Hello Geekhack!

This is my first post here and the first thing I'd like to say is that you guys have already helped me out no end with my own search for a decent board- I had a much clearer idea what I was looking for after reading a few articles on the wiki!

However, my interest here today is a little more mercantile.  You see, I work for a charity called Computers 4 Africa UK (Well, technically the parent charity is Digital Pipeline now, but our main focus is still C4A).  We take donations of second-hand IT equipment in the UK, and then we datawipe everything, clean everything and test everything, reload an operating system and send it to a deserving project in Africa- mostly schools, libraries and other educational projects but also a lot of healthcare organisations and so on.

As a part of the "receiving donations" bit, people do often give us really old stuff.  You can see where this is going already can't you?  Yes, this includes keyboards.  A lot of the older boards we can't use in Africa- because they've still got a DIN socket on the end of the cord, or they just don't fit in the shipping boxes- and in any case with some of the older boards actually being quite valuable (comparatively speaking) we could actually get decent money if we sold them in the UK (or at least in the West) and use the extra funds t send more PCs.

Now, there's just one problem with that.  The problem is, I'm the only real keyboard geek at C4A, and even I basically know nothing about keyboards.  As such, I would like to ask for some help in sorting out what's worth selling, what I should just bin, and how much I should sell things for.

So- first things first, the relatively easy one.  We have a number (8 white and 1 black) of Dell AT102W PS/2 keyboards with black ALPS keys (as far as I'm aware this is an AT101W board with an altered layout).  I think they might be early model FUKKAs but I'm not sure- they have ALPS branding on the switches.  These are in a variety of conditions, from nearly new (literally still in the original clear plastic bag, cord still held in the original tie and with original documentation) to a little dilapidated (spots of rust on the backplate, yellowing keys).  The black (well, very dark blue) one is mostly in decent condition except that the F2 key is missing with slight damage to the slider on the switch.

[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 22950[/ATTACH] [ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 22951[/ATTACH] [ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 22952[/ATTACH]

I suppose the first question is, can this switch be identified without my taking it to bits- did I guess right?  The second, obviously- is how much is a good price for these boards (from a seller's perspective) given their various conditions, and how much should I charge if I want to get a decent amount but sell them quickly?

Next up, we have a trickier one- I haven't been able to get a good identification on these.  I have a pair of boards that list themselves as "K108" keyboards.  They have DIN connectors (though IIRC you can replace those with PS/2 fairly simply if you know what you're doing) and have an FCC ID of FKD45AK108 but apart from the fact that one was made in Taiwan by Monterey International Corp there are no other identifying marks apart from a "Workspace" branding at the top left of one of the boards.

The interesting bit about these is the key switches- from what I can tell, they are externally identical to complicated white ALPS keys (with the small tabs top and bottom instead of the single large tab each side, unless I read that part of the ALPS wiki page wrong) and have the same fairly light, clicky action but have no branding on them at all.  They could be SMK-85s or other similar copies, but I'm not sure.

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Any idea what these are?  Are they worth selling?  Or should I just chuck them in the bin?

I have a couple more at home, as well as a couple more out here- but that will do for now.

Oh, one more question- injection-moulded Cherry-compatible keys aren't really worth anything if they're badly yellowed and a bit dirty are they?  I don't think so, but you never know sometimes...

Thanks for your help guys!

Hello Geekhack!

This is my first post here and the first thing I'd like to say is that you guys have already helped me out no end with my own search for a decent board- I had a much clearer idea what I was looking for after reading a few articles on the wiki!

However, my interest here today is a little more mercantile.  You see, I work for a charity called Computers 4 Africa UK (Well, technically the parent charity is Digital Pipeline now, but our main focus is still C4A).  We take donations of second-hand IT equipment in the UK, and then we datawipe everything, clean everything and test everything, reload an operating system and send it to a deserving project in Africa- mostly schools, libraries and other educational projects but also a lot of healthcare organisations and so on.

As a part of the "receiving donations" bit, people do often give us really old stuff.  You can see where this is going already can't you?  Yes, this includes keyboards.  A lot of the older boards we can't use in Africa- because they've still got a DIN socket on the end of the cord, or they just don't fit in the shipping boxes- and in any case with some of the older boards actually being quite valuable (comparatively speaking) we could actually get decent money if we sold them in the UK (or at least in the West) and use the extra funds t send more PCs.

Now, there's just one problem with that.  The problem is, I'm the only real keyboard geek at C4A, and even I basically know nothing about keyboards.  As such, I would like to ask for some help in sorting out what's worth selling, what I should just bin, and how much I should sell things for.

So- first things first, the relatively easy one.  We have a number (8 white and 1 black) of Dell AT102W PS/2 keyboards with black ALPS keys (as far as I'm aware this is an AT101W board with an altered layout).  I think they might be early model FUKKAs but I'm not sure- they have ALPS branding on the switches.  These are in a variety of conditions, from nearly new (literally still in the original clear plastic bag, cord still held in the original tie and with original documentation) to a little dilapidated (spots of rust on the backplate, yellowing keys).  The black (well, very dark blue) one is mostly in decent condition except that the F2 key is missing with slight damage to the slider on the switch.

(Attachment Link) 22950[/ATTACH] (Attachment Link) 22951[/ATTACH] (Attachment Link) 22952[/ATTACH]

I suppose the first question is, can this switch be identified without my taking it to bits- did I guess right?  The second, obviously- is how much is a good price for these boards (from a seller's perspective) given their various conditions, and how much should I charge if I want to get a decent amount but sell them quickly?

Next up, we have a trickier one- I haven't been able to get a good identification on these.  I have a pair of boards that list themselves as "K108" keyboards.  They have DIN connectors (though IIRC you can replace those with PS/2 fairly simply if you know what you're doing) and have an FCC ID of FKD45AK108 but apart from the fact that one was made in Taiwan by Monterey International Corp there are no other identifying marks apart from a "Workspace" branding at the top left of one of the boards.

The interesting bit about these is the key switches- from what I can tell, they are externally identical to complicated white ALPS keys (with the small tabs top and bottom instead of the single large tab each side, unless I read that part of the ALPS wiki page wrong) and have the same fairly light, clicky action but have no branding on them at all.  They could be SMK-85s or other similar copies, but I'm not sure.

(Attachment Link) 22953[/ATTACH] (Attachment Link) 22954[/ATTACH] (Attachment Link) 22955[/ATTACH] (Attachment Link) 22956[/ATTACH]

Any idea what these are?  Are they worth selling?  Or should I just chuck them in the bin?

I have a couple more at home, as well as a couple more out here- but that will do for now.

Oh, one more question- injection-moulded Cherry-compatible keys aren't really worth anything if they're badly yellowed and a bit dirty are they?  I don't think so, but you never know sometimes...

Thanks for your help guys!

Dells are probably worth about £20 if they are in decent condition. The others may be worth around the same if not a bit more. They'd be worth a good bit more if they were real-deal Alps unfortunately.

First of all, huge thanks for the response, guys!  Got a couple more questions at the end of this post, as well as a few more pics of a couple other boards.

Welcome to Geekhack!

The market determines the price so just stick it on UK Ebay and see what happens (it's not worth selling overseas).

 But the second keyboard switch is Simplified ALPS II (XMs).  Kinda meh.

Oh well, worth a try.  Still worth selling?
 

You can also try selling at Deskthority.net.

Good for EU sales but they don't know much about ALPS.  Tell them Numero Uno sent you.

LOL, I have lurked a little- not sure telling them you sent me would be the greatest idea, webwit seems to develop a hair up his backside about something whenever you're mentioned...
 

Dells are probably worth about £20 if they are in decent condition. The others may be worth around the same if not a bit more. They'd be worth a good bit more if they were real-deal Alps unfortunately.

£20 is good money for us.  We can send a complete system for less than that (shipping cost is less than £10 per machine on the large containers).

Depends on how they're printed. If they're double shot injection molded (immediately obvious if you look at the back of the cap and see a second plastic color) keep them since yellowing can be fixed with Retr0bright. If they're average lasered or pad printed keys they're not really worth much and I'd junk them.

I has photos!

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The first is obviously the full set (I can probably get them cleaned here actually, but not whitened) and the second is an individual key.  I think that's a double-shot  injection-moulded key?  Will anyone want to actually buy those?

Also:  Two more keyboards!  One of them is the one I use at home at the moment, and the other is one I'm looking at selling for C4A.

First up, the one I use at the moment:  No idea what it is, it arrived at work with RM Nimbus branding (which thankfully came off quite easily) and I liked it, so I made an offer and bought it from C4A myself.  The keys are ALPS-compatible, and I recognise the key slider from one of the ALPS pages on here but I'm not sure exactly what it is:  From the view through the top of the slider it looks like it has a buckling spring in there, but I'm not sure.  Certainly it's a clicky board, but it's a very gentle click.

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And lastly, the sale board.  This one is an interesting one- ALPS-branded white clicky key switches and double-injection moulded keys.  From what I've seen on here it's probably a Nan Tan from about 1988?  Got a DIN connector, but again, with a little fiddling that's PS/2 compatible.  All in all it looks pretty shiny to me, especially if those are old-school ALPS keys.  What do you guys reckon?

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This thread is awesome! Having fun looking at your pics. It's weird I get more enjoyment out of looking at other peoples finds than I do finding my own. I usually leave kbs at goodwill for other people unless it's something I really really want.

I think youre best bet would be to make a thread here and on deskthority and keep it updated with all the boards you are currently selling. If you want to put them on ebay, you could always have the links to the items in the post.
As for your DIN dilemma...as long as the boards use AT protocol a simple din to ps2 adapter will let you use / test them. These are available for less then a pound on ebay or from one of us here. Ive ended up with about 30 from old boards Ive bought.

Do keep your eyes peeled for any out of the ordinary or doubleshot caps with the cherry stem, those will fetch a good bit of cash, usually with korean collectors.
I suggest you read up on cherry product codes so you can tell at a glance if you have a DS or dyesub board. Im suspecting you have or will end up with UK layout IBM Model M keyboards, those will net you about 30-50 £ each, so keep your eyes peeled. Another brand to watch out for is Access/Access-Is, a UK based manufacturer of POS terminal boards. Their boards generally use cherry black switches and are fully programmamble. Also, they often use custom doubleshot caps from signature plastics, which arent found elsewhere.

If you need help with pricing id be glad to help out, you can catch me here or over at deskthority anytime.

Ascaii- Thanks dude, that's very much appreciated.  I'll try and get everything together tomorrow, and then I'll see about putting a thread together.

Findecanor- Heh, I didn't know that when I found it, all I knew was it was a nice keyboard and I wanted it.  The F12 keycap is actually missing, though- I didn't just take it off for the photos.  I should be able to find a replacement, we have a few ALPS keyboards about.

Ripster- I may be able to get inside the switch when I get home, though I am a little hesitant when it comes to dismantling the keyboard if I'm honest.  All of the references I can find point towards it being a buckling-spring ALPS switch though, looking here (via the ALPS page on the wiki here) and here the switch is externally identical to those identified as such and you can even see the top of the spring (and watch it flick to the side as the key is pushed) through the top of the switch if you're careful.

I used Google Translate on the Japanese page, by the way, I can't actually read Japanese- but the image caption does say "ALPS buckling" which seems like a good sign to me.

Thanks for the help so far guys- any ideas on what the Nan Tan board is worth (if anything) or whether the Cherry-compatible keys are worth selling?

Definitely make sure to be on the lookout for other alps bs boards. I assumed you were wrong when you first said it because of how rare they are.

There's always this for retrobright as well:
http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:20283

I think it's better for keys, just because adding paste to every single key would be quite abit too much I think.

That... honestly looks a little complicated.  Is it gonna be worth it for a bunch of fairly standard-looking Cherry-compatible keys?

Meh. Up to you, honestly. Still, keep RetroBright in mind in case you find a rare board that needs whitening. A little time spent cleaning it might get you noticeably more money.

First up, Ripster- yeah, that's pretty much exactly it.  Here, I'll take a few more photos:
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As you can see, the switches are moulded into the board itself and you can clearly see the tops of the springs through the top of the slider.  When you depress the key, the visible part of the spring "flicks" from left to right as the key clicks.

Unfortunately, about the only thing I can tell you for sure about 20p pieces on this board is that I don't have enough to activate one of the bottom-row keys.

I tried using 5p pieces instead and got the following numbers at different locations along the bottom row of the board:

27, 23, 23, 25, 26, 23.

According to the Royal mint, a 5p coin weighs in at 3.25g, which gives us fairly high figures of 87.75g, 74.75g, 74.75g, 81.25g, 84.5g and 74.75g (with the obvious caveats about most of the stuff beyond the decimal place being wildly unreliable).  This seems a little odd to me, because though the board is definitely stiffer than my old rubber dome board it has never seemed that heavy to use.  Could be that I have enormous hands and heavy fingers so I don't notice it too much.  Alternatively it could be because I am horrible at stacking coins and didn't get them on straight (which actually seems pretty likely now that I think about it, I wasn't paying as much attention as I probably should have to how straight the stacks were).  I will probably have another go this weekend when I'm less tired and rushed and have a chance at actually setting the board up properly (right now I'm knackered, it's been a long day/week/fortnight/period of time.

Mr. Perfect- I'll definitely bear it in mind.  I honestly don't know how much people are likely to pay for most of this, so any kind of valuation is appreciated.  If I'm not gonna get more than a couple of pounds for the keys it's unlikely to be worth my time to clean them all, but if I'm gonna get £10 or so it might be.

molto- yeah, I do intend to put a thread up on Deskthority at some point, but I'd like to get what I've got here sorted out before I go splitting my attention between two boards or I'll probably forget what I've posted where.

[EDIT] Also I'm not a very good photographer, but you could probably already tell that.  I shall attempt to get more pics this weekend, when I have some time.

The DELL AT102s aren't worth as much as they were a year ago as someone flooded ebay UK with a ton of them in the last few months.  Cherry always goes quite well in the UK and Europe - mainly g80s - don't bother trying to sell g83s as they are junk - and ebay is a better choice for g81s.  

Deskthority is indeed a good place to start as there's a good number of members here that belong to that forum as well.  If in doubt - please feel free to send me a pm.

Yeah, I don't give a crap about how rare the keyboard is, I just want a keyboard with the switches. I'm a user, not a collector.

Honestly I intend to keep it myself, it's a very nice keyboard to use (or at least my enormous hands and I think so).

Right, now we get down to it:  The specifics of what each board is worth.  The first one is probably the one that's suffered the worst actual damage, and it's a black Dell AT102W PS/2 keyboard.  Mostly in pretty good condition, it's got complicated black ALPS switches throughout but the one defect is the missing F2 key and damage to the slider.  How much is this board going to sell for, realistically?  Any ideas?  Could I get £10 for it, or would I struggle to get that?  I know that similar boards are being sold on eBay for approximately £26 including shipping, and shipping within the UK will cost me about £8 including packaging.

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Yeah, we still have them.  PM me and we'll sort something out.

I still intend to go back and do it properly, I think the stack was at a bit of an angle last time.

The black ALPS switches don't click to start with (well, they do clatter a bit on the board but there's no specific "click" in the action):  However, I always test the keyboard after opening it up and yes, the key switches do all still work.

As for the F2 key- yeah, the slider will hold a key just fine as long as you're not going to use a hammer to press keys with and I'm pretty sure the switch inside still works, so shoving a different cap on there would work fine if you can get hold of one.  Unfortunately I don't think I have any other black ALPS-compatible keys lying around, or I'd try to sort something out from this end.  I can have another look in our broken bits bin to check for you if you'd like.

Other than that, ALPS switches- well, the complicated ones at least- are actually quite easy to pull apart and put back together as long as you've got a pair of good small flathead screwdrivers or Stanley knives and a strong magnet or a bit of Vaseline/silicon grease/switch lubricant/other applicable gubbins.  It's the "simplified" ones that are a real bugger to get back together.  The sliders are interchangeable, you can use one from any of the other keys on the board if that's a worry.  I can do it myself if you really want it done on that board, but I boxed it up after testing so I could get an estimate for shipping cost, and I'd rather not cut it all open again if I can avoid it

OK, OK, so that's just me being lazy.  I can do that if you'd like, and I can rummage through our broken boards bin for ALPS-compatible keys, but there'll be no guarantees on that front.

I can do it if you want, it's not that much of a hassle- I was mostly just being lazy

We haven't got any Model Ms at the moment I'm afraid.  If we did, I would have mentioned them by now!

I will definitely keep my eye out though.

I may have found something... interesting.

I trawled through some of our stock today- about 600 keyboards in big pallet-sized bins- and I came across about twenty Viglen keyboards in varying states of repair with ACER clicky ALPS-a-likes in them.  Some of them are quite nice, but that's not the interesting thing I found.

I came across three or four keyboards on which the only branding was "Mechanical Touch" and a note that said they were made in Germany.  I took a keycap off and they were buckling springs or something very like it.  That's not the interesting thing I found though.

There were two ACER boards with ALPS-a-likes on them, and a couple more Dell AT102Ws.  Those obviously aren't the interesting things.

The interesting thing I found was an IBM board, built in 1993 and still in extremely good condition.  It's Model M layout, 102 keys on a compact board and after lifting a key it looks like it's almost certainly a buckling spring board.  The big number on the back is 1395706, made in the UK and with UK layout.

Can any of you guys give me any more info on it?  I can get a pic up later this afternoon.

I don't know ... I tried an ALPS-a-like from standing up (i.e. applying more force than when seated) and I couldn't tell it from complicated blue ALPS.

Are these 102 or 105 key?

The Viglen boards are 105s in Model M layout, one of the ACER boards is a 102 and the other is a 105.  The M2 (I think that's what it is, haven't tested it yet to see if it works) is a 102 and the "mechanical touch" boards are 105s (and they sound OK for a cheap clone).

The VIglen boards:
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Some of these are in very good condition, others are quite yellowed and two or three have a text string burned into them from their previous owner.

The ACER boards use very similar switches, except with white sliders.  They're all clicky switches, though.

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These are the ACER boards.

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This is the Mechanical Touch board.

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This is the IBM board.  As I say, I haven't tested it yet to see if it works, but its physical condition is excellent.  Pretty much no yellowing or physical damage at all.

I'm thinking that the "Mechanical Touch" boards are sold under the brand name, "Made in Germany".

Quite a lot of Chinese goods are sold under a "Germany" brand...

I've just tested the M2 and it definitely still works.  The Nan Tan is going to be for sale as soon as I have some idea how much it's actually worth.  The "Mechanical Touch" boards are pretty cheaply made but still have (what I think is a) fairly nice action to them, those will probably go for a "Charitable Donation" plus P&P if anyone wants them, and I'm not sure on the value of the ACER ALPS-compatible boards yet.  Most of them use ACER switches with black sliders, but one does have white sliders.  Don't know if that makes any difference.

I'm not sure the "ACER White" switches that there is an open request for details on in there are the same as the ones in this board.

In any case, further details on my latest round of discoveries.

First up is this Cherry 4400 series ultraslim board with built-in trackball:  The switches are obviously the ultraslim range, black in this case with nonetheless quite a good feel to them, though they are non-clicky.  Quite quiet as far as mech boards go, extremely slim and compact, ideal for use in a server room or where you're expecting to deal with large numbers of machines in quick succession, like when you're installing Windows on about thirty machines at once.  We might actually keep this to use here, since we do that sort of thing, but it won't hurt to find out how interested people are likely to be:

[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 25462[/ATTACH] [ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 25463[/ATTACH]

Second I have more detail on the ACER boards.  The older, 102-key ACER-branded board has white sliders in the switches:

[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 25465[/ATTACH]

Note that these are very similar to ALPS White switches, and don't look much like the ones for which peak activation force measurements are requested on the wiki.

The Viglen boards and the newer ACER-branded board (which are all 105-key) have black sliders in the switches but are still definitely clicky switches:
[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 25464[/ATTACH]

One other thing I've found is a pretty crappy board (the feel of it is horrible) that does nonetheless have doubleshot keycaps:  The board itself is probably rubbish, but the keycaps don't look horrendously difficult to modify and are in decent condition.  No idea if anyone would be interested in donating a couple of quid to charity for these but it might be worth a try:

[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 25466[/ATTACH]

The last thing in this round of discoveries is a pair of black AT102Ws.  Nothing particularly exciting, but there was sufficient interest in the damaged black board that I figure a complete one might be worth showing to people:
[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 25467[/ATTACH]

So, what's the verdict?  Is any of this worth anything?  And if so, how much?  Inquiring minds wish to know!  Also to raise money for charity!  And how much is that M2 board worth?  It is, as I said, in full working order and almost new condition!

Well, the feel of them is pretty much identical, but the request on the wiki has this picture under it:
http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=21073