Just finished cleaning these little guys up. I've only ever had Alps IBM boards, and it seems that trend continues. I have had the IBM 5140, the IBM P70, and now these IBM 5576-002s. These are by far my favorites though.
They were clearly heading for a recycling shredder in China or something. Glad I saved them. They're much nicer than the well-meaning but pitiful P70 keyboard, though being part of a massive computer, I guess it's understandable that the P70 is so flimsy.
I have seen Korean and the typical Japanese models, but I have never seen the Chinese ones posted anywhere. They also seem to be the only ones of the three to have pretty blue dyesubbed sub legends.
The printing reminds me of the caps from the IBM P70, but more subdued, which is a good thing. Those IBM P70 caps are a bit too bold for my tastes.
So here's the restoration process:
Step 1: Hello from China. Pretty heavy!
Every cable was cut. I ordered five boards. One incomplete. I am grateful for doing that because the fifth one had a connector connected in the back that one of the intact four was missing, so I would be unable to use one of the intact ones.
I thought they were going to be like standard IBM SDL cables, which I have a few of as part of a trade for some work I had done in the past for someone.
But no, it's smaller (and better designed, imo). You'll see that soon.
Step 2: Restoring cut cables
So the first thing I did was restore these cut cables to their former functional glory:
These cables seem much shorter than their Japanese version counterparts from pictures I've seen, even taking the cut length into account. Nonetheless, I had to straighten the ends to make them look natural when the connector is once again attached.
Tape, a stick, and a heat gun. Then I let them rest on my floor air vents, which blow 55 F air (according to the AC guy), which cools them off quickly.
Above all else, I wanted to make sure I could make these connectors look stock when I was done with them, and finding out how to separate the halves was nerve-wracking until I finally figured it out: screwdriver to essentially crowbar the two halves off of each other.
They are held together by a retainer clip.
Very thoughtful design; the connector tabs are sheltered so they won't easily snap off. *remembers the many tab-less ethernet cables of his the past*
Match up the wires, solder them on--
Hot glue for reinforcing and a secure hold (testing connections first)
Snap the two halves back onto the connector
And viola! I think that's an instrument, lol.
Anyway! After getting those all done, I cleaned them ALL up, getting the grime off of the cables:
Note the cable with a missing connector. I realized the other cable I ignored was in better shape and not as kinked up: it was on my desk connected to a board at the time.
STEP 3: Clean the boards and key caps!
Admittedly, there is a lot left out here, but in short, I bought an ultrasonic cleaner for the key caps, because I did not want to hand clean every single cap again like I did for my Xerox Docutechs.
Added Mean Green cleaner to the water and it worked very very well.
Anyway, here is how the boards looked before cleaning. One of them at least:
The picture does not do the board justice for how filthy it was.
No ultrasonic cleaner for these. Some of them were scuffs that required a lot of elbow grease to remove.
The innards. Speaker, EMI shield, sister board with the controller and all the important bits.
(case was cleaned before putting it on my bed
)Two-piece Alps-mount key caps. Really interesting things. If you count them as legitimate key caps, they make some of the thickest Alps-mount caps out there.
And that's about it, I suppose! Restoration took a while, but I didn't go all in like I did with my DocuTechs (which I stormed through in a week with constant work). This took about two weeks or maybe three? Either way, I would have to say that Alps Plate Spring switches are probably the most comfortable key switches I've yet to type on, even including Topre.
It's the most comfortable switch, in my opinion, because it has a very light actuation and yet doesn't really bottom out with each stroke at all, so there's hardly any shock to one's joints. They pretty much float; it's lovely and not straining imo, like some would say Cherry MX Clears are.
Now, that doesn't mean I'd want to live a life with only Alps Plate Spring switches. I mean, I love me some Alps SKCM/SKCL, and even Topre and Cherry MX from time to time, but these are just really enjoyable, sound wise and in feel.
Here's a bonus pic of my dismantled P70:
The 5576-002s have plate-mount switches while the P70 has PCB-mount with additional, solderable fixing pins. The PCB mount switches can actually fit into a plate with no issue, but they don't clip in. I'd still call them stable though.
Other objects of note with these is their flexible PCBs (and bent plates, typical of IBM not-japan), which is something I've never seen before, especially with vintage keyboards. Membranes yes, but PCBs? I bet this was expensive. Probably why IBM Japan went onto using Brother Buckling Springs.
Also has a volume slider for the speaker. It makes very very light click sounds during a keypress repeat, but I don't think it works properly on modern systems. Not sure how to get them to work.
I'd imagine the Model M doesn't have a functional speaker on modern systems either for whatever reason. Interesting how other old boards like the Wang 725-3770 and several Zenith keyboards do.
). These definitely seem harder to find than the Japanese ones and more desireable because of their blue sublegends. At least I think they're cooler anyway. 