anyone wants to try. You might have to clean them though.

[Blaise170]

I have a new NeXT with old SKCM Blacks. I quite like them.

[Khers]

I first got in contact with Alps switches through a cheap AEK2 I got off of Cindy. I wasn't particularly impressed with it, from what I've since learned, its switches are probably in need of a thorough cleansing. From this lone exposure, however, I though that Alps were not my thing, but recently it has dawned on me that I was very wrong.

It started with me getting one of Chzel's NIB small NTCs with white Alps in it. They were great! I really liked the way the switches felt. Alas, I prefer 60% and never really came to grips with the quirkiness of some parts of it's layout.

Anyway, the seed was sown and I knew I had to get myself deeper in the Alps swamp, and I started cussing myself for not having joined the Alps Party GB for some 60% Alps action. Yesterday, however, I managed to pick up an Alps Party kit, with Matias Clicks and a 103 plate, locally and this thing rocks!


(Yes it lacks a case and no I do not intend to keep it that way.)

Having blue and salmon Alps inbound, my only fear is that I'll be sucked into the Alps vortex. Seems like a dangerous place to be, especially considering the state of todays Alps market.

[seebart]

Nice Alps Party kit Khers! As you know Alps SKCL/SKCM are generally not a rare switch, enough to go around for everyone. Not sure what the recent insane ebay prices on some Alps keyboards are about, we'll see if it stays that way.

[Chyros]

Nice piece of kit! If you like white Alps, I guarantee you'll like the blue ones . Remember that with Alps condition is EVERYTHING .

Nice Alps Party kit Khers! As you know Alps SKCL/SKCM are generally not a rare switch, enough to go around for everyone. Not sure what the recent insane ebay prices on some Alps keyboards are about, we'll see if it stays that way.

Those prices get inflated and then don't get paid. They're fake, the ACTUAL price of blue Alps hasn't changed all that much it appears xD .

[Khers]

Thanks guys!

Well, I guess it has increased a little bit given that ohaimark got $420 or something like that for his DC-3014. But that's got another thing to lure after – a standard ANSI layout.

With regards to the blues, I just hope I haven't over-hyped them and come away disappointed. Looking at your review, Chyros, I do have high expectations .

[seebart]

Nice Alps Party kit Khers! As you know Alps SKCL/SKCM are generally not a rare switch, enough to go around for everyone. Not sure what the recent insane ebay prices on some Alps keyboards are about, we'll see if it stays that way.

Those prices get inflated and then don't get paid. They're fake, the ACTUAL price of blue Alps hasn't changed all that much it appears xD .

I hope you're right, there were quite a few of those crazy high Alps auctions recently.

[cookie]

I must admin here are some very nice boards, how could I missed that post?
Secretly I am a ALPS lover but my HHKB may not know it!

Once I owned a Dell AW 102 W in black, with black alps. I don't know why so many people don't like them, I was actually quite fond of them. I have removed the metal plates which create the initial resistance and turned them into linear switches. With a bit of lube, they were great!

One day I will build a 60% alps board and probably lose my sanity while searching for caps

[Hypersphere]

Most of the time I type on my silenced/lubed HHKB, but from time to time I switch to an Alps or Matias board for fun.

The sound and feel of Alps can vary tremendously, even within a particular switch sub-type. For example, I have a Suntouch Jr. with white Alps that provides one of the best typing experiences I have encountered with any sort of Alps switch.

Recently, I bought a custom 60% board with brown Alps, expecting it to feel like the brown Alps in my Videowriter 250 or IBM 5140. Surprisingly, the switches felt extremely heavy or stiff. I think this may be due in part to the steel plate in the custom board, which makes the switches non-resilient. However, I need to do some objective measurements of actuation force; it seems possible that some batches of brown Alps might have had heavier springs. Apart from the apparent heaviness of these switches, the tactility is amazing and enjoyable.

The case makes quite a difference as well. I transferred a V60MTS-C into a TEX thin-lip aluminum case, which made the Matias Click switches sound higher-pitched -- similar to the sound of Cherry mx blues. So, I returned to the stock plastic case, which surprisingly sounds better to me.

My to-do list of projects includes building my own custom 60%, probably with brown Alps or even with Matias Click switches. I've tried the legendary blue Alps, but they did not excite me enough to pay today's ridiculous prices for a donor board.

[seebart]

The sound and feel of Alps can vary tremendously, even within a particular switch sub-type. For example, I have a Suntouch Jr. with white Alps that provides one of the best typing experiences I have encountered with any sort of Alps switch.

This is a very relevant point that I have also noticed the more Alps keyboards I own. Keyboard size, construction including backplate, case and thickness and quality of everything make a huge difference in sound and feel of the particular Alps SKCL/SKCM switch. Since there is a huge range of various Alps SKCL/SKCM keyboards out there including all the Apple and Dell's there is a wide range of combinations. When you then take all the Alps clones into account also this becomes quite a large spectrum of combinations. Not like IBM where you pretty much know what you're getting which is a good thing of course.

[jacobolus]

Recently, I bought a custom 60% board with brown Alps, expecting it to feel like the brown Alps in my Videowriter 250 or IBM 5140. Surprisingly, the switches felt extremely heavy or stiff. I think this may be due in part to the steel plate in the custom board, which makes the switches non-resilient.

The plate is not going to make a significant difference until you are mashing the switches past bottom-out.

Are the switches scratchy? It’s possible extra friction is holding you back.

Alternately, it’s possible that the other keyboards had more worn-down tactile leaves. You could try opening some switches and swapping tactile leaves to test.

Personally I think brown Alps are a bit too heavy in general.

[Hypersphere]

@jacobolus: I confess to being guilty of mashing the keys past bottoming-out. The brown Alps in the custom board do not feel scratchy; they just feel heavier than other brown Alps boards I've tried, such as the Videowriter 250 and IBM 5140.

For that custom Alps board I'd like to build, perhaps I should keep searching among Alps varieties.

[seaworthy]

Currently building a custom 60% (Happy Alps) board with Yoe. It’s from an M0116 donor with a few keys (return cap most notably) from an AEK II.

To get a delete cap directly above return (in the correct row profile) we have to either use a redundant tab cap or the back slash \ pipe cap.

The biggest deviation from the HHKB is the split right shift and fn placement as it’s difficult to find a 1.75U PBT shift. Not 100% fidelity to HHKB layout but the most important to me are the backspace and control placement.

Excited to have my preferred layout with Alps switches.

Yoe has cut a custom plate and is in the process of making a custom PCB. Teensy will be soldered directly to the PCB.

happy_alps.png (254.6 KiB) Viewed 7905 times

[Redmaus]

Why the gap in the bottom corners? I never got this. To me it always looks bad on boards like the HHKB.

[jacobolus]

Why the gap in the bottom corners?

Those locations on the keyboard are uncomfortable to reach, and should never be used for any serious keys. Whoever at IBM decided to put the control key in the corners was a sadistic bastard.

Even for folks who want to keep a standard-ish layout with a one piece keyboard and silly nonuniform asymmetrical row-oriented stagger, the layout should move in a direction like:


Or maybe

[Chyros]

I love the ctrl in the corner! Makes ctrl Z, X, C and V very easy, almost as if it were made for it .

[jacobolus]

I love the ctrl in the corner! Makes ctrl Z, X, C and V very easy, almost as if it were made for it .

Except it wasn’t. Those shortcuts were created by Apple (well, ⌘Z, ⌘X, ⌘C, ⌘V) and then copied by Microsoft when they cloned their Mac GUI word processing app over to their new Windows 3 operating system. Since IBM PC compatible machines didn’t have a ⌘ key, they settled for overloading the Ctrl key.

IBM’s decision about where to place the Ctrl key on the Extended AT-101 layout was entirely unrelated. Probably someone used to a typewriter where the caps lock key was above the shift, who couldn’t deal with having the caps lock in the corner.

Caps lock on a general purpose computer is perhaps the most pointless key on the keyboard. Wasting such prime real estate on it was in my opinion the stupidest single mistake IBM made in their keyboard layout history. And that’s a high bar. IBM’s layouts are all overflowing with stupid decisions.

[alh84001]

I haven't used any of the unconventional keyboard layouts, but I have to say that I agree with jacobolus and I base it entirely based on intuition. It seems natural to put most used modifiers beneath and/or beside the spacebar, and make the spacebar narrower, even split it, and assign another key to the split part. 3u spacebar seems more then enough, and since it is not a modifier, there isn't a need for more than one. It makes modifiers next to spacebar that much easier to reach with thumbs, and the ones below it are the most natural keys to press, and not deform a hand when pressing another key with it.

On a related note, lack of big modifiers has initially made me sceptic of getting a Preonic board, but more I think about it, that small spacebar, and modifiers around it, might actually make up for it. Although, I might prefer layout with two 2u keys in the middle of the bottom row, but all this is new ground for me.

[cookie]

Why the gap in the bottom corners? I never got this. To me it always looks bad on boards like the HHKB.

Because of reasons!

[Blaise170]

We can argue design choices all day, but I prefer the mods in the corner because of the shortcuts that are default on modern PCs. The only three keys I find entirely pointless these days are Scroll Lock, Caps Lock, and Pause Break.

[Scarpia]

I'd include Print Screen in that list of pointless keys, which is worthless unless you happen to bind a screen grabbing utility to it (and in which case you could just use any F-key or chord)... or you work on mainframes in 1986.

And in all honesty, whoever uses Insert for anything other than to return to regular text input mode after mistakenly landing in insert(overwrite) mode?

[Chyros]

I don't understand how you guys don't use Caps Lock and print screen Oo . I use them both frequently! I also use Scroll Lock, but I can understand it if others don't use that because that's pretty niche.

The only keys I don't really ever use are Insert, Pause and `. Everything else I use at least sometimes.

[fohat]

I don't understand how you guys don't use Caps Lock and print screen Oo . I use them both frequently! I also use Scroll Lock, but I can understand it if others don't use that because that's pretty niche.

The only keys I don't really ever use are Insert, Pause and `. Everything else I use at least sometimes.

Me too. Scroll Lock is good in spreadsheets but I don't use it too much. Home and End bother me because I never actually use them for their purposes and when I hit them it is by accident and I find myself disoriented.

What I really don't understand is the anger against Delete. That is surely one of my 5 most-used keys, but maybe you guys just don't make mistakes.

[alh84001]

Caps Lock and the trio next to F keys may go the way of the numpad (TKL user here) for all I care, but leave Insert alone! It is useful when pasting and copying text, especially in terminal. Try using CTRL+C and CTRL+V there.

And +1 for Delete key as well.