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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: backharlow on Tue, 08 June 2010, 18:24:38
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After some research and shopping around, I have received my very first mechanical keyboard - an IBM Model M (silver label ps/2). This is the keyboard that I learned to write English on in grade school some twenty years ago, and I have not seen (or heard) one since. Typing these words on it now brings forth an uncanny wave of recollections and a general sense of warmth and nostalgia. I am a hardline atheist, and yet there is something more to this apparatus than buckling springs - something ephemeral and priceless.
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Sounds familiar (http://geekhack.org/showpost.php?p=176681&postcount=16).
Welcome indeed :)
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After some research and shopping around, I have received my very first mechanical keyboard - an IBM Model M (silver label ps/2). This is the keyboard that I learned to write English on in grade school some twenty years ago, and I have not seen (or heard) one since. Typing these words on it now brings forth an uncanny wave of recollections and a general sense of warmth and nostalgia. I am a hardline atheist, and yet there is something more to this apparatus than buckling springs - something ephemeral and priceless.
I had the same sensation when I got a model f at that I had used in high school when I was 14, after 20 years of wanting to type on one again. But every time I type on it now I keep remembering the crap I put up with in high school now too, so in addition to the tiny backspace key which ticks me off, I don't like to use it very often. lol Besides it's a boat compared to my minitouches as well.
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Crikey, I learned to type on a manual typewriter in middle school, I'm not going to say how long ago. Moving to a Selectric II a couple years later in high school was revelation.
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I was already in high school when I learned on a manual typewriter.
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Crikey, I learned to type on a manual typewriter in middle school, I'm not going to say how long ago. Moving to a Selectric II a couple years later in high school was revelation.
My home room was the typing class, filled with selectrics, was like 1986, computers were pretty new to schools back then. Since it was a rich private school next to the typing class was a computer room filled with imb at's. I was a founding member of that school's computer club, we had like 5 members in a school of a thousand or two. lol It was pretty funny, it was all freshmen, all the upperclassmen couldn't care less. It was a real dividing line, both in times and if you were a geek or not back then. I built my first pc that year too, but don't think I could afford the same keyboard at home that they had at school. If I did have a model f I think I must have lost it or boxed it when I boxed the unit or something....
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Welcome!
I love it here! I too am a relative newcomer - both to this board and to the love affair (or, in my case now, "obsession") with mechanical keyboards. I can definitely relate to the way you describe that sensory recall as I had the same feeling when I got my model M. My own public grade school had originally gone from k-6 and just before I came of age they added a couple of bungalow type classrooms to extend through 7th and 8th grade and offered for the first time a choice of "electives" - one for each semester. One was a computer lab outfitted with about 30 Commodore 64's and color monitors where I was one of the lucky ones who my first choice and got to learn BASIC first semester, but second semester had to settle for my alternative choice, typing, because the teacher said I was absent too much (At a time when "latchkey kids" were starting to become much more common, I developed a penchant for taking the day off at an early age by "not feeling well" in the morning and then having the house all to myself. Kinda like Ferris Bueller without the adventure...)
Then in 8th grade I left to attend a private school that went from 7-12 and had new computer lab that was outfitted with about 25 IBM's with the orange monochrome monitors plus two green-screened Apples (IIe, I think.) I took Turbo PASCAL in 9th grade and despite having a real talent for it (according to the teacher, anyway) I never did end up taking any more computer courses since I didn't figure the world needed any more software -I mean, what more could you do? ( :rofl:... Oh well, I was 14, what did I know? :der: ) Anyway, I remembered writing essays in that lab and how easily my fingers rolled over the keys fast enough to crank out a draft in the period before class if the inspiriation was right. (Yeah, despite spending my leisure days at home, I rarely did my homework there; it cut into my TV time for Dukes of Hazzard and Emergency One.)
Now twenty years later I finally know why it seemed like I had forgotton how to type and the Model M I got from that era takes me back to the same skills I had then. How in the world people can tolerate the crap that is produced now is beyond me. I've now collected a small pile of boards in various states of repair since February and show little sign of slowing despite the damage its doing to my finances.
Hey maybe we oughta add an "introduce yourself" section under community to have a sort of welcoming front door for the new members to be greeted? One many forums where they are present I have only stopped by them once, but here it seems different. Like there is more enthusiasm present from the folks who register or something, perhaps due to the specific subject matter being somewhat narrowor in focus than say a "dog lovers" type of group[. And have I mentioned I love it here?
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Actually, there are some "how did you end up here?" threads around, just pick one.
You are welcome to repost a summary there, or just move the whole article. ;-)
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I'm new here myself, but welcome aboard! :)
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Crikey, I learned to type on a manual typewriter in middle school, I'm not going to say how long ago. Moving to a Selectric II a couple years later in high school was revelation.
Blimey I will not say how long ago either except that Sholes asked me for layout suggestions.
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To the OP-
Welcome to geekhack =)
...let the obsession begin!!!!
=P