IBM SSK club!

JP! · 14 Mar 2021, 18:52

Picked up this lovely SSK designed for the IBM 6901 “Personal Typing System” PC. Better yet I got the PC, monitor and printer in working condition.

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Spoiler:

stormcrash · 14 Mar 2021, 19:13

Oh that's a really nice find! The Personal Typing System seems like such an odd product, a general purpose PS/2 turned into a dedicated word processor. Hope you make a thread showing the whole thing set up!

depletedvespene · 14 Mar 2021, 19:20

Congrats, JP\!!

stormcrash wrote: ↑
14 Mar 2021, 19:13
Oh that's a really nice find! The Personal Typing System seems like such an odd product, a general purpose PS/2 turned into a dedicated word processor. Hope you make a thread showing the whole thing set up!

Back in the day, dedicated word processors sold quite a bit — some people even preferred those to general-purpose computers. To me, that's one proof that something as open-ended as a personal computer was something too broad for some people.

zrrion · 14 Mar 2021, 19:49

looks like it could stand for a little cleaning, but still a fantastic find!

Chyros · 15 Mar 2021, 12:25

Oh yeah, just remembered, I got another one of these now too!

JP! · 15 Mar 2021, 15:51

Chyros wrote: ↑
15 Mar 2021, 12:25
Oh yeah, just remembered, I got another one of these now too!

I love that were have a OG prototype SSK and the new Unicomp prototype SSK on this thread.

headphone_jack · 15 Jul 2021, 07:30

Was the prototype SSK post deleted? Can't seem to find it in the thread.

ivanthetolerable · 28 Jul 2021, 13:29

Does my mini SSK count

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retrofitit · 29 Jul 2021, 19:02

Well since I have an SSK I can join the club.
Got it on eBay after missing the one made on my birthday (it sold for more than my max bid).
Just an ordinary SSK.
Here is a pic I snagged from the listing:

headphone_jack · 12 Sep 2021, 18:09

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My latest Facebook find. 1993 MOPAR SSK, converted into an FSSK.

JP! · 14 Sep 2021, 22:13

headphone_jack wrote: ↑
12 Sep 2021, 18:09
IMG_20210912_005559.jpg
My latest Facebook find. 1993 MOPAR SSK, converted into an FSSK.

You found this on Facebook!

That is a hell of a find.

headphone_jack · 15 Sep 2021, 00:56

JP! wrote: ↑
14 Sep 2021, 22:13

headphone_jack wrote: ↑
12 Sep 2021, 18:09
IMG_20210912_005559.jpg
My latest Facebook find. 1993 MOPAR SSK, converted into an FSSK.
You found this on Facebook! That is a hell of a find.

Imagine what I must have felt upon seeing the listing, lol. Ended up paying ~$35 all in for it, with a listed price of $100 for the full system. Would have loved to take the full computer, but there was no realistic way to get it from small town Maine down to me in Pennsylvania.

JP! · 15 Sep 2021, 02:26

headphone_jack wrote: ↑
15 Sep 2021, 00:56
Imagine what I must have felt upon seeing the listing, lol. Ended up paying ~$35 all in for it, with a listed price of $100 for the full system. Would have loved to take the full computer, but there was no realistic way to get it from small town Maine down to me in Pennsylvania.

Uggh...I'd probably have made a road trip out of it. Do you at least have any pictures of the rest of the system? I only ever see the keyboard. Any information would be nice (name of the Mopar diagnostic system) to help in tracking down one of these elusive beasts.

headphone_jack · 15 Sep 2021, 02:49

JP! wrote: ↑
15 Sep 2021, 02:26

headphone_jack wrote: ↑
15 Sep 2021, 00:56
Imagine what I must have felt upon seeing the listing, lol. Ended up paying ~$35 all in for it, with a listed price of $100 for the full system. Would have loved to take the full computer, but there was no realistic way to get it from small town Maine down to me in Pennsylvania.
Uggh...I'd probably have made a road trip out of it. Do you at least have any pictures of the rest of the system? I only ever see the keyboard. Any information would be nice (name of the Mopar diagnostic system) to help in tracking down one of these elusive beasts.

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This was the only picture in the listing. If you want to see more then there's a few on ebay right now that have plenty more pictures than this one. As far as I know, the system is basically a ruggedized PS/2 crammed into a cabinet on wheels, but that's just my (admittedly poor) deductive reasoning and heresy I've heard online.

JP! · 15 Sep 2021, 03:19

headphone_jack wrote: ↑
15 Sep 2021, 02:49
As far as I know, the system is basically a ruggedized PS/2 crammed into a cabinet on wheels, but that's just my (admittedly poor) deductive reasoning and heresy I've heard online.

Thanks for that! I think you are correct that it is essentially a PS/2 class computer. Also I spotted a couple on eBay for $6k+

Looks like you got quite the deal.

Seirin-Blu · 12 Jan 2023, 20:19

I’m a bit late to this party, but here’s mine!

Had to be screw modded because the barrel plate was cracked, and there’s a regular model m controller as well because the ssk one was dead. Because the controller also had to be replaced I put in a usb c adapter in there as well.

Edit: Whoops. Looks like I necro’d a 1.5 year old thread

Muirium · 12 Jan 2023, 22:18

To me, necro is just when some daftie shows up asking years old posts for followup, like they were yesterday. Closing threads isn’t our way here. No way could DT forbid SSKs!

darkcruix · 13 Jan 2023, 10:29

Muirium wrote: ↑
12 Jan 2023, 22:18
To me, necro is just when some daftie shows up asking years old posts for followup, like they were yesterday. Closing threads isn’t our way here. No way could DT forbid SSKs!

This is the way:

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Scarpia · 13 Jan 2023, 16:58

Congrats on the little ones!

Muirium · 14 Jan 2023, 13:15

Black badge on a beige shell… did they come that way? Looks dashing, in any case.

darkcruix · 14 Jan 2023, 15:45

Muirium wrote: ↑
14 Jan 2023, 13:15
Black badge on a beige shell… did they come that way? Looks dashing, in any case.

Nope - I had a black one laying around and I couldn't resist

Seirin-Blu · 16 Jan 2023, 18:05

There’s an eBay seller who has got some pretty good repro badges made for a variety of IBM keyboards. I wish he’d get some of the blue on grey made for both regular M and SSK. Maybe I should bug him about that…

ntv242ver2 · 02 Feb 2023, 11:25

Seirin-Blu wrote: ↑
12 Jan 2023, 20:19
I’m a bit late to this party, but here’s mine!

Had to be screw modded because the barrel plate was cracked, and there’s a regular model m controller as well because the ssk one was dead. Because the controller also had to be replaced I put in a usb c adapter in there as well.

Edit: Whoops. Looks like I necro’d a 1.5 year old thread

Clean. I am going through a similar process here, as my plate is also cracked, and i need new membrane for my controller since I accidentally damaged the traces of my old one. oooo the pain.

Delta Research · 28 Feb 2023, 03:21

Joining the club with a black badge Industrial SSK I found on facebook. Cleaned up great and works, but sadly the rivets near the arrow keys have fallen off so it feels a little mushy over there.

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ITX-Fan · 28 Feb 2023, 07:29

Great looking board! More rivets will break over time, think about doing the bolt-mod.

stormcrash · 20 Mar 2023, 22:13

So pretty! Yeah the SSKs seem to fare poorly with their rivets. My SSK needs a bolt mod despite still being new/sealed in box when I found it (hooray for poorly named eBay listings flying under the radar so while not cheap I got a great deal on it considering it was NOS). Biggest mistake was opening it to inspect and take out the rattling broken rivet I heard, as soon as I touched the assembly more rivets started to fail. I think the worst is even in the same area around the arrow keys as yours, must be the weak corner.

kokokoy · 24 Mar 2023, 03:03

Made my SSK BT. It's working fine for now. Need to fabricate another round of PCB as I don't know what I'm doing and the post adjustment/workaround been bugging me. Haha..

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Published it here https://github.com/nyemash/zmk-config-ssk and will update it again once I verified my 3rd round works out of the box.

inozenz · 24 Mar 2023, 09:53

kokokoy wrote: ↑
24 Mar 2023, 03:03
Made my SSK BT. It's working fine for now. Need to fabricate another round of PCB as I don't know what I'm doing and the post adjustment/workaround been bugging me. Haha..

IMG_6560.jpg

Published it here https://github.com/nyemash/zmk-config-ssk and will update it again once I verified my 3rd round works out of the box.

that is brilliant thank you for sharing!

Muirium · 24 Mar 2023, 11:36

Nice!y done.

The nano's pricey, but really is the answer for a few of my longest waiting controller replacement jobs.

kokokoy · 24 Mar 2023, 12:42

Thanks both.

Muirium wrote: ↑
24 Mar 2023, 11:36
The nano's pricey, but really is the answer for a few of my longest waiting controller replacement jobs.

Yeah indeed. Would have been great if the no. of pin’s on v2 were the same as v1 (23). That alone would have been enough for this. But got forced to learn and use shift registers so was worth it. Now I can do my dolch pac next.