Alps Appreciation

[ramnes]

I like buckling springs, especially capacitive ones. Other than that, not much apparently.

[emdude]

Now, about blue Alps themselves... not really my taste. I doubt I'll keep that board very long.

Do you not like clicky switches ?

Other than both being "clicky," alps and buckling springs are pretty different in feel, sound, etc., I can understand why some people may not like one or the other. Apples to oranges, both are different, and nice in their own way.

Most people seem to really like blue alps though, but I'm pretty curious about amber alps myself, since they seem to be a rather polarizing switch. I'd like to try them at some point.

[jacobolus]

Now, about blue Alps themselves... not really my taste. I doubt I'll keep that board very long.

Do you not like clicky switches ?

He said he got a board in terrible condition with very scratchy switches.

Not really surprising that they would be “not really [his] taste” – scratchy Alps switches can be awful.

ramnes: you should try to find some switches in good condition before judging anything.

[emdude]

Hm, it's a shame that the quality of the switches are so dependent on their condition, an Achilles' Heel, it seems. I feel quite fortunate my blue alps seem okay despite my board missing basically all of its key caps.

Can really nothing be done to save those dirty blues? It seems like a waste otherwise.

[need]

I like buckling springs, especially capacitive ones. Other than that, not much apparently.

What aspects of the blues do you not like ? It's scratchiness?

[keycap]

I actually hated Alps until I got a mint condition AT101W. That's when I really started liking Alps.

[Touch_It]

I have owned two AT101W's. One in good shape, the other in poor shape. The difference was really night and day. Black Alps are still my least favorite, besides bad alps clones.

[need]

i don't like black too, probably because of its weight it feels so hard to type fast on them. We don't get along very well. I am really liking white and cream damped though.

[emdude]

First off the sound is amazing. Like raindrops.

I was going back a few pages in this thread when I found this. It's a really lovely way to describe the sound of blue alps.

They make buckling springs sound almost brutish in comparison (not that they aren't great in their own way either)!

[Touch_It]

i don't like black too, probably because of its weight it feels so hard to type fast on them. We don't get along very well. I am really liking white and cream damped though.

I've never tried white alps but I've tried dampened cream alps and salmon alps. I like cream alps, but love salmon alps. As we seem to have similar tastes, I'd imagine you might really enjoy them. I'm hoping to try orange, blue, and white alps at some point.

[seebart]

I was lucky enough to pick up this very clean Monterey K104 that has seen little or no action with Alps SKCM White from 1989 and can say from my experience that clean white Alps come close to blue Alps. Considdering the insane prices we've seen blue Alps fetching it's worth keeping a lookout for a clean unused specimen since they aren't really rare.

Here's the keyboard:

wiki/Monterey_K104

[keycap]

I was lucky enough to pick up this very clean Monterey K104 that has seen little or no action with Alps SKCM White from 1989 and can say from my experience that clean white Alps come close to blue Alps. Considdering the insane prices we've seen blue Alps fetching it's worth keeping a lookout for a clean unused specimen since they aren't really rare.

Here's the keyboard:

wiki/Monterey_K104

Probably uses vintage White Alps, correct? I have a Silitek board from around 1989 and it uses vintage White Alps. You can tell by the gold-tone springs. According to some people, vintage White Alps really are very close to Blue Alps, which makes sense because they came directly after Blue Alps.

[KINGPIN]

I wonder is it still possible to get a full set of alps sa profile keycap that is thick which still held in a fair price like 70 usd or something

[seebart]

All white Alps are vintage. You mean complicated vs. simplified right?

[keycap]

Sorry, I meant early White Alps. AKA White Alps from around 1988-1990. Like the White Alps I found that used dry lubricant and gold tone springs.

[seebart]

Yes we mean the same thing, from everything I have learned about Alps SKCM/SKCL the slider color is not as important as we think. In other words it is very probable that the slider color played a different much less important role in the production for Alps Electric. But of course I do not know that for certain.

[alh84001]

A couple of comments on my SKCM Orange boards:

• I've been typing on model Fs for last couple of weeks and compared to them, it feels quite lighter, and completely different.
• Most of the time, It takes 12 nickels to depress a key, so actuation point is around 60g.
• Tactile bump is lighter than I expected, and I think that upstroke is slower than on IBM boards.
• With all of the above combined, they slightly remind me of MX Browns, but I may be mistaken; I've sold my MX Brown board a month or two ago, and it may be that after IBMs and without side-by-side comparison, any tactile, lighter switch would feel the same.
• On m0115 some of the keys don't actuate on tactile bump, but somewhat lower (numpad 7, numpad 9, and some other key I can't remember right now), and numrow 4 clicks on the upstroke. I will need to open at least these.
• I still haven't got a proper SKCM Orange switch (shameless plug to my marketplace listing -> want-to-buy-f56/ibm-xt-t13018.html), so I can't say if the switches are scratchy or not - is this perceived by sound or feel? I suppose both; I would say that they feel quite smooth, but some of them sound slightly different.

All in all, jury is still out on Alps for me. I'll probably click-mod at least m0116, and I'll see how I perceive them then. Also, Preonic should arrive somewhere in June, so I'll be able to compare them to new Mathias Click switches.

It's finally supposed to be sunny tomorrow after weeks of rain here, so it's retr0bright time!

[Chyros]

If they're anything but very smooth, your switches are dirty. The vast majority of Alps switches have at least partially degraded keyfeel. It's very hard to find one that isn't affected, actually.

Also, tacile Alps switches are not as tactile as clicky Alps switches are. They shouldn't feel anything like MX Browns though.

[seebart]

Right, somehow it really does not suprise me one bit how many people are disappointed by Alps SKCM. If you want the proper Alps experience you need to find a NIB board or one with very little usage and little dirt.

[Chyros]

Really clean ones that haven't been used are fine, it's just that most have either been used to fuck or have been neglected, gathering dust. It's generally really easy to spot whether an Alps board will be good or not from how dirty it looks. If it looks dirty, just don't bother.

The FK-2001 has a built-in dust cover that can help a lot in this regard. If it's still attached and the stuff underneath, there's a good chance it will be in very workable condition. My FK-2002 hadn't been taken care of particularly well, the cover had scratches on it, but it really helped keep it in great condition.

[alh84001]

Good to know all of the above. Regarding MX Browns, yeah, I think it's just that it's tactile and without click, and I haven't been used to that. Bumb is certainly a lot more pronounced.

Does a tactile switch get more tactile with click-mod, or are they inherently less tactile than clicky switches?

The m0116 had quite dirty keycaps, but both it and m0115 had a surprisingly low amount of dust, hair etc in them (at least compared to some BS boards that I opened up recently). In fact, m0115 was slightly dirtier than m0116.

That's why I'd really like a clean, known to be as good as it gets, switch, so I can compare. In the end, I'll open all switches anyway, but I need a good reference, at least visually, to try and get the best of them. I'll be getting a salmon m0116 soon as well, which, by the looks of it, was very well preserved, so I'll compare with that one as well. Fun times ahead

[jacobolus]

The best Alps switches are found in luggables/laptops which were left unused, and closed, i.e. with the keyboard facing inward toward the display and not exposed to environmental dust. Keyboards which stayed in a box full time are also fine, but those are harder to judge from outside.

[Chyros]

Does a tactile switch get more tactile with click-mod, or are they inherently less tactile than clicky switches?

They get more tactile. The difference is caused by the lack of mobility in the tactile leaves compared to the click leaves, which is restored when you click-mod them. Click-modded and clicky Alps leaves aren't identical though, and they sound a bit different too.

[emdude]

I have heard of some people comparing click-modded Orange Alps quite favorably to Blue Alps so that is something I'd definitely like to try.

These videos, by njbair of GH, showing unmodded Cream Damped Alps and click-modded ones are quite interesting too:

Spoiler:

Tactile

Spoiler:

Clicky

[emdude]

I was wondering, if at any point the switch housing for an SKCM switch became so brittle that it would end up breaking, would it be possible to transplant the internals into the housing of a Matias switch? Would its construction be different enough to affect the feel and/or sound? Has anyone tried it either?

[Chyros]

I was wondering, if at any point the switch housing for an SKCM switch became so brittle that it would end up breaking, would it be possible to transplant the internals into the housing of a Matias switch? Would its construction be different enough to affect the feel and/or sound? Has anyone tried it either?

I know the internals are not the same size so they don't fit in one direction, but I can't remember which. I think the SKCM parts were slightly bigger but I could be mistaken.

[jacobolus]

Which internals are we talking about? You can interchange the springs, and you can use Matias click/tactile leaves (sorta) in SKCM switches (but not vice versa). You can’t swap the contact mechanisms or sliders.

The SKCM switch housing is not going to “become brittle”, under any normal circumstance.

Matias switches have significantly different feel and sound.

[Chyros]

and you can use Matias click/tactile leaves (sorta) in SKCM switches (but not vice versa)

Yeah that's the one I meant.

[keycap]

I tried the click mod but I didn't like it. That being said, I almost always prefer tactile/linear to clicky with the only exception being buckling springs.

[emdude]

Which internals are we talking about? You can interchange the springs, and you can use Matias click/tactile leaves (sorta) in SKCM switches (but not vice versa). You can’t swap the contact mechanisms or sliders.

The SKCM switch housing is not going to “become brittle”, under any normal circumstance.

Oh yeah, certainly not in the near future, I guess I was talking about a very hypothetical situation many many years from now. I suppose it's kinda silly but I am somewhat worried about the long-term preservation of the switches.

And I should have been more specific, I meant transferring everything into a Matias switch. Nice to know it won't work though!