geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: liist on Mon, 25 April 2011, 14:40:19
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I was just shopping around for a mechanical keyboard that doesn't require shopping online, and just about every store in town did not have any. Long story short, I end up in this sketchy computer repair shop and they have a back room just stocked full of old computer parts. They did have a stack of keyboards, and I picked out four IBM Model Ms and paid only $40 for them!
There were three 1391401s and a 1391472. The guy that I bought it from had the sound in his voice that he was ripping me off, but I just think he doesn't appreciate how much they're worth.
Two of the 1391401s are crappy. One has a jammed up backspace and another has a bunch of ghetto key replacements.
One 1391401 has all the keys working, and only the F8 key is broken on the Space Saver.
I still have a sixth sense that I might have been ripped off, but what do you guys think?
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New IBM model M's are about 80 online without shipping. It could have been better if they were brand new and all working, but still, that's a good price. There's Model M on eBay right now for $50 without shipping fee, with about 2 scratches on the bottom. If you could manage to fix those parts, what you got is still great :)
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You have any idea how much Model M Minis go for these days?
$40 is a really good deal for even one Mini.
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I believe he's talking about a 101 key board in a slim case, like this Unicomp (http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/en104bl.html).
If you need replacement parts like springs, hammers, or keycaps, Unicomp can also sell you those. Combined with a possible bolt mod (http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:6615), and those boards can probably be back to 100%.
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This thread is useless without photos...
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This thread is useless without photos...
Show me your face and I'll give credit to your comment :-)
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Jeez you and imsto. Why does everyone wanna know what I look like?
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If you're happy I'm Pareto Optimal with it.
In fact I'm Jiggy with it as long as you somehow put together one fully functional keyboard with all the keys.
[video=youtube;j4G1L8lV6LQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4G1L8lV6LQ[/video]
Just some more information, the 1491401s: one is a blue label, the other two are gray labels. I'm going to use the tenkeyless and the blue label, since they both work well and are pretty clean. And it seems the blue label is the only one that's not older than me. And with the keys from the broken backspace keyboard, I have enough keys to make three working keyboards. The tenkeyless uses one-piece keys, so I have not lost any keycaps on that one.
I'm pretty excited, although I think I could've gotten them all for $10 less. Oh well.
And I already got an offer to sell the tenkeyless. How much do you think it's worth?
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How much time did you take to find it? and/or how many stores?