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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: InSanCen on Tue, 08 September 2009, 15:46:40
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I won an ebay auction recently.
It wasn't an M (shame). Thread Linkage (http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?t=6993)
It arrived today though. It's absolutely pristine, NIB as described. Downside is that it feels very plasticy and cheap when you pick up the keyboard.
I'm not sure on the date of it, but it is, to be fair, great to type on. Even the other half likes it. (Well, she prefers it over the 1391406).
Pulling a keycap, it has (I think) pink Alps. Brown body, pink slider.
The touch is so much lighter than the M. I am surprised I like it as much as I do though, as I really didn't get on with the Wang 724, which also has pink alps (And is currently residing at the in-laws). I guess it goes to show the importance of trying a new example of the switches to see how they really feel.
Typing feels "rattly" though, when you get your speed up. I suspect this is cheap keycaps.
I have no idea who made this. Included is a small pamphlet with the Switch specs on it (10 million presses, 60g for normal keys, 90g for the space bar).
On the back is an AT/XT switch. The manual atates it's a 101/102 Key PT-605D.
Any Ideas (Pictures to come later)
InSanCen.
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I think they should do a new version of The Cosby Show where Cliff is a garbage man, Claire is a maid, Theo is a drug dealer and the little girls are little prostitutes.
And that would be a version of the Cosby show I would actually enjoy!
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almost looks like a russian-made M knockoff or something. After all, if they could knock-off rolls royce jet engines by taking them apart screw by screw...
is it clicky?
the only pink sliders listed in the wiki is the tactile, er, pink wang.
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Don't give up on those keys - that's the best part. If you can get your hands back on the Wang (you should keep at least one hand on that Wang at all times) you can do a keyswap to test. It may be the switch mounting.
nicely done. :)
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Welly, don't go start picking on the French now. I saw how tempted you were.
;) just teasin'. I'm actually halfway thru coffee break french (http://www.coffeebreakfrench.com/) :)
I only hate them for having twenty letters they dont pronounce.
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;) just teasin'. I'm actually halfway thru coffee break french (http://www.coffeebreakfrench.com/) :)
I only hate them for having twenty letters they dont pronounce.
Still better than English were you've got at least twice the number of different possible pronounciations per letter.
It does get extremely nasty when these both get mixed, however. That's just pure evil.
-huha
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almost looks like a russian-made M knockoff or something. After all, if they could knock-off rolls royce jet engines by taking them apart screw by screw...
is it clicky?
the only pink sliders listed in the wiki is the tactile, er, pink wang.
It is indeed Clicky.
Double shot caps too, if I'm not mistaken.
Pictures coming up when resized and uploaded.
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Still better than English were you've got at least twice the number of different possible pronounciations per letter.
It does get extremely nasty when these both get mixed, however. That's just pure evil.
-huha
true dat. i've been trying to learn french for like four years. the only time i make progress is when i eventually become habituated to a particular set of vocabulary. I suspect learning english is the same way.
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Okay, Piccies Time.
First up, the Original Images on the auction
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc307/InSanCenPP/Cryllic%20Mechanical%20Keyboard/kbpic2.jpg)
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc307/InSanCenPP/Cryllic%20Mechanical%20Keyboard/kbpic1.jpg)
Label
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc307/InSanCenPP/Cryllic%20Mechanical%20Keyboard/sticker.jpg)
XT/AT Switch
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc307/InSanCenPP/Cryllic%20Mechanical%20Keyboard/xtat_switch.jpg)
Sliders 1&2 - The brown body really is that brown. 2nd picture is far more representative of the actual colour.
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc307/InSanCenPP/Cryllic%20Mechanical%20Keyboard/slider2.jpg)
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc307/InSanCenPP/Cryllic%20Mechanical%20Keyboard/slider.jpg)
KB Left and Right
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc307/InSanCenPP/Cryllic%20Mechanical%20Keyboard/keysleft.jpg)
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc307/InSanCenPP/Cryllic%20Mechanical%20Keyboard/keysright.jpg)
Key Close up (Notice the Difference in character Quality)
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc307/InSanCenPP/Cryllic%20Mechanical%20Keyboard/keyclose.jpg)
This is the reason for the difference.
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc307/InSanCenPP/Cryllic%20Mechanical%20Keyboard/3caps.jpg)
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc307/InSanCenPP/Cryllic%20Mechanical%20Keyboard/cap1.jpg)
Am I happy? Well, I think I got a bargain (Total cost, less than £15).
I'll give it a week or 2, and I'll be removing the Wang from the mother-in-law's to see if swapping keycaps over makes a difference.
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Out of my cold dead hands, lol.
Wouldn't have thought to look apart from your obsession with Doubleshot's Ripster.
Still not sure on the switches though... In fact I am sure they 'aint Alps at all.
New Pink Sliders...
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc307/InSanCenPP/Cryllic%20Mechanical%20Keyboard/slider2.jpg)
Compare with the Wang's Sliders...
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc307/InSanCenPP/Cryllic%20Mechanical%20Keyboard/PinkALPS.jpg)
A Russian ALPS Ripoff?
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SMK has blue sliders that look like that, just a "box" for the stem. No idea if those are SMK switches or not.
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Wait, the Russians use China too?
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true dat. i've been trying to learn french for like four years. the only time i make progress is when i eventually become habituated to a particular set of vocabulary. I suspect learning english is the same way.
I'm not interested in other persons' wangs, so let's continue this off-topic discussions and allow me to comment on this one, as I've actually done both (had to), so a comparison between learning English and French can be done.
For me, vocabulary wasn't a problem at all. I'm quite surprised to see this as a problem for a native English speaker. Chances are your french word du jour exists in English as well and can be used straight away or with minimal modifications to make it look French.
English is quite easy to learn to be honest, because you'll practically understand everything from the start, save for horribly overcomplicated texts. English grammar can get tricky, but you'll almost never encounter this "in the wild," so you couldn't care less about the subtle intricacies of the English language while actually learning it. The horrors of correct English pronounciation are almost completely left out at school, so this will only be an issue when you actually start using English. Let me elaborate on that: German is a horrible language both to use and to learn and I'd never do it if I didn't already speak German, but pronounciation is very clear and precise most of the time. You read a word, you know how to pronounce it (there are some exceptions, but they're incredibly scarce).
So all in all, English is a language you can use after a very short time, grammar is not that hard, there are only a few dozens of irregular verbs and most of them can be grouped as well and the harder topics (style and pronounciation) are swiftly ignored at school in favour of reading books no one in the UK or US cares about. But all in all, English is quite okay to learn.
French! To be honest, I wasn't exactly keen on learning French and I still suck horribly when it comes to it, although thinking of it, I've spent more time in France than in English-speaking countries so far. Be that as it may, French is a lot harder to learn. Pronounciation is slightly weird to begin with, but grammar is where it'll get ultra-nasty. I can't stress this enough, but French gets nasty from the start. There's almost no easy way to say something, you'll have to learn lots of arcane rules to be able to correctly state events in the past or future.
To add to the horror, there's this absolute abomination of txtspk used all over the French internet. It seems to be quite normal to write in an absolutely incomprehensible mess of letters vaguely reminescent of spoken French. Only with luck will you finally figure out what they mean--and they're fast.
So French ... well. You can learn it, it's certainly doable. My rants nonwithstanding, it actually is a decent language (as opposed to German, I'm afraid). But be prepared to master horribly complicated grammar or you'll face eternal doom.
-huha
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Makes you want to learn Esperanto and be done with it.
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For me, vocabulary wasn't a problem at all. I'm quite surprised to see this as a problem for a native English speaker. Chances are your french word du jour exists in English as well and can be used straight away or with minimal modifications to make it look French.
well coming from english i had a number of difficulties with french vocab, as I think most english speakers do:
-gender?!?!?!?! Dammit, gender. Even when there is a loose pattern to gendering of nouns and adjectives, its a wacky ass concept for a native english speaker, and memorizing gender adds a dimension of difficulty to vocab acquisition and usage
-spelling!!! damn spelling! Half the letters in the word arent pronounced, the other half are pronouced but arent in the word. Seriously. Again coming from native english where most of the sounds are represented in the word spelling in some way, french in comparison is just *wacky* with its spelling and pronunciation.
-false cognates -- lots and lots of french words that sound like english ones actually have slightly different meanings (and those slight differences can be quite important). So the apparent similarities in teh words, in that case, actually winds up being an additional hindrance to vocabulary usage, cuz you have to always keep in mind those subtle meaning differences.
English is quite easy to learn to be honest, because you'll practically understand everything from the start
i always thought so too even tho i'm a native speaker so never experienced the process of learning it 'from the outside'. I know some grammar formations in english dont have any 'inherent' logic, but i still think in that regard a lot of other languages are far worse than english.
German is a horrible language both to use and to learn and I'd never do it if I didn't already speak German,
funny thing is i very much want to learn german (both reading and speaking). Btw my brother in law is first generation german-american (his parents speak german at home) and he's learning german too at the moment, so we're both trying together. yes, its a bear to learn, much harder than english, and there you have three genders and omg things like declensions on top of conjugations. I mean jesus christ, whoever came up with german was one crazy dude ;)
So all in all, English is a language you can use after a very short time, grammar is not that hard,
if you ask me english grammar is like baby grammar, compared to most languages: no gender, absolute minimal declensions and minimal conjugations. I mean other language learners should be so lucky.
But all in all, English is quite okay to learn.
i quite agree with you
French! To be honest, I wasn't exactly keen on learning French and I still suck horribly when it comes to it, although thinking of it, I've spent more time in France than in English-speaking countries so far. Be that as it may, French is a lot harder to learn.
agreed!
you'll have to learn lots of arcane rules to be able to correctly state events in the past or future.
yup
To add to the horror, there's this absolute abomination of txtspk used all over the French internet.
i cant even imagine the horror
So French ... well. You can learn it, it's certainly doable. My rants nonwithstanding, it actually is a decent language (as opposed to German, I'm afraid). But be prepared to master horribly complicated grammar or you'll face eternal doom.
i've been staring doom in the face for four years :)
maybe i'll have more luck with german, lol.
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Makes you want to learn Esperanto and be done with it.
friend of mine decided to learn esperanto for a year. he found all kinds of organizations dedicated to it, including lots of international ones (understandably) that take field trips all over the world to meet other esperanto speakers. it actually sounded like quite a bit of fun, lol.
he gave up in the end tho because of not enough supporting material to stay in practice (books, media, etc) even tho the basic rules and vocab etc were designed to be super easy (and funnily enough, modelled on spanish mostly, it seemed).
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if you ask me english grammar is like baby grammar, compared to most languages: no gender, absolute minimal declensions and minimal conjugations. I mean other language learners should be so lucky.
Full ACK. That's why English is the quasi universal world language, easy to learn for everyone.
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Very few people nowadays can write or speak English properly, but the beauty of English is that even with its simplicity it's also fairly redundant. You can remove letters from words and still understand the meaning. You can screw up the order of words and still understand the meaning. You can pretty much butcher the language and it's still intelligible. It's one of few languages you can do that with and get away with it.
Only the manufacturers of Chinese industrial equipment have been able to come up with what are ostensibly English assembly instructions which are completely unintelligble.
But the real reasons American English is the universal language are because of technology and marketing, in that order.
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Very few people nowadays can write or speak English properly, but the beauty of English is that even with its simplicity it's also fairly redundant. You can remove letters from words and still understand the meaning. You can screw up the order of words and still understand the meaning. .
this is a good point. In english, so long as you provide a subject object and verb, they pretty much only go together in one way. ;) Its like idiot-proof cabling or something ;)
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Well, a few days later, and what do I think?
I've yet to swap the Keycaps out for the ones off the Wang, but that will happen tomorrow.
N-Key rollover is just what I am used to with the M's... a Grand 2 keys at a time.
I do type much faster on this board, I suspect it is due to much less force needed to activate the keys.
The only thing's that annoy me, are the "rattly" keys, and not knowing what the hell the sliders are (Though SMK was touted I believe).
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pronounciation
Heh, this is one of my pet peeves. I just can't get it into my head that/why it is to pronounce but the pronunciation. In my opinion, English is easy to learn and hard to master, but maybe the latter part is true for all languages.
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English sucks. Even "native" speakers can't speak it correctly. You almost need a translator to talk to some of the rednecks here in Texas.
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Okay, Piccies Time.
Well, I have to say I approve of the layout. Before the Windows keys came along, the space between the Alt and Ctrl keys was a reasonable place to put the extra 102nd International key... and also a possible place to put the |\ key on the 101-key keyboard and allow for a bigger Enter key (or a bigger Backspace key if you're starting from the AT layout).
So this is a layout that fans of both the AT keyboard and of the 101-key IBM official standard could like, since it combines the best of both.
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if you ask me english grammar is like baby grammar, compared to most languages: no gender, absolute minimal declensions and minimal conjugations. I mean other language learners should be so lucky.
True enough. So we make up for it with frequent use of idiomatic expressions, and complicated spelling. The main problem with English spelling is that when we borrow words from other languages, we keep the way they spelled them; and it is also true that old English words that changed their pronounciation over time never changed their spelling.
Simple grammar, and a difficult writing system, are characteristics of Chinese as well as of English - although to a greater degree.
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those key cap stems look like they're not centered, are they?
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Well, I have to say I approve of the layout. Before the Windows keys came along, the space between the Alt and Ctrl keys was a reasonable place to put the extra 102nd International key... and also a possible place to put the |\ key on the 101-key keyboard and allow for a bigger Enter key (or a bigger Backspace key if you're starting from the AT layout).
So this is a layout that fans of both the AT keyboard and of the 101-key IBM official standard could like, since it combines the best of both.
I am loving the layout. HAving bashed out some HTML and Linux Command Line stuff, it works, but will take some getting used to.
those key cap stems look like they're not centered, are they?
Original Image here (http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc307/InSanCenPP/IMG_6288.jpg). The pics I posted were tweaked to make colour a little more realistic, and improve detail as well minimise the fallout of me getting used to a new Close up filter in a 75-300@1/60 of a second.
They look centered to me (Just pulled the ESC cap).
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InSanCen: still got this keyboard? Got any full photos of it? I'm curious whether it's the old design or the "KPT" design, i.e. which design has PT-605D as a model number? Podworld used HEU-292 for at least two completely different keyboard cases.