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geekhack Marketplace => Great Finds => Topic started by: Gungthar on Sat, 31 December 2016, 16:02:45
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Why are these things so damn expensive?
https://www.modelfkeyboards.com/product/original-ibm-industrial-space-saving-keyboard-part-1395682/
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2 reasons:
1: they look cool
2: They're rare
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2 reasons:
1: they look cool
2: They're rare
Can't argue with that, but $1250 is downright insane.
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2 reasons:
1: they look cool
2: They're rare
Can't argue with that, but $1250 is downright insane.
Im inclined to agree, however the market does what it does. I wouldnt buy an industrial ssk at market price, just waiting for the day a MDS rolls into my local recycling center.
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Personally, I'm not big on the Industrial color scheme. I mean, if someone gave me an Industrial SSK I'd take it, but I don't like them enough to spend even $50 other than for resell value.
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Can't argue with that, but $1250 is downright insane.
Not if you have enough money. For some people $1250 are affordable.
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Because relatively few of them were made compared to other types of Model M's.
That's the only reason.
It's not a better keyboard. (Some would argue it's less of one because it's an SSK.)
There's nothing inherently cooler or more elegant about it. "Industrial" M's had gray cases to hide dirt better in dirty environments (garages, factories etc.). So in reality, its biggest distinction is that, while deployed, it probably collected significantly more dirt than most M's. It's like paying extra for a car because it was driven on dirt roads rather than highways.
What it's really about, is this: People like to have stuff other people don't. It makes them feel special. When you have a board like this, you can't do anything with it that you couldn't do with any other Model M. You just know that relatively few other people have boards like it.
But they do. Some people do have boards like this. Just not as many people.
And that's what, apparently, makes it worth over $1K: knowing you have a board that some, but not many, people have.
The blue keys are pretty, of course. Primates, apes as well as humans, are attracted to bright colors. Anthropologists think it's some kind of survival instinct, perhaps our ability to recognize water. Here, though, they're just little pieces of blue plastic; they wouldn't help you survive, unless you sold them to another obsessive person.
So there you have it—the real story, free of hype and hysteria.
Cheers.
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The grey colour does seem more attractive. 'IBM beige' went out of fashion for consumer electronics around the mid 1990s and hasn't come back.
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Anyone that likes the grey, but doesn't want to spend 1250.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Model-M-Industrial-1394958-Mechanical-Buckling-Spring-Keyboard-ISO-1394946-/252703045545?hash=item3ad64677a9:g:SDkAAOSwa~BYSthh
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Anyone that likes the grey, but doesn't want to spend 1250.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Model-M-Industrial-1394958-Mechanical-Buckling-Spring-Keyboard-ISO-1394946-/252703045545?hash=item3ad64677a9:g:SDkAAOSwa~BYSthh
or...
http://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/1394942 (http://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/1394942)
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Anyone that likes the grey, but doesn't want to spend 1250.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Model-M-Industrial-1394958-Mechanical-Buckling-Spring-Keyboard-ISO-1394946-/252703045545?hash=item3ad64677a9:g:SDkAAOSwa~BYSthh
or...
http://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/1394942 (http://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/1394942)
Shame it's blue badge
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Anyone that likes the grey, but doesn't want to spend 1250.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Model-M-Industrial-1394958-Mechanical-Buckling-Spring-Keyboard-ISO-1394946-/252703045545?hash=item3ad64677a9:g:SDkAAOSwa~BYSthh
or...
http://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/1394942 (http://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/1394942)
Shame it's blue badge
Yeah, but a GB for indy model M badges just finished on DT.
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The grey colour does seem more attractive. 'IBM beige' went out of fashion for consumer electronics around the mid 1990s and hasn't come back.
Sometime in the late 80s, early 90s I had an all grey system: Monitor, CPU case, keyboard. All grey. It was a PC clone is all I remember. I used to rent it to photographer friends who where weary of propping out office scenes with beige components. So beige was beginning to wear thin even back then. For the life of me I can't remember what the make of the keyboard was. I even looked for the purchase receipts once but 26 years was just too long ago, even for a hoarder-lite like me. I've never met anyone else who had one. The system was no more expensive than a beige one, fwiw.
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BTW, while what I wrote above is true, I should probably divulge that I'd had coffee. :?|