Behold my new Fokus FK-555

[Philister]

Wellllll, actually you won't be able to really behold it before tomorrow or maybe Thursday when I will post better pictures (these are still from the auction). Suffice it to say, it is in mint condition, hardly any yellowing at all. I have been hunting for a blue Alps board for the better part of a year now, acquiring around four white Alps boards and a yellow Mitsumi in the process (damn sellers refusing to pop keycaps...).

Finally, I found this up for auction on German eBay. Wrote to the seller asking what his 'buy now' price was before anyone placed a bid and he put it up for 10€!! I was somewhat confused whether this was actually an FK-555 as there was no clear written indication on the board and as there are some other boards with similar cases but Num Lock being the center LED as well as the blue and green legends on Ctrl / Alt convinced me to try my luck, of which it now seems I had plenty.

So far, I'm not really sold on these blue Alps being dramatically superior to the whites or blacks I've tried. They are very, very clicky to be sure! I guess I'll need more time to get into them.

Here is the strange thing: When I connect the board via PS/2 with a DIN to PS/2 connector, it has such a high key repeat rate or something that I get repeat characters in just about every word I type. When I tried Soarer's XT/AT adapter, that problem went  away but the numpad and some other non-alpha keys sent the wrong codes. The only way I can use it is with a regular, cheap PS/2 to USB adapter, which is fine, of course. Has anyone else come across this key-repeat problem, perhaps with other boards.

Anyway, I'm a very happy little pig right now, typing away on this monster of a keyboard (almost as massive as my Model F)...

By the way, does anyone agree that black DIN cables are probably the most reliable easy-to-spot indicator that a vintage keyboard is worth having?

[chyros]

Heh, a Focus FK-555 with a serial number starting with 555. Coincidence?

Anyway, congratulations mate . They are good-looking boards, and the layout is very nice IMO.

[klennkellon]

Heh, a Focus FK-555 with a serial number starting with 555. Coincidence?

Anyway, congratulations mate . They are good-looking boards, and the layout is very nice IMO.

Focus Layout is good, but I prefer when they put the slash key in the gaps on the bottom row instead of the shift right split.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I read somewhere (here maybe) that Alps switches are conditional on humidity, and I have noticed that the feel of the switches seems to change from one day to the next, in terms of how stiff they are to press. It's all a bit odd.

As for your switches, the only way to be certain is to try multiple keyboards with each Alps type: your blue Alps could be dirty or worn out.

Under optimal circumstances, blue Alps is superior to white Alps: both Jacob#1 and SPARC have produced force graphs that show the difference. I got lucky; I have blue Alps in superb condition. I also have white Alps in both good and bad condition.

At the moment we don't have any well-defined terminology or schema for defining force curve shapes; once more of Jacob's force graphs are available it should be possible to devise a way to broadly describe and classify switch feel and clearly and unambiguously express the difference between blue and white Alps.

[Philister]

I hadn't even noticed the omen in the form of the serial number. Going by Sandy55's pictures (his all start with 8...), it does seem an extreme coincidence!  )

Judging by the generally excellent state of the keyboard, the switches should be more or less the way they were intended. Will compare further by switching back and forth between white and blue Alps one of these days.

My white Alps boards are: 2x Fokus Fk-2002, Datacomp DFK192 and Monterey K104. Which would you say has the best build quality and is it likely there are any differences between the white swtiches used?

[Daniel Beardsmore]

It's definitely not mint condition. My DFK-192 was spotlessly clean when I got it, but the switches are in a terrible state, barely usable as they bind so badly.

However, I assume that you're seeing very little if any keycap wear?

DFK-192 is the only type from your list that I have and it's a bit ropey. I'm not aware of any differences betweens switches of the same generation though, and it depends on the age of each of your keyboards. Even then, I don't recall anyone saying what exactly is worse about the later ("bamboo") Alps switches.

[klennkellon]

It's definitely not mint condition. My DFK-192 was spotlessly clean when I got it, but the switches are in a terrible state, barely usable as they bind so badly.

However, I assume that you're seeing very little if any keycap wear?

DFK-192 is the only type from your list that I have and it's a bit ropey. I'm not aware of any differences betweens switches of the same generation though, and it depends on the age of each of your keyboards. Even then, I don't recall anyone saying what exactly is worse about the later ("bamboo") Alps switches.

From what I've seen the "bamboo" switches do not have slits like the "Pine" switches. I think the "slits" acted like a dampening system somewhat because the bamboo switches are clackier and rattlier sounding than pines.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I don't know if that's what the slits indicate, but it's the only possibility I've ever thought of. More strange, is why they were removed. It may be to remove a potential weakness in the plastic when removing keycaps.