geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: Snytbaggen on Sun, 11 December 2011, 10:25:06
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I was down to my local second hand store today and saw that they had two Model M's for a total of $7. Needless to say, I bought them immediately. The top one is from 1993 and the bottom one from 1988, both have two piece keycaps.
(http://i.imgur.com/2Qc4e.jpg)
Both were fully working and in great condition except for some dirt and grime; the 1988 one was exceptionally bad. I think I even saw some cobwebs when I removed the keycaps... Anyway, after some hot water, soap and a lot of q-tips the -88 one looks like new, and that's what I'll bring home to my apartment this evening. The other one goes to my family that I was visiting this weekend.
When I cleaned the keyboard I found that in addition to the spacebar, both enter keys and the big + key had metal bar stabilizers, something that neither the -93 keyboard had nor the -91 board I use at home. Is this something that was removed somewhere between -88 and -91?
And also, the cable I use with my -91 board only have four pins, but the one on the -88 have all of them. Can I use the -91 cable with the -88 board, or will that mess something up?
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So I looked some stuff up on a wiki, and it seems that the -88 model m is a first generation one since it has the stabilizer bars and a brass-colored backplate, so that answers that question.
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Why can't I find that in my local stores? Dadgummit. Congrats!
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Damn you are lucky, nice keyboards and nice layout.
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where did you found them, around gbg or sthlm? and how did you solve the connection problem? a friend of mine has one of these but he hasn't found a decent converter due to odd number of pins (don't remember exactly how many) so it still unused
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I found them in my small hometown Mariestad, it's right next to E20 and Vänern. I pretty much lucked out finding these, I've never seen any of them there before and just happened to be at the right place at the right time, I guess. I just got home so I haven't plugged it in yet, but I think I'll use the -88 cable, even if it's a bit shorter than the one I use now. I don't have a converter since my motherboard has PS/2 ports, so I just use them.