What kind of switches are these?

[xsphat]

I took out my oldest Apple keyboard and was clicking on it and I noticed the key feel wasn't quite right. I took off a couple keycaps and this is what I found:



It looks a bit like an Alps switch, but the slider is wrong and there is no logo on it. The switches feel like a cross between the Cherry ML blacks and the Alps blacks, they click but lack the spring sound of my keyboards with Alps black and orange sliders. They also feel as stiff as the Cherry MX black sliders.

Here are a few more pics to look at, and lit me know if you have any clue what these are. I think they are some sort of Alps knock-offs.

[xsphat]

Here is a pic of an Alps switch for reference:



This is from my SMK 85 as we all can see. I went to snap a pic of the orange sliders which were made one year later than the Apple Desktop Bus above, and I noticed they look nearly identical to the ones in the SMK, but they do not have the Alps logo on the top.

These are the orange sliders that came in another of my three Apple Desktop Bus Keyboards. These feel a little lighter to the touch than the blacks I am typing on right now, and they are not quite as noisey. They do click, but it isn't very profound anymore. 20 years of use will do that though.





This keyboard is pretty dirty. I didn't clean it up yet since this is the one with the dead switch under the F key. If I end up fixing it, then I'll clean it up, but for now I just use it as a reference. The Alps blacks are better than the oranges.

[fkeidjn]

If there's a label on the back of the keyboard, then that could give some more information that could lead to the kind of keyswitches it uses.

[xsphat]

It's an Apple branded keyboard and even back then, Apple wouldn't lower themselves to promote anyone else, but thanks for the input.

[fkeidjn]

But is there a label that you'd be willing to take a picture of and post?  I've used a keyboard like that before, back when I was in 1st/2nd grade in elementary school (too young to remember what the type feel was like though).

[xsphat]

This is the one with orange switches:



Here is the one with the white whatchamawho'sits:

[fkeidjn]

So far, I found this Korean site, although I can't read Korean.  But from the page, the keyswitches are likely Mitsumi mechanical keyswitches.

[xsphat]

I don't think their new keyboards are anything special though ...

http://tech.yahoo.com/pr/mitsumi-keyboard/1990808413

[fkeidjn]

Rubber domes.  I'm not even sure if Mitsumi has produced their own mechanical switches during the old IBM and Alps age.