I've mentioned this before somewhere here but I'm not sure where. Topre made some OEM versions of the MD01B0 that I have been unable to find any reference to other than a layout image on the
Happy Hacking Keyboard collection site where the layout looked like this:
This is supposed to be a sun type 5 layout attributed to CTC. What is interesting also is this board is supposed to be lighter than the MD01BO as well which is really my only complaint about it. After doing some digging on CTC I find this:
But as you can see it is a Japanese layout and not a US style layout like the layout from the HHKB site shows. But it is a Topre you can tell just by looking at it. Just compare to the image of my MD01B0:
Now take a look at this board I just snaged on Yahoo Japan:
As you can see this is a SUN layout check where the CTRL key is at and the Back space key. The only real issue with this board is the cursor key cluster in the left corner which destroyed the shift key location. But I have worked out a workable solution for that on my MD01B0 so that should work on this one as well.
Now check the label out same form and layout as on my MD01B0 and the HE0100 as well.
So what we have here is a rare Topre OEM board that was badly listed on Yahoo Japan or I would have had to pay considerably more for this board than I did. Now I just really hope this board does in fact have lighter keys on it than the MD01B0 if it does I'm going to be beside my self with joy.
What is really cool is that even though this board has a really yellowed case I should be able to replace it very easily if I want with either the HE0100 case or the MD01B0 case because from the picture the case looks to be exactly the same.
Now my problem. With the prices of getting stuff out of Japan (shipping) I tend to try to get more stuff and have it all shipped together so what do I get now? There are quite a few Realforce boards on Yahoo Japan right now so I may be getting another Japanese layout board to experiment with. Or maybe I will pick up this guy:
The only problem is it is a little expensive because it comes with that switch you see in the background.