geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: Gerk on Fri, 14 October 2011, 15:30:34
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After switching up my boards about every other day on a couple of my different setups I've finally decided to stick with something for a while on my main workstation ... it needed a bit of work, but after some tweaking up I'm just loving the feel of the switches on this.
It's the unbranded "mechanical keyboard" that I bought on ebay (link in my sig). It came with those fugly organ rubber wads and arrow keys (I'm not a gamer so that had no appeal to me). But what did appeal to me was the ALPS blue's in it. I'm falling in love with these switches ... the force required is just perfect for me, and while it still has the nice tactile click feedback it's pretty quiet -- much more quiet than my mx blue based boards (Leopold and Razer).
I'm still slowly trying to adapt to the Kinesis but it's going to take me a while. The biggest issue I find with Kinesis is to type accurately I have to hold my hands in a position that I'm just not used to holding them in. I think I'm just built a bit weird. I may end up adjusting to it, but I can't make it my main keyboard because I'm so freakin inaccurate on it right now. I think part of it is also adjust to the matrix layout as opposed to the staggered that I've used since the vic20 came out ;)
I'm also seriously considering making some time to do some mod work ... transplanting some cherry mx blue's into an MS ergo4k frame. Maybe a winter project. I, like Lanx, do really like the "feel" of that split board in terms of the angle and where everything is.
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what keycaps did you swap on there?
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They are from my Matias Tactile Pro 3.
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Hm, I've already seen this board on ebay, but I thought the switches would be some cheap ALPS fakes. When these are REAL ALPS, I might just buy one of them, even though the Bigass Enter might get in conflict with my Germany keylayout.
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Hm, I've already seen this board on ebay, but I thought the switches would be some cheap ALPS fakes. When these are REAL ALPS, I might just buy one of them, even though the Bigass Enter might get in conflict with my Germany keylayout.
But if all you've tried is the cherries in your sig, I don't really see why them being some simplified variant would be that big of a deal (certainly better than cherry clones). Since even if you liked them it's not like you'd have used the complicated variants to miss the real mccoy anyway.
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Well, I have always been confused by the ALPS switches, and I believed the simplified switches would be original ALPS. But after reading the ALPS wiki again, I realized they are all clones. Well, I might think about buying one of them one day, but at first I would need more money.
Somehow the ALPS Wiki isn't too good to learn much about these switches.
btw False_Dmitry_II: I tried more than only these two boards. I still wouldn't consider myself experienced for sure, but I know more than only MX Blacks and MLs. But I never tried ALPS switches yet, and as I said above, I thought simplified ALPS would be produced by ALPS too, and was a little bit confused about these now.
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I know about my English, many of my wordings sound strange to me too, but often I can't think of any way to paraphrase them. When I concentrate on it, I'm capable of writing in understandable English too, but sometimes I just write what I think. (And believe me, often my thoughts are much more discombobulated than my wordings...)
Nevermind. I'm here to learn, but sometimes the information on ALPS switches I read gives me the feeling that even the Cherry numbering is more straightforward. At least now I realized, that the description "ALPS" does not always refer to the company, but also to the layout of the switches, and that only the complicated ones have been manufactured by the company "ALPS".
And ripster, I never accused you, it's the topic, not the wiki or your posts which keep on confusing me.
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Based on the 4 feet on these switches and the fact they are made by APC, I would assume this makes them type 2? I like my complicated blues (real blues) much better than every other type of ALPS, and I have tried all the complicateds. They feel softer than whites (whether this is due to wear/tear I don't know but the spring is definately of different metal and less coils). I have a lot of boards to give you ripometer data on, try to get it done this weekend.
It's the F21-7d Mechanical Keyboard if you want to get technical.
I still need someone to take apart the switch sometime and confirm if it's Simplified Blue ALPS Type IV or Type II sometime. If it's Type IV we may have a potential ALPS WINNAH on our hands.
By the way, I heard someone say they tried to edit the ALPS wiki and people kept changing the info back, are the good wiki's off limits? Because I kinda want to add some stuff.
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Damn, I'm gonna pick one of these up next payday.
the later ALPS switches which actuate at the top of teh keystroke (XM, Fukka, Strongman?) are fabulous. It's so easy to not bottom out, all they require is a little tap. Not great for gaming, but top tier for typing.
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btw False_Dmitry_II: I tried more than only these two boards. I still wouldn't consider myself experienced for sure, but I know more than only MX Blacks and MLs. But I never tried ALPS switches yet, and as I said above, I thought simplified ALPS would be produced by ALPS too, and was a little bit confused about these now.
Ah. When people just say 'ALPS' with no qualifiers it means any of the kinds that are close enough to fit. This is typically complicateds and all simplifieds. Doesn't matter if it was ever made by alps themselves or not (indeed, the wiki has them organized this way). Montereys are an example of something similar but too far away to be included when someone says alps. Like I said, if you haven't used any the simplifieds are fine.