engr wrote: ↑20 Apr 2023, 18:19
So the 102's with blue badges may still have blue Alps? The sticker on this particular one says it's August 1989, past the blue Alps cutoff date listed on the wiki page.
My opinion, and it's only that, is that all the Gen1 Northgates started out with gold badges, and got the later badges as part of a factory refurb or repair.
We have established that there is no exact cutoff date for blue Alps on the Northgate keyboards. I have two 102 models, dated three weeks apart, May and June 1989. The earlier one has blue Alps and the later one white unbranded white Alps. But there is a May example dated two days earlier than my May one which has white Alps, and examples dated as late as July with blue Alps. Neither the label dates, serial numbers, or inspection numbers are a reliable predictor of the switches. You have to keep in mind nobody ordering these keyboards at the time gave a damn about the switch color, or even knew there was a change. That distinction didn't come until keyboard fanatics started obsessing about slider color twenty or thirty years later. The paper labels were almost certainly added after Northgate received the keyboards from Taiwan (they also appear on other OEM Northgate keyboards from different suppliers), and there was no reason to keep them "in order" unless there was a physical change of some sort. Likewise at the factory in Taiwan where they were assembled, they certainly weren't sorting them by switch color. If a box of white Alps keyboards was stacked in front of a box of blue Alps ones of the same model it very well could have been shipped first.
I have six Northgate 102s listed with the 9xxxxx serial numbers and blue and white badges. Two have blue Alps, two have white Alps, and two are unknown.
engr wrote: ↑20 Apr 2023, 18:19
I messaged the seller, we'll see what he replies.
Ask about the packing list also! It would be very interesting to know if there are any clues about this one in the packing list attached to the box.
edit: The ebay example's box is distinctly different from the original Gen1 boxes, which had a black and white photo of the keyboard printed on the top. Another clue that this one was "handled" by Northgate some time after it was made originally.
edit2: I dug out the box photos and there was an inner and outer shipping box in some cases (not the ebay one apparently). And it was the outer box with the photo of the gold badge 102. Never as simple as we want it to be!
