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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: steelcap on Mon, 19 January 2009, 20:19:59

Title: Intro and Model M tidbit
Post by: steelcap on Mon, 19 January 2009, 20:19:59: Hi, just joined the forum and have to say I love the enthusiasm here.

I got my first Model m back in 94 - actually I found 2 of them discarded at the side of the road and managed to put together one good board (although it was still missing one of the CTRL key caps.

I used that thing on every PC I had for 10 years. Then when I emigrated to the US I did one of those "life laundry" things and got rid of everything apart from a kit bag full of clothes, a 40gig hard drive full of mp3s and my camera bag.

I lived without a decent keyboard for the las 4 years - although I do have an original Das Keyboard at work that I use from time to time, but I'm not a good enough typist to work without lettering.

Today I'm back in the Model M fold. I received 4 1394540's. All are in great condition from 1991. They all have the extra long ps2 cables and because they're the RS/6000 version, they all have speakers behind the grill.

They all work great with the HP desktop I've tested them on. I'll be hooking another one up to the Thinkpad dock at home, another to the Thinkpad dock at work and the last to the desktop at work. I've got an RS/6000 42p model 150 that I just have to try one out on to hear the internal speaker in action. Hopefully it'll work as I'm running SUSE 9 on it, not AIX.

Finally, the interesting tidbit (or not so interesting if you're my wife). All the info I found online stated that these keyboards do NOT have removable key caps. Well all 4 of mine DO!

Oh and I just bought a Cherry ML 4100 to put on my garage PC, should be here in a few days.

Mark
Title: Intro and Model M tidbit
Post by: steelcap on Mon, 19 January 2009, 20:50:29: And heres some poor quality pictures.
(http://www.mark-gunning.com/images/boards2.jpg)
Boards
(http://www.mark-gunning.com/images/label.jpg)
Label
(http://www.mark-gunning.com/images/speaker.jpg)
Speaker peaking out
(http://www.mark-gunning.com/images/keycap1.jpg)
Removable key caps
Title: Intro and Model M tidbit
Post by: iMav on Tue, 20 January 2009, 04:44:52: Looks like they are all in great shape (at least clean). If you do get that speaker working, post some audio...that would be interesting.

Glad you found your way to our community here. Welcome to geekhack!
Title: Intro and Model M tidbit
Post by: zwmalone on Tue, 20 January 2009, 06:14:00: I don't think you can use the speaker without one of these (http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-7025-F50-332MHZ-SERVER-RS-6000-RS6000_W0QQitemZ350135407533QQcmdZViewItemQQptZCOMP_EN_Servers?hash=item350135407533&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A2|294%3A50#AuctionTop). I'm pretty sure (http://geekhack.org/showpost.php?p=6672&postcount=15) the speaker controller is in the RS/6000 itself, not the keyboard.
Title: Intro and Model M tidbit
Post by: cmr on Tue, 20 January 2009, 13:34:22: however, adding a small audio amplifier inside the case and wiring it up to an 1/8" line input jack shouldn't be that difficult. they're just loudspeakers, and i'm sure there's space somewhere in the case for a little amp to drive them...
Title: Intro and Model M tidbit
Post by: steelcap on Tue, 20 January 2009, 14:01:07: Thanks for the welcome.

I do have an RS/6000 already - it's a 43P model 150 not 42P. If I get the speaker working with that I'll be sure to post a sound clip.

cmr - I was thinking of trying something like that with one of the other boards. I've just ordered a thinwall nut driver so I can open one up and see what's what.