See now that's an unpopular keyboard opinion that I think is secretly held by a lot of people. You always see things like "oh of course the Model M is a great keyboard, but look at these Alps." Or "Well it's nothing compared to the Model M, but anyway, these Gateron Yellows..." it's like people think they need to say something in acknowledgement of the greatness of the Model M but don't believe in it.
You may be right about that. It may even partly be people who either haven't spent a lot of time with the Model M, or have never even felt one, so they're just parroting generalizations, like most of us do with beam spring. How many have ever even seen a beam spring? I haven't. Maybe I never will. We all consider them the apex of clicky switches though, because that's the general consensus.
Personally, I would take those Gateron yellows over a Model M, and I'm not really a huge fan of linears. I can't wrap my head around how I see such a huge difference between Models F and M and nobody else seems to. Maybe I need to force myself to type on one for a week or two. I would not look forward to it.
I do believe in it, I have around 2 dozen Models M from 1986 through 2020, but It's really like just a great utility player in baseball. My default when people ask me about keyboards is "buy a Model M." If they are Apple losers it's "Buy a Matias." Here, I usually tell people to buy a $30 Amazon **** board since if they're interested enough in keyboards they're going to want to try out a bunch of stuff, but in real life, Models M are just like A- boards in everything, and that's why they're so good.
When it comes to typing, I would prefer a random $30 Amazon board with some Outemu blues to an M, myself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Like, for us, we both love our Matias Tactile Pros, right? I'd literally only ever suggest one to a Mac user or a keyboard enthusiast who wants a new keyboard. The chatter issues, the weird design, the flex (whatever the plastic is), the lasered keycaps that don't matter, the potential dirt sensitivity of Alps switches, and the price mean that while I use it as much or more than any other single keyboard, it's not something I'll tell someone to get.
I do wonder if chatter is even a problem with at least the most modern Matias clickies. That second Mini Tactile Pro I found didn't have a single switch that seemed to chatter yet in my testing, and that board had apparently been in daily use for 6 months. I do imagine they've got the same dust/dirt susceptibility as Alps though, unfortunately. I actually quite like the design myself, and the mini variants don't seem to me to really have any noticeable flex. Certainly less than most boards. Only more than something like a TG3 when it comes to plastic cases, and those have pretty thick aluminum plates on the bottom. That dye I was ordering came in by the way. They may be thin lasered caps, but I'm going to try to at least try to make them look less Apple-esque. I do agree on not recommending it to people. People seem to love or hate Matias, and I can't say I liked the feel of a loose "quiet click" switch. The linears and clickies are nice, but I don't have enough time using either to say for sure they won't develop chatter, like how I'll actually defend a K65 or K70 quality-wise.
A Model M is $50 used or $90 from Unicomp, which is a lot of money, but being under a hundred really is a good psychological factor, plus the keys are bulletproof, and the feel is one of the best in keyboards, IMO, and not that much worse than Models F.
There's no question that the Model M, in all guises, offers a good value so long as you get in at under $100-150.
But, for us enthusiasts, we are trying to find something in particular somehow. Like we really want a linear switch or something heavy, or something super light, or something small, or something with feature X, and we just can't take the fact that the Model M has essentially no standout feature, other than being very good, but not excellent, at everything.
I just don't like the feel, plain and simple. The plastic rivets and buried hex screws annoy me, but they're not a deal breaker. The look is not particularly appealing to me, but not a major negative either. The layout, besides the lack of a Windows key, is perfect. That's actually a stand-out fantastic thing about the M that it leaves most 80s vintage boards in the dust on. I'm willing to compromise, to an extent, on layout for the switches I want though.
I think it might be our inability to settle that is keeping us on this keyboard train for ages. Like, at some point, we just have to be like "okay, this keyboard looks dumb as **** and has thin keycaps and is a Mac layout" or "this thing's perfect but I want to wear earplugs and shoot whoever invented stepped keycaps," or "great layout but too big and it's a little bit too heavy," "but it's basically perfect in the other ways so I'm going to deal with it."
Maybe that's a problem for some, indecision. I think a bigger consideration is curiosity. I want to feel switches that I'm fairly certain I won't even end up preferring, so long as they're accessible and still considered highly-regarded. I want to see every angle, see the pros and cons, etc. That's most of the reason I got a Matias and Topre board. With the Matias, I was just pleasantly surprised to the contrary. I went in fully expecting to be disappointed, and I was not.
You're right on the compromises we make though, especially with vintage boards. The perfect combination just doesn't always exist. I think the F77 and/or F107 are pretty well perfect for my uses, and there are ANSI layout Alps boards, but that's not all universal either, based on what people value.
I love the sound of the F XT. I know, I'm strange. The heavier the better, if you ask me. The only time I would say otherwise is if I wanted to lug the thing around every day.
Like, I mean, I used the Model F XT for a while, right? I was cool with it. But then, I had to update the Model M subreddit wiki with dates and part numbers and crap, and Reddit's table layout creation is entirely text based. As in, this is what it looks like when you're editing it.
UT40U4A | Unicomp | 2020-04-16 | Funkmon | Unicomp New Model M 104 key | https://imgur.com/a/YKr4lOG
1398601 | Lexmark | 1992-12-04 | Funkmon | Lexmark Branded 101 key | https://imgur.com/a/U6K4Hg8
1390572 | IBM | 1986-04-16 | Funkmon | Square badge 122 key | https://imgur.com/a/1Vporrg
1395665 | IBM | 1997-10-09 | Funkmon | Grey oval 102 key terminal, may have been serviced | https://i.imgur.com/dYOoZd2.png
52G9700 | Lexmark | 1993-09-28 | Funkmon | Blue oval 101 key transplanted to industrial case and repaired by Unicomp 2020-05-18 | https://i.imgur.com/JqiSjOo.jpg
1395660 | IBM UK | 1999-11-17 | Funkmon | Blue oval 122 key | https://imgur.com/a/5y8hVT5
CP40K16 | Unicomp | 2012-08-15 | Funkmon | Unicomp Black 101 key with credit card reader | https://i.imgur.com/YoyiAEB.jpg
Because of formatting issues, I had to flip between the number pad and the navigation cluster with enough frequency I said **** it and pulled the Matias back out.
I never use the number pad, so I never thought of that. I always just used that part of the board for navigation, and nothing else. I could certainly see where not having a separate nav cluster could be irritating for people who use the number pad.
This attitude of ours is a problem.
Our proclivities for weird old stuff, or?
the Model M has essentially no standout feature, other than being very good, but not excellent, at everything.
I kinda mostly agree with your essay, but the fact that you are saying this about a 34-year-old keyboard is amazing in light of what has happened in every other area of computing.
Climbing into the time machine back to those heady days, arguably the biggest impact that the Model M had on the keyboard world was that it standardized the "modern" layout!
And then there is the fact that the Model M is was introduced as an extreme cheapening and downgrade in quality from the Model F(s) in all their weird breeds ....
Yes, the Model M holds an important place in history, that cannot be understated.
