Where can I find keyboards with complicated Alps? I've heard about the Alps, but I don't really know where to start to look for one to use. I guess I have to find a vintage board, but are there any that can be used with modern computers? I have just been focusing on keyboards and switches that are still produced, but I have a feeling that the best vintage switches are at least as good as, if not better than contemporary switches for typing.
I also like the concept of leaf spring switches, but I have no idea about how to get a usable keyboard with this type.
SKCM white Alps boards are not uncommon on Ebay and generally sell for $70-100. Generally, if a board doesn't have Windows keys, and it has Alps switches, they should be a complicated variant. This is by no means guaranteed though. SKCM blues ceased production in 1989, and are highly coveted, so finding any of those (even in terrible shape) for a reasonable price is not easy. Certain boards are guaranteed to contain them, most of them are not. The Leading Edge DC-2014 is an example of one that's never been found without SKCM blue Alps.
There are a few things you could consider to be leaf spring switches. Even Cherry MX blue has a leaf spring. Fujtitsu leaf springs are probably the most well-known. There are switches that contain both coil and leaf springs, including Alps switches and clones. The Deskthority wiki is your friend in finding information about vintage switches. Chyrosran22 has a lot of great videos on vintage switches as well.
One of the reasons I haven't really started to dive into the Alps, is that I got the impression that they were hard to come by, especially the highly praised complicated ones. Maybe I just need to be armed with some knowledge about where to look to find good bargains...
You're of course right, most contact based switches use some form of leaf spring for the electrical contact point. It was the Fujitsu type I was thinking about, without a coil spring. I've watched a few of Chyrosan22's videos already, they certainly contain quality content.
Knowledge and luck are a must to not pay an arm and a leg. I just took a chance on 240 blue Alps switches from somewhere in Asia. They came in and every single one of them is scratchy, totally useless without trying to clean and re-lubricate them all.
Here's a list of some boards that are known to have been spotted with SKCM blue switches.
I have seen some of those Fujitsu boards around, but I have never pulled the proverbial trigger. Chyroosran22 goes by chyros around here and on Deskthority. He's fairly active and approachable.
Anything made today that contains Matias switches is compatible with complicated Alps switches, but I personally don't like the idea of harvesting them out of perfectly good keyboards. There are, unfortunately, not many Alps compatible boards or caps made today ... so custom plates and PCBs may be the best option in a lot of cases. LFK was making some great Alps PCBs, cases, and plates, but they seem to have vanished. KBParadise was selling kits without switches, but they're sold out and may never stock them again.
I think Matias' clicky switches are better than most SKCM white switches. The very earliest SKCM whites are practically just as nice as blues, but they could vary a lot in my experience, especially as time went on. They made the whites in various factories.
I don't think that there's a single modern clicky switch that is better than vintage clickies. For linears, I imagine the optical switches must hold their own against vintage switches. Box thick clicks and Matias switches come very close though. I have not yet encountered any tactiles I would take over Alps or a derivative, but because of how little I like every MX tactile I have tried, I haven't put a lot of effort into trying more of them.
Interesting. If I have understood correctly, the third letter (C/B) signifies whether it is a complicated (C) or simplified (B) switch? And the fourth, whether it is a linear (L) or a tactile/clicky (M)? In addition there are the stem colors.
You are correct. Blue and white are clickies. Other stem colors can vary as we start getting into simplified Alps and clones.
For a newbie like me without much knowledge about the Alps generations and how to spot the differences, would you recommend Matias switches, as they probably will be better than white Alps I find? I assume that there are more of the later whites available than the earlier ones, so if I buy a randomly chosen white switch, the probability of ending up with a later generation is higher than the earlier gen.
Matias switches are cheap and abundantly available. Their clickies aren't as nice as the very best of the best of SKCM whites, but unless they're very early you're kind of playing the lottery there anyway, even if they're all in perfect shape. If I have not yet mentioned it, there were concerns with quality control in regard to key chatter with Matias switches in the past. I believe, but cannot say for sure, that most (if not all) of this can be attributed to two likely sources:
1) The switches manufactured for Matias by Forward. These switches have black housings, like the original Alps switches. I own one of these boards, and it is the only one in which I have been able to experience chatter (outside of the brand new one I had, but this went away on its own within the first week).
2) Lax quality control/care in assembly of these switches in regard to contact leg alignment prior to soldering, which lead to such official troubleshooting suggestions as pressing business cards against the problem switch housings in an attempt to realign everything, and/or resoldering the switches yourself. It seemed, in my looking back through old threads, that this was more common in the old KBParadise-manufactured boards that contained Matias switches, and custom builds utilizing them.
I own roughly 9 or 10 boards that contain Matias switches now and all of the boards that contain Gaote-manufactured switches (the newer ones with clear housings) have worked perfectly for me besides the aforementioned chatter problems that went away within the first week of the one Matias-branded board I purchased new.
Take all of that as you will. Alps/Matias is not for everyone, given the extremely limited market demand, and thus their extremely limited customization options ... which is itself a cyclical problem. If we could rehabilitate Matias' name, there would be greater interest in caps, boards, plates, etc, which would drive more development and supply of such things, which could lead to more people taking the idea of recreating complicated Alps more seriously.
I sort of think the same way about Unicomp. I'm not a huge fan of membrane buckling spring to begin with, and I read that even their best modern attempts may not be quite as good as the earliest of IBM Model Ms, but they're a company that's at least trying to keep an otherwise dead switch type alive and are deserving of support.
The more I chat with you, the more I understand that I might have to get a new keyboard with Alps/Matias switches...
KBParadise are selling what they are touting as the "
V80 Alps 2021 Final Limit Edition". This may well be their last offering of Alps boards, being the only mass market Alps board with standard keycap compatibility (although Tai-Hao is basically the only name in the game of Alps caps, and pickings from even them are currently slim). They're also compatible with any aftermarket case that's compatible with boards such as the CM Storm QuickFire Rapid, like
these beefy monstrosities, if that interests you. I particularly like the layout, case, features, and mapping of Matias' own mini pro boards, but they don't offer any off-the-shelf clicky switches in any boards that don't have Mac layouts, colors, and caps anymore. I documented my findings on an easy way to at least change the layout to your liking with resistor swaps on the controller
in this thread.