Hey guys,
Well, I did end up getting that NIB one (or rather NDB, New in a Different Box), as the seller accepted my rather lowball offer. At that price I figured it was worthwhile as a collector's item, regardless of how much I liked it as a board. But it turns out to be a very nice board, too.
This one was indeed in pristine condition. The seller went to a lot of trouble to pack it in the form-fitting, foam-lined box you see in the photos. Man, is it cute! (I'm
not appreciably closer to my mouse though, LOL.)
Any idea whether the caps are of good quality? From the looks of it, it looks like making them mx-compatible would not be to difficult if you make a 3d-printable adapter.
The caps (or
buttons, since they're one-piece—that's what IBM would've called them) are thick textured PBT, like new vintage Model M caps. Rather than stems, they have a single blade that fits the vertical slot of the slider's inverted cross. It seems to me you'd have no trouble adapting the sliders to MX.
I'm typing on the board now, using the 270-degree DIN Soarer's Adapter I got for my Model F-122. It's definitely up to IBM's standards at the time. I've never tried an RD Model M, so I can't make that comparison. However, the touch is firm and clean, with a relatively short travel and nice tactility. And because it's built much more solidly than your average RD board, it's
really quiet. With a light touch, you can use it nearly silently. (I'm sure some people appreciated the contrast with BS boards back then!)
It also has an impressive full-length, two-position riser, which you can see in the middle photo I posted. It folds out and clicks into place as a single unit; then if you want it half-high, you fold the outer section back into the board—a clever bit of engineering. Each riser section has two long rubber feet, like those at the front and rear.
I first saw one of these under "104-key Model F Keyboards" on
DT's IBM Model F page:
The accompanying text says (my emphasis):
The 104-key Model F was a less common variant of the 122-key terminal keyboard which lacked a numeric keypad... IBM later offered a rubber dome 104-key keyboard (part numbers 73X38xx) for some of their terminals...
It wasn't clear what the author meant by "later". 6 months? 5 years? As a GH member theorized in
this other thread on 73X3832s:
I think that's actually a Model F. Those were (i believe) the rubber dome Model F's you asked me about earlier.
So I thought that if I ever found one, it might actually be an F, with a metal case. But no, it's a "Model 00". So I guess it's in the DT article to show how the design was carried over. (Shouldn't there be an M-122 with the F-122s then? Go figure.)
I'm quite interested to know when this board was made. The label has a date
code, though, like this (grimier) example:
(Sorry I haven't had time to take photos of my own.) Mine says
8727—does anyone know what that translates to? 1987-something, maybe? If so, I can't believe anything made back then could be so bright and shiny.
The only thing I don't like is that, unless you remap it, there's no Esc key. So you can't press Ctrl+Esc for the Start Menu; you must actually remove your hand from the KB and
use the mouse. However, this inconvenience is offset by getting to pretend there's a real Unsaver on your desk. :?)
