This is a boring post that you’ll probably wish you hadn’t read, and the Alps connection won’t be obvious at first, nor even particularly interesting when it arrives.
A few months ago, my non-RGB Corsair K95 failed after about 2 years use (something went wrong in the electronics, and the board began to go off on auto-typing sprees that I could only stop by unplugging it). Since I actually liked the board and its o-ringed Cherry red switches, I went on eBay and bought another one. The new one lasted about 6 weeks before the 9 ( key in the number row flat-out stopped working. It was only one key, and I could still get a 9 from the numpad, but I figured a board that can’t produce a left parenthesis wasn’t going to work. I wouldn’t know how to use a soldering iron if I owned one so repairing it myself was not an option. Corsair wouldn’t honor the warranty because, they said, the seller wasn’t authorized, but the eBay seller did the honorable thing and took the board back. Now that I’m twice-bitten, I won’t be getting another Corsair board.
So last night I was happily typing away on my fairly ancient but beloved Omnikey Ultra (pine white Alps) when I suddenly found that the ;: key would produce a colon, with or without shift engaged, but no way to get a semi-colon. Every other key seemed to be working except that one. Well, a 25-year-old board is probably out of warranty, particularly when the manufacturer is out of business. Could this be the end of a long relationship? I plugged in another keyboard (Plum 84), which generously poured out semi-colons. Things were looking bleak, but finally I tried the obvious -- unseated and reseated the multi-cable usb which is the most obvious point of failure for the Omnikey. Praised be the God of mechanical keyboards – the semicolon was back and all is well. Until the next glitch.
