Found a cheap brown cherry keyboard in the UK :-)

[Eclairz]

Finally found a cheap brown cherry keyboard dirt cheap compared to the japanese new alternatives

http://sandy55.fc2web.com/keyboard/mx11800.html

This is exactly the same keyboard, and i got the keyboard for £15 used (~$30). The tactile feeling is not as great as the blue stems, but it does have alot more tactility than my steel series 6g and less resistant. Its a semi-compact keyboard in that it isn't as long as normal full sized keyboards but its wider making it much more bag-able. Not sure whether I will replace the g84-4100 for travel use as its still fairly big.

The ebayer didn't know if it was brown stem and I was taking a gamble it was a brown stem. Other things though is that due to use, it has some wear marks, and also its in the dread US layout. Haven't typed on it yet though

Don't know whether it will replace my blue stem either, but now I can confirm I own the black (MX +ML), blue and brown stem cherry switch based keyboard

Now the rest is capacitor (topre/hhkb), buckling spring and alps i will eventually get some time down the line.

edit : as per the site above i can confirm the space bar has a different coloured grey stem, it feels more heavier than a blue stem, similar to a green stem cherry, but without the sound. Not sure why, but i prefer the tactility of the switch over the brown stem, but it is much more difficult to press down. I'm guessing spacebar keys have alot more pressure

[lowpoly]

Damn you, I had that on my watch list too.

j/k

I couldn't make up my mind. Then I saw you got it.

The description of the board was really nice ("no food and drinks were allowed in the server room" etc).

So congrats and let us know how you like it in the long term, esp. if the trackball can fully replace your current pointing device.

[Eclairz]

There is a horrid deep etched mark on the front of the board though, Server tray? But I was taking a risk as I wasn't sure it was a brown stem but it was fairly cheap. It does  use ps/2 so I will have to use an adapter on it, and these adapter sometimes become buggy which is the worst thing. Since i mainly use laptop I am forced to use usb. I think it will be my work keyboard, its quiet enough to type with in the company of colleagues. Yes tactile enough that I can type a bit faster without bottoming out. But I prefer blue cherrys due to additional clicks.

Not too sure about the trackball however, I haven't used trackballs for 15 years now, so might get me back into the scene. Also no windows key so it makes it difficult to control my macbook os x. But a healthy sized ctrl and alt keys like in the old days haha

[Ulysses31]

Do you think this would have the same switches as the G80-11900?  The only difference is that that model has a trackpad instead of a trackball.  The codes at the end of these current models are LPM, LTM and LUM.

[xyzzy]

Do you think this would have the same switches as the G80-11900?  The only difference is that that model has a trackpad instead of a trackball.  The codes at the end of these current models are LPM, LTM and LUM.

Cherry G80-11900 normally have black linear switches (I've got one, and replaced the blacks with browns manually).

[Eclairz]

The data on the label reads as
model MX 11800
type no : g80-11801LPAUS/12
200mA

Codes the first letter L = Laser printed keys, and last two US = US layout, PA in this case is brown stem?

So if you go by g80-3000 PC is black and SC is blue and QC is brown
But thinking more deeply on this maybe the 2nd letter of this switch code stands for the version number of a switch, So C is the third generation switch whereas A is a first generation brown switch? who knows

I am tempted to move the brown stem to an even more compact layout like g80-1800 or get a hack saw and build a HHKB style board layout, it is small just not small enough. But that will probably wait, my skills at crafts are bad anyway.

After playing with it more there is a reasonable resemblance to the g84-4100 (ML) keys in tactile feel.

Compared to my newish G80-3000 there is a clear yellowing of plastics. So moving the springs and plastics maybe the best option in long term.

[IBI]

There's a cheap Cherry MX ACCURATUS keyboard on ebay UK for the next couple of days, it's unclear whether it's blue or brown switches but it's fullsized, black and USB, and a fiver delivered at the moment.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BLACK-USB-KEYBOARD-WITH-SWIPE-SLIGHT-DAMAGE_W0QQitemZ120279121872QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item120279121872&_trkparms=39%3A1%7C65%3A10&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14