My Realforce is 9 years old

[kaiserreich]

Damn. Look at how yellow it has gotten.
Took it out from storage for a denture tab cleaning.

Bought it back in 2011. The domes still feel pretty good.

[typo]

That is why I prefer the black ones. in any keycaps,frame.  It may not penetrate it that old. good luck!

[LightningXI]

Got that nice vintage look now

[kaiserreich]

That is why I prefer the black ones. in any keycaps,frame.  It may not penetrate it that old. good luck!

The lasered markings on my black HHKB is wearing off a bit

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[Maledicted]

Got that nice vintage look now

Yeah, I actually love that ancient yellowed look. I plan to never retrobrite any of my old boards.

[kaiserreich]

Now that I have been using it for the past day or so, the domes actually feel stiffer.
The 45g zone feels like 55g (I have no scientific way to measure it), and the spacebar is quite stiff due to the aging.

[sth]

Yellowed ABS > all

[Leslieann]

One from my recently retired Klaxon key caps.
7 years of heavy use, besides the gouges, the top surface has been worn down by about 2 sheets of paper.

My nails are short, this is just a lot of wear on what I suspect is soft ABS.

[typo]

Not lasered but dyesub. should never wear off.  come to think of it, ABS yellow yes. PBT, not so much. something wrong? Would report to Topre. Especially in storage. unless sitting under UV light? Strange. Leslie, that shows how soft ABS is but it is strong stuff. They make industrial machines out of it. It depends on a lot of properties of the formulation too. Those are cheap key caps above. Good ABS like GMK does not do that. Yours is not even shiny. Might in fact be cheap PBT right there.

I would like you to call Topre and get warranty. I bet they have no problem. that is not right.

[subcat]

Not lasered but dyesub. should never wear off.  come to think of it, ABS yellow yes. PBT, not so much. something wrong? Would report to Topre. Especially in storage. unless sitting under UV light? Strange. Leslie, that shows how soft ABS is but it is strong stuff. They make industrial machines out of it. It depends on a lot of properties of the formulation too. Those are cheap key caps above. Good ABS like GMK does not do that. Yours is not even shiny. Might in fact be cheap PBT right there.

I would like you to call Topre and get warranty. I bet they have no problem. that is not right.

the cases aren't pbt, only the keycaps. this is relatively normal

[ollir_]

The yellowing gives it some credibility - looks nice

[Sup]

Still got my HHKB Pro 1 2003 rocking. They just get better as they age

[kaiserreich]

Speaking of the yellow color, I get questions from my colleagues as to why am I using such an 'old' keyboard.
If only they knew

[ollir_]

Speaking of the yellow color, I get questions from my colleagues as to why am I using such an 'old' keyboard.
If only they knew

I have been asked the same about my white Realforce and it hasn't even yellowed noticeably.

[Maledicted]

Speaking of the yellow color, I get questions from my colleagues as to why am I using such an 'old' keyboard.
If only they knew

It isn't black, so it must be ancient. That's probably the assumption. I think it would be humorous to bring in one of the few black keyboards from the 1980s for a while and watch the comments cease.

[Riverman]

I got a couple of comments on how old my white Realforce looks, but when I typed some words for one of my coworkers, she said it had such a nice sound she could listen to me type on it all day.  Right now I've replaced it with a black Cherry G80-3000, which looks like one of those black keyboards out of the '80s, but I haven't gotten a single comment on that one yet.  By now my coworkers probably figure it's just another one of my odd keyboards.

[Maledicted]

I got a couple of comments on how old my white Realforce looks, but when I typed some words for one of my coworkers, she said it had such a nice sound she could listen to me type on it all day.  Right now I've replaced it with a black Cherry G80-3000, which looks like one of those black keyboards out of the '80s, but I haven't gotten a single comment on that one yet.  By now my coworkers probably figure it's just another one of my odd keyboards.

Probably. I work in IT, so it is fun to see the memories that are jogged in people's minds when they notice my old IBM keyboards. Plenty of conversations about 1980s technology have arisen from just having some weird old keyboard sitting on my desk.