Blue Alps, some pretty keycaps, and a wildcard keyboard by Canon.

[RoflCopter4]

I decided to take a quick look at eBay (despite knowing that I have not a penny to spend), and happened accross a few interesting items.

First up, what are clearly proper Blue Alps, though in a layout that seems to have been designed by an escaped mental patient, and I sort of doubt that connector will be easy to hook up to a modern PC. Still, the price isn't too bad for Blue Alps. Could be a donor board.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/261779693512

This next keyboard, which is branded by Pansonic for some reason, has some pretty looking keycaps. They seem like they could be Alps stemmed, but I honestly can't tell for sure. Anyone know anything about this? If those are PBT, I might need to smash open a piggy bank or two. I've been looking for some (non-Apple) Alps PBT keycaps for a while now to no avail.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/221689394195

This next one is a keyboard branded by Canon. I only list it here because it seems to be exactly identical to the Acer keyboard on which I'm currently typing with the exception of the different branding. This is noteworthy because the keyboard I'm typing is one of a very few keyboards with complicated Blue Alps in a totally standard, rectangular enter key layout. If that keyboard really is the same as mine then it might be very interesting to anyone, well, interested in owning Blue Alps. Then again, it might be different. Might be wise to ask the seller to pop of a key.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321553849617

I also found a few Acer 6310 series boards. I've heard that these have PBT caps. Can anyone verify this? if that's the case then I definitely might be interested in buying one of these, though these particular ones seem a bit overpriced.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/301531375122
http://www.ebay.com/itm/190886774830
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251781340122

I might as well also mention this next board. It's just boring Black Alps in a very poor layout, but the keycaps do look to be in fairly nice condition and it's not too expensive. I dunno, maybe there's someone out there interested in owning a keyboard actually branded by Alps themselves.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/311291507803

[jacobolus]

1. yep, this DC2014 should be nice blue Alps switches, and was posted in another thread.
2. this Panasonic is Fujitsu Peerless switches. I haven’t tried them, but I’ve heard mixed reviews
3. the Canon branded Acer 6311 should be Acer switches and dyesub caps. I don’t think the stabilized keys will work on other Alps boards, Acer had their own weird stabilizers, but the other caps are nice
4. same story as above with these boards
5. not as cheap or quite as nice as a Dell AT101W, which are ubiquitous on ebay.

[RoflCopter4]

1. Ah. I didn't see it. My bad.

2. I see. Thanks for the info. I'll steer clear.

3. How can you be so sure? It really does look an awful lot like the one I'm typing on.

4. Regardless, these keycaps are PBT? I don't care too much about the stabilized keys, most of the time you're hitting the letter keys. I would love to own nice PBT Alps keys for my Blue Alps board.

5. Yeah, I agree that this one isn't great. I just found it neat to see a board actually branded by Alps.

[jacobolus]

2. I see. Thanks for the info. I'll steer clear.

You might want to try one Peerless board sometime to see for yourself. They’re pretty often available for quite cheap. As I said, I’ve never personally tried them, as far as I can remember.

3. How can you be so sure? It really does look an awful lot like the one I'm typing on.

Well, who knows. Was yours also made in Malaysia?

4. Regardless, these keycaps are PBT? I don't care too much about the stabilized keys, most of the time you're hitting the letter keys. I would love to own nice PBT Alps keys for my Blue Alps board.

Many Acer 6311s and 6511s are PBT dyesubs (medium-thin, a bit thinner than Alps ones). I’m not sure if they all are.

[RoflCopter4]

2. I see. Thanks for the info. I'll steer clear.

You might want to try one Peerless board sometime to see for yourself. They’re pretty often available for quite cheap. As I said, I’ve never personally tried them, as far as I can remember.

Maybe someday. Doesn't quite seem necessary right now. I love my Blue Alps, my HHKB, and to a lesser extent my Model F so much that I don't see them being replaced anytime soon.

3. How can you be so sure? It really does look an awful lot like the one I'm typing on.

Well, who knows. Was yours also made in Malaysia?

Uh, no. Made in Taiwan. Hmm, in that case, that might not be the same board after all.

4. Regardless, these keycaps are PBT? I don't care too much about the stabilized keys, most of the time you're hitting the letter keys. I would love to own nice PBT Alps keys for my Blue Alps board.

Many Acer 6311s and 6511s are PBT dyesubs (medium-thin, a bit thinner than Alps ones). I’m not sure if they all are.

Any thickness of PBT is better than any thickness of ABS, full stop.

[jacobolus]

Any thickness of PBT is better than any thickness of ABS, full stop.

You said you'd be happy with just alpha keys in PBT, right? For the price of shipping, I’d be happy to send you a set of very thin PBT dyesub 1u keycaps, plus 1.5u Alt/Ctrl keys (also thin dyesubs); not including the other keycaps, which were nice thick ones and which I’m keeping for now. I’m in China for another week and a half, but PM me your address after that, and I’ll hook you up. I don’t personally find very thin PBT caps to be very nice, and I have 2 identical sets of these from IBM P70 luggable keyboards, so would be happy to unload them.

[jacobolus]

http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/canon-keyboard-t3451.html

[RoflCopter4]

Any thickness of PBT is better than any thickness of ABS, full stop.

You said you'd be happy with just alpha keys in PBT, right? For the price of shipping, I’d be happy to send you a set of very thin PBT dyesub 1u keycaps, plus 1.5u Alt/Ctrl keys (also thin dyesubs); not including the other keycaps, which were nice thick ones and which I’m keeping for now. I’m in China for another week and a half, but PM me your address after that, and I’ll hook you up. I don’t personally find very thin PBT caps to be very nice, and I have 2 identical sets of these from IBM P70 luggable keyboards, so would be happy to unload them.

I'd take up your offer without question. Just so I'm clear, does that include the number row?

http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/canon-keyboard-t3451.html

Well, I guess that settles that.

[jacobolus]

I'd take up your offer without question. Just so I'm clear, does that include the number row?

Yep, including the number row. Full 101-key layout minus the tab, backslash, caps lock, backspace, enter, or shift keys. I can include the thick zero, enter, and plus from the numpad, and an ABS spacebar if you want. F and J keys (included) are thick PBT, with little homing bars (I guess they didn’t have the thin molds including homing bars). Just PM me in 1.5–2 weeks.

[RoflCopter4]

I'd take up your offer without question. Just so I'm clear, does that include the number row?

Yep, including the number row. Full 101-key layout minus the tab, backslash, caps lock, backspace, enter, or shift keys. I can include the thick zero, enter, and plus from the numpad, and an ABS spacebar if you want. F and J keys (included) are thick PBT, with little homing bars (I guess they didn’t have the thin molds including homing bars). Just PM me in 1.5–2 weeks.

I'll do that. I've heard that the keycaps on those IBM portable computers were pretty top notch. Are the ones you have thinner than the ones on, say, the 5140? I'm just curious, I have only used thick IBM keycaps in the past (Model M size).

[jacobolus]

I've heard that the keycaps on those IBM portable computers were pretty top notch. Are the ones you have thinner than the ones on, say, the 5140?

The 5140 (PC Convertible) uses thick Alps dyesubs, of the same type as all the other thick Alps dyesubs out there, like the ones on early Alps-OEM Dell AT101s, Apple keyboards (albeit they’re a bit different shape), etc. etc. The P70 and P75 use very thin caps, not in the same ballpark. You’ve “heard” because Hypersphere has made like 1000 identical posts about it on geekhack/deskthority. It’s somewhat too bad, because the IBM 5140 has a great keyboard of roughly 60% size with F keys and arrows, using rare and somewhat unique brown Alps switches, which would be a great project to keep all together and build a new case around. They also include very rare (among Alps dyesubs) short right shift keycaps, which are wasted on most of the keyboards someone might transplant caps to, but would be great on a custom HHKB-like layout. [Not to mention, the whole 5140 machine is nice kept all together.] There are a dozen other keyboards which would be better keycap donors than the 5140. In particular, the Apple Extended Keyboard and AEK II are very common and have fantastic keycaps.

[RoflCopter4]

I've heard that the keycaps on those IBM portable computers were pretty top notch. Are the ones you have thinner than the ones on, say, the 5140?

The 5140 (PC Convertible) uses thick Alps dyesubs, of the same type as all the other thick Alps dyesubs out there, like the ones on early Alps-OEM Dell AT101s, Apple keyboards (albeit they’re a bit different shape), etc. etc. The P70 and P75 use very thin caps, not in the same ballpark. You’ve “heard” because Hypersphere has made like 1000 identical posts about it on geekhack/deskthority. It’s somewhat too bad, because the IBM 5140 has a great keyboard of roughly 60% size with F keys and arrows, using rare and somewhat unique brown Alps switches, which would be a great project to keep all together and build a new case around. They also include very rare (among Alps dyesubs) short right shift keycaps, which are wasted on most of the keyboards someone might transplant caps to, but would be great on a custom HHKB-like layout. [Not to mention, the whole 5140 machine is nice kept all together.] There are a dozen other keyboards which would be better keycap donors than the 5140. In particular, the Apple Extended Keyboard and AEK II are very common and have fantastic keycaps.

I see. I suppose I can't say I've used "thin" PBT before then. I think I'll still take up your offer, but out of curiosity, how thin are they? Thinner than Topre? Apple Extended Keyboards do have nice PBT caps but they have such a strange profile, and for some reason they put homing dots on K and D instead of J and F like veryone else. Plus, of course, the function keys are all sideways. And furthermore, I actually like typing on my AEK. It's the only non clickey full sized keyboard I have, which makes it useful at work. I don't know if I could justify just using its keycaps. I suppose I could get another AEK, but shipping the things to Canada is a pain.

[Lurch]

That Panasoinc board is about 20 minutes from me...

Hmmmm....

[chyros]

That Panasoinc board is about 20 minutes from me...

Hmmmm....

If you decide to get it, let us know what it's like. I'm curious about the Peerless switches.

[RoflCopter4]

Me too. Do report in. The Peerless switches seem like a fascinating train wreck of an idea.