Slashdot Mirror
Enthusiast Resurrects IBM's Legendary 'Model F' Keyboard (popularmechanics.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Popular Mechanics: You may not know the Model F by name, but you know it by sound -- the musical thwacking of flippers slapping away. The sound of the '80s office. The IBM Model F greeting the world in 1981 with a good ten pounds of die-cast zinc and keys that crash down on buckling metal springs as they descend. It's a sensation today's clickiest keyboards chase, but will never catch. And now it's coming back. The second coming of the high-quality Model F (not to be confused with its more affordable plastic successor, the Model M) isn't a throwback attention grab from IBM, nor a nostalgia play from Big Keyboard. Instead, it's the longtime work of a historian in love with the retro keyboard's unparalleled sound and feel, but frustrated by the limitations of actual decades-old tech.
The Model F Keyboards project, now taking preorders for the new line of authentic retro-boards, was started by Joe Strandberg, a Cornell University grad who's taken up keyboard wizardry as a nights-and-weekends hobby. He started as a collector and restorer of genuine Model F keyboards -- originally produced from 1981 to 1994 -- a process that familiarized him with their virtues and their flaws... Working with a factory in China, Strandberg has carefully overseen the reproduction process one step at time, from the springs to the unique powder-coating on the keyboard's zinc case. Despite the expense (Strandberg estimates spending $100,000 to revive the tooling necessary for the production run), it was the only viable option given the kind of abuse your average keyboard takes on a daily basis. "With 3D printing," he says, "the keyboard wouldn't last a year."
The first prototypes have just left the assembly line, and he's already racked up over a quarter of a million dollars in pre-orders. Does anyone else fondly remember IBM's hefty and trusty old keyboards?
The Model F Keyboards project, now taking preorders for the new line of authentic retro-boards, was started by Joe Strandberg, a Cornell University grad who's taken up keyboard wizardry as a nights-and-weekends hobby. He started as a collector and restorer of genuine Model F keyboards -- originally produced from 1981 to 1994 -- a process that familiarized him with their virtues and their flaws... Working with a factory in China, Strandberg has carefully overseen the reproduction process one step at time, from the springs to the unique powder-coating on the keyboard's zinc case. Despite the expense (Strandberg estimates spending $100,000 to revive the tooling necessary for the production run), it was the only viable option given the kind of abuse your average keyboard takes on a daily basis. "With 3D printing," he says, "the keyboard wouldn't last a year."
The first prototypes have just left the assembly line, and he's already racked up over a quarter of a million dollars in pre-orders. Does anyone else fondly remember IBM's hefty and trusty old keyboards?
Plenty of cherry buckling spring keyboards available at a reasonable price.
Besides...Gateway made the best keyboards back then. Copy target selection failure.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Does it come with an authentic XT connector so I have to use XT>PS/2>USB so I can use it with my modern computer?
long live Selectric!
I figured I would do that to "clean" it. About 500 parts sprung out. I never got it back together again.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Impressive—this article hasn't been up very long. You can look at the web site, but the order page is the sad.
Unicomp has been making brand new Model Ms for years, using the same tooling that was originally used by IBM to make them.
What makes the Model F better, other than the historical angle? And if it's just the historical reasons, why bother with a $300 remake instead of the real thing, when you can just buy a new Model M from Unicomp for a lot less money and get the same feel with identical inauthenticity?
If you're confused reading this, welcome to the club. :)
I have a stack of the original IBM XT keyboards in the storeroom. They are PC-XT, so will not work on newer ('286 and up) machines. And they are 83 key so do not have the number pad. They mate up nice to the stack of original PC-XT machines in the same room. ( no XT clones allowed, though there is a stack of salvaged clone motherboards.)
But I'm old enough to remember being in a computing lab filled with clicky keyboards back then. Heck, I remember how a room filled with typewriters sounded.
I'll take today's quiet keyboards, thank you very much.
#DeleteChrome
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
...why not just get over it and buy a $10 keyboard?
I'm sill using an original 1990's IBM Model M (PS2 style) every day. I've changed OS and computers over the decades but not the keyboard. I have to take it apart every few years and clean out the stuff from under the keys. It may be the reduced cost version of the Model F but it's still a usable, sturdy, and reliable keyboard.
... And Take My Money!
There are way better keyboard projects. Qwerty, staggered keyboards are a terrible reminiscent of mechanical typewriters.
Columnar keyboards like Ergodox, and derivatives like Ergodox ez, Keyboard.io and multipxd are eons ahead on ergonomics.
About key layout: Qwerty Dvorak Colemak Workman. Any day.
IBM model F switches are great. but please, use them in a proper, modern keyboard form factor and key layout.
Really!! I mean Really!!! I just cleaned out my storage unit a few months back that had stuff in it for 20 years. I just tossed 50 of the original IBM keyboards because no one wanted them, Some of them with such light use they still had the original box. Posted them on eBay and Craigslist for months no-one wanted them. Now everyone wants one. WTH!!
If you had posted them on Deskthority or /r/mechmarket, where the serious keyboard-nerds hang out, I suspect you would have seen different results.
Buckling springs were a cost reduction over the ultimate keyboard design - which was Keyboard D and associated. Those were the "beam spring" keyboards that shipped with the IBM 3278, IBM 3279 and so on. Absolutely fantastic keyboards, wonderful touch, a near perfect force/displacement profile. They were quiet - so quiet, we had to put an electric clicker into the keyboards, software selectable so typists could hear the keystrokes.
I had one for years and years. I had an interface that supplied it with the +8.5v, +5vand -2.2v it needed, took its parallel output and mapped it to an ASCII symbol set. I had one wired to a 6809 Forth machine for a few years, but it fell into disrepair when the IBM PC arrived, and suddenly I had a C compiler to code with.
... then I'm going to want to have a clear rubber covering on it that can to protect it from things like accidental spills, even while using it (my roommate back in the day always referred to the one I had at the time as a keyboard condom). Back then, there were just the two styles of keyboard, either XT or extended XT style, and you could get a cover for either one. If something spills on it, you just wipe it with a damp cloth and you're done, or if it gets really bad you peel it off and wash it As far as I know they don't make those anymore because there's too many styles of keyboards now.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I don't see this happening for the "Microsoft Natural Keyboards". Every time I see one, I am tempted to use a band saw to separate the two sides.
The original site is unresponsive.
.. I would be delighted!
I love the tactile feedback of a great mechanical keyboard. At home and at work, when I'm typing, people know it. My poor office mate wears headphones most of the time, but he tells me "I can tell when you're inspired, because the noise level goes up significantly".
Anybody know if there's any kind of tactical feel/sound difference between the M and the F? I don't remember, specifically.
I don't respond to AC's.
I used a Model F early in my career (@ 16 and 17 YO), then I moved to a Model M.
Almost no difference.
This is a pure retro/hipster/fad thing.
Get a good modern Keyboard, where you get a good backlight, lightweight, and good mechanical (for your taste) key feedback, with modern set of keys and macro-recording, and you will be much better served than reliving the days of yore...
my 2 cents YMMV
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
I had one with my IBM PC-1. When I upgraded it to a 6MHz AT clone, and I had to use an AT keyboard, I thought I'd open it up and see why it sounded so interesting. Too bad, because I used to use it with my GRiDPad 1910, which a friend hacked a full size XT keyboard connector into for me.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
but I'd kill for the Microsoft natural layout with clicky keys. I've tried those split keyboards but they don't slant the keys at an angle so they're a mess.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Yeah, I learned to type on mechanical typewriters. I had a clerical rating in the Navy and, during my training days, we'd spend an hour a day in a room full of old, beat up Underwoods, practicing. I remember one of my early jobs as a computer programmer, I would be working at a computer keyboard in an office cubicle with the 5 foot dividers, and people on the other side of the room could hear me pounding away.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
FTFA: F62, F77 base keyboard without keys: $325
$325 and no keys?
ROFLMAO
Unicomp sells keyboard condoms for their Model M clones, but I wasn't terribly impressed. Didn't fit perfectly, and it would easily lift up if you lightly dragged your fingers across the keys. I still like and use the keyboard, but I threw out the cover after a few weeks.
I love the clicky keys and I've used the old IBM PC keyboards in the past. They are nice but I think that the old heavyweights are a little too much.
but now that i got used to flat Apple keyboards, the thought of going back to one of those big clunky fuax typewriter keyboards just seems shitty. there is no need to have the keys be 3/4 of an inch thick other than to give you carpel tunnel syndrome as you cock your wrist up trying to get on top of the keys.
Remember reading John C. Dvorak, the Jim Sterling of his day rave about them.
I'm not ever going to see anything at popularmechanics.com, because they pop a "We refuse to show you a damn thing because you are blocking ads" page.
Lies. I do not block ads.
I block scripts.
I'll see every ad you feel like blasting at me If. They. Are. Not. Scripts.
But I'm not allowing every random malware creator on the planet who buys an ad slot on some random ad server to infect my PC. Period.
popularmechanics.com is dead to me.
Dye sublimation is better than just simple-minded surface printing (which is utterly unacceptable), but double-shot injection molding is preferred. Too bad they did not make the right choice. Big black mark.
If I remember my dads old IBM PC XT keyboard right, it must have been the model M. Key-travel too far and springs too hard for my taste. Nice bounce and the metal feel was great though. Don't need the sound but the feel of the snap when the key goes in was good. I would not think you could get shorter key travel with the model M technology, so I' can't say I miss those. That might be me trying to justify shipping the rig to recycling twenty years ago ...
I can see why people love them, but they just aren't for me.
I hate my already sorta-noisy membrane-board now, why would I want more noise on top of that?
I can remember the noise from those keyboards. I can remember typewriters. I want to unremember. Giving me PTSD man.
People always go on about N-key rollover being so good on keyboards, but I have never had any issues with weird key combinations or even standard key combinations not working because a lack of it.
Hell, I use Capslock AND Insert as a hotkey prefix. Numlock too, actually. Even Alt-gr. (but that doesn't count, "it is one"!)
I also regularly played games with no issues. If anything, it was a crappy mouse that tended to fail more often. Why the hell does every mouse fail so hard with the middle click button? They are so pathetically designed. I've lost count of how many of those damn things I've been through, yet I'm still on this keyboard nearly 15 years later. A DELL keyboard!
The only time I have ever seen any problems with a lack of proper key rollover is the esoteric "hold both shifts and type this sentence" meme to test out what keys fail.
Admittedly this sorta bummed me out years back because I wanted to make a funky hotkey that required both shift keys to be held down and T, T was one of those that never worked on my keyboard. No major loss.
Hope it goes well for them. That's a lotta money.
So, would that be him writing about "Dvorak's keyboard"?
Just saying. I DO have doubts that the Model F mechanical design is significantly superior to the Model M (seems like splitting hairs to be honest), but I can overlook that, after all we're all entitled to an opinion.
But no function keys and a compressed or absent right-hand cluster? For >$300? Yikes.
I was too young to have access to new ones. Just disgusting looking ones at school!
But none of the proposed layouts have the F-keys. doesn't anyone other than me think that's a non-feature?
I don't remember the one in the top photo (though I've used pretty similar ones, just not IBM).
But I used the one the baby is typing on, the one with 10 function keys to the left. Excellent hardware back then. Plus function keys at the left are easier to use.
The ability to plug in a USB drive or USB wireless transceiver for a mouse is very convenient. I would have added $10 to the price and added a couple of USB ports on the side / back of the keyboard.
Nomsg
I am typing on a Kinesis Advantage. I have too. My favourite started to fail. Keypresssss reeeepeeeats and other issues. So I went ahead and un-soldered all the brown stem MX keys and replaced them by blue stem MX keys.
Now they click.
I also built an Ergodox with blue ckickies. Which is a nice project. Thru hole and SMD practice.
Which brings me to my point: clickies are cool. Heavy keyboards are cool. Slim, compact keyboards are cool.
But if you are typing on the staggered design that was designed to a 150cm tall woman, then you are ... I am tempted to say: doing it wrong, but I won't.
Getting used to a Kinesis Advantage is a royal giant pain in the butt. It literally hurts your brain. Typing stuff (text) is kind of OK, but writing code makes you want to kill yourself. For a week or so. ... then the magic happens, and you realise, that nothing can touch it. Replaceable switches. Curved key-wells. Programmable.
When people ask me how I spend $300 on a keyboard, $100 on keys, then hours and hours in labour to replace the keys. I always ask them how they spend $30.000+ for a car they use less than 8 hours a WEEK. I am using this 10-12 hours a day.
BTW, I went through $100 Apple keyboards, 1-2 a year. Un-repairable.
Anyway. While I find the Type M, and Type F really-really cool. Using it as a keyboard is less particular than having a 1950 car as a daily commute.
But ... again. 99% of my friends type on conventional keyboards, so probably I am the odd minority here...
For that price, I want a keyboard with the control key in the correct location!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Back in the late 1970's, I learned to type on a manual typewriter. As a result, I developed a heavy typing touch, which served me well with 1980's keyboards like the VT-100 terminal. A few years later, we had VT220 terminals with LK-201 keyboards. Every key was in the right place, but the key action was lighter and I wore out them out periodically. Today, my typing touch is considerably lighter. The LK-250 is the PC (ancient DIN connector) version of the LK-201, with the alt key replacing the compose key. IMHO, we reached the epitome of keyboard design back in the 1990's, with honorable mention to Apple for their keyboard designs of 2008-2015.
Quite simple really.. The Model F have a market today, you can sell them to enthousiasts who used to own one.
Owners of the Model M on the other hand are still enjoying their original product every day and have no reason to buy anything else today.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
they don't make them because keyboards are a lot cheaper to buy now. they were about $100 in the era of the Model M and Northgate keyboards, so that's about $200 now. they are about 20x cheaper now, unless it's an Apple one.
From the web page:
"The IBM Model F keyboards not only used the best switches, the materials used in their production (well over 5lbs of steel and other metals) means they will be working as good as new when it's time to pass it on to your grandchildren."
surprisingly, the indestructible keyboard did not resist for 30 years:
"The problem... they just aren't made that way any more. The IBM Model F was discontinued in the 1980's. If you do find a Model F, it will be some combination of dirty, broken and/or expensive, requiring hours of work to get it working again!"
There is a serious contradiction here.
And thank god. Because while the idea of those were that they were washable, the reality was most people used them to avoid ever having to wash anything.
Condom is a wrong comparison. I remember when seeing those keyboards "used condom" is more what came to mind.
Eww.
I've had lots of keyboards, but nothing compares to a real IBM F or HHKB Professional 2. There are the way to go, if you care about the feel of your keyboard. The HHKB Pro2 BlueTooth version is just becoming available. I've not bought one yet:
http://www.pfu.fujitsu.com/hhkeyboard/bt/
The price is about the same as this IBM clone.
We used to make IBM keyboards at their plant in Greenock. Keyboard E's were used for 3270/3279 terminals and had the highest spring force and the most satisfying click known to man. No keyboard since has come anywhere close.
What I'd REALLY like, is today's 101,103,104,105-key layouts, as Unicomp is currently selling, but built like a Model F.
With swappable cables, available in a variety of lengths, with and without coiling, for easy switching between PS/2 and USB.
With the Control key high on my left pinky, where the heathens put the Tab key these days, as $deity intended it.
You know... what IBM should have done in the first place.
Oh... and a fucking hardware Escape key. I'd spring the $700 for one of these beasts, except for that. Vim, anyone? But at lest this one doesn't reprogram itself to some other purpose based on OS events, like the laptop the buckling-spring keyboard is supposed to rescue me from...
I got rid of one from my junk closet not long ago.
The blasted thing capped my burst typing speed to about 90 wpm, by which point it kind of feels like running on wet sand—the wet sand of some strange Pop Rock planet.
I was mainly using to install obscure distributions on old beater boxes.
I'm presently typing on a Compaq 247429-101 Erase-Ease keyboard (though I never use the left thumb backspace key).
This thing has been a total workhorse and it has a brilliantly long PS/2 cable.
Every year or so it begins to look like Lister's revenge and I have to pop all 100 keys and scrub every damn side of every damn key cover from the curry crossing (the giant steaming bowl of tan goodness typically perched on the edge of my glass desk, three inches above and six inches behind home position; just like my typing, a minor embolism every 99 spoonfuls or thereabouts—I could really use a special backspace key for this other problem.)
Unicomp never stopped selling these kind of keyboards. They made the original ones for IBM.
I've been developing software since 1981 and those keyboards had the best tactile feel whose layout somehow results in less typos. I've used some keyboards that were so bad that they caused RSI.
Both of my Windows tower computers at home have a IBM model F Keyboard with the function keys across the top. The oldest one has been holding up since 1993.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
IBM burglar killers? Bah.
Give me the HP PA-RISC Workstation (50/99MHz) keyboard any day. Took a bit of getting used to, but suddenly all others felt wrong. (I've seen similar later, but they had hard plastic keys and not the soft rubber ones of the original.)
(Anyone know some place that sells them?)
Quiet keys are one of the best things to ever happen to keyboards. And yes, I am old enough to have grown up with noisy keyboards and typewriters. I hated them, and I loved it when keys got quiet.
Unicomp has been making them for YEARS! https://www.pckeyboard.com/