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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: ruumis on Sun, 14 March 2010, 11:11:55

Title: delurking: Taking baby steps out of the buckling spring world
Post by: ruumis on Sun, 14 March 2010, 11:11:55

I’m writing first and foremost to thank all of you for the hard work you’ve done building this community, and also to give a little introduction to myself. I’ve been lurking for some time now, reading and observing. A longtime IRC acquaintance first turned me on to the site. He also linked me to Marco C’s “mechanical key switch keyboards demystified” article and video, as well as Manyak’s extensive “mechanical keyboard guide.” Both of these were extremely informative and essential in giving me the grounding I needed to fully appreciate the world I was about to enter.
 
Working in an academic data center environment has its perks. During a major clean-up effort, I rescued a large stack of Model Ms which were slated to be trashed. Unfortunately, most of them were horribly disgusting. I mean they had furry patches growing on them, sticky adhesive cushioning attached to the bottom, key caps that were so yellow they had begun to turn brown… you get the idea. However, from this pile came two gems: an 82G2383 and a 51G8572. The former still needed a proper cleaning job, but the latter (which apparently shipped with an RS/6000 many moons ago) was in absolutely pristine condition; so much so that if you shone a flashlight down onto it, you could see the clean black surface underneath without even a hint of crumbs or hairs. Both of these are now serving me well in the office.

The biggest problem with delving deeper into mechanical keyboards is that in most cases, you can’t try before you buy. And when you do buy, it’s usually quite a substantial investment for a sight-unseen purchase. I window-shopped at elitekeyboards.com and drooled over the Filcos and the topres (which my aforementioned IRC acquaintance swears by), but could never convince myself to pull the trigger without at least being able to try one first. At this point I decided to fund any purchases solely with the proceeds of selling old video games and DVDs I had lying around (protip: glyde.com!) So far, that restriction has allowed me to purchase an ABS M1, which I am now using at home. I had considered a Scorpius M10, mainly because I really wanted to try cherries (of ANY color), but all the widespread concerns about build quality led to me shying away. There are no such issues with my ABS M1. I am extremely happy with the purchase, especially since I only paid $50 including 3-day shipping.  I’m still poking around the POS online retailers, chasing the elusive g80-3000lscrc-2, but the outlook is pretty bleak. Not to mention the uncertainty of what you’ll actually receive when you order that model number. Once I’ve built up enough funds I will likely go with a Filco tenkeyless… just need to decide if I want browns or blues.

In summation, thanks for all the great information, and please keep up the good work!

Title: delurking: Taking baby steps out of the buckling spring world
Post by: elbowglue on Sun, 14 March 2010, 11:38:53

Consider the MX11800 to try cherry browns, or the MX8100's on ebay to try the cherry browns.  These are PCB mounted so they will differ slightly from the filco cherry browns which are plate mounted.

The cheapest cherry blue board you can get is the mythical beast g80-3000LSCRC-2.  I thought they did not exist in real life until neptunebadger so foolishly sold me his g80-3000lscrc (thanks again man).  It is a great keyboard.  If I was still in the market for a cherry blue I would still have my pre-order open.  The g80-3000lscrc is such an amazing deal even new ($65) for a good cherry blue board, that waiting for it and having it eventually appear or never appear is worth it in my opinion.  The PCB mounting of the g80-3000lscrc-2 is quieter than the plate mounted filco blue cherries.

Consider also the ricecar spos that sometimes pops up on ebay.  Didjmatic auctions these off now and again, they most recently sold for $70 including shipping. The ricecar spos has the best feeling brown cherry switch that exists in my opinion, the only drawback is it's strange layout (I have to use autohotkey to deal with this keyboard).

Here is one currently for sale: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250596517635&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_500wt_975

Welcome!

Title: delurking: Taking baby steps out of the buckling spring world
Post by: elbowglue on Sun, 14 March 2010, 13:36:41

These of course are "special order" through provantage, who knows how long they will take to ship.  The MKB-125B is so promising except for the cursed L shaped enter key!!

Title: delurking: Taking baby steps out of the buckling spring world
Post by: Phaedrus2129 on Sun, 14 March 2010, 13:45:04

I just posted those Adesso boards on Overclock.net and suggested them as a good first mechanical keyboard for those who want Cherry MX switches without shelling out for a Das or Filco.

On second thought maybe I should have asked if they were any good? Obviously they've sacrificed some build quality to lower price, but hey... Better that than a G15 for that money.

I expect Adesso's sales on these to experience a minor jump over the next couple days. :p

Title: delurking: Taking baby steps out of the buckling spring world
Post by: Phaedrus2129 on Sun, 14 March 2010, 13:47:24

Provantage isn't always the best on shipping, but from what I've seen they do deliver (both literally and figuratively).

Title: delurking: Taking baby steps out of the buckling spring world
Post by: didjamatic on Sun, 14 March 2010, 13:50:55

Provantage is solid and frequently cheaper than Newegg, depending on what you're looking for.  I've bought a lot of hardware from them over the years.

Title: delurking: Taking baby steps out of the buckling spring world
Post by: ruumis on Sun, 14 March 2010, 13:54:13

Quote from: ripster;163932

Another possible contender.  The Adesso MKB-135  with Cherry Blues...

Yeah, that MKB-135B looks like a winner. I can't hang with the layout of the 125B. Years of muscle memory would be working against me.

I'll definitely take a wait and see approach with this... curious to hear some early adopter reviews. Hopefully some of the more reputable web retailers will end up stocking it. Thanks for the heads up!

Title: delurking: Taking baby steps out of the buckling spring world
Post by: TexasFlood on Sun, 14 March 2010, 14:07:48

Quote from: elbowglue;163940

These of course are "special order" through provantage, who knows how long they will take to ship.  The MKB-125B is so promising except for the cursed L shaped enter key!!

I had a Provantage experience, as follows, read and decide for yourself what you think of them.  I'd probably order from them again, probably not my first choice, but if they had a product or better deal then yes.  (Sorry I went on a bit long but wanted to describe the situation well)

Provantage had a new router for a much lower price than anyone else end of last year.  I waited a little before I bit and they sold out and went to "special order" which I came to understand meant that neither Provantage or the warehouses they work with had any stock but Provantage placed an order at that price with the warehouse which provantage is apparently affiliated with but don't own.

In my case the order went into the twilight zone for a couple of months, "waiting for a response from the warehouse", before I finally heard that basically there had been a pricing mistake somewhere, provantage said it wasn't their mistake, and that they were unable, or unwilling, to honor the low price.

The options presented to me were 1) cancel 2) accept a small meaningless discount on a cheaper router in the same product line or 3) buy the router at full price.

My first response was that I chose none of those options and expected the order to be honored at the lower price.  This didn't work though and I was informed that my order would be cancelled since this wasn't an option.  I quickly replied that I had not chosen to cancel and offered to pay mid-way between the "price mistake" and the normal price.  This wasn't ideal but still a very good price.

Outside of the few that got it at the lower price before stock ran out, the best price I've ever seen.  Provantage accepted and even threw in the shipping.   I was a bit torqued at the time but in retrospect think they were fair in the end.  I should add that their staff responded very quickly to my emails, understood me and gave REAL replies.  I didn't always like their replies but at least they were replies and not BS or some form letter.

Title: delurking: Taking baby steps out of the buckling spring world
Post by: TexasFlood on Sun, 14 March 2010, 14:13:57

Quote from: ruumis;163953

Yeah, that MKB-135B looks like a winner. I can't hang with the layout of the 125B. Years of muscle memory would be working against me.

I'll definitely take a wait and see approach with this... curious to hear some early adopter reviews. Hopefully some of the more reputable web retailers will end up stocking it. Thanks for the heads up!

It looks nice but also looks virtually identical to the Scorpius M10 which has had reportedly had quality control problems.

Title: delurking: Taking baby steps out of the buckling spring world
Post by: Phaedrus2129 on Sun, 14 March 2010, 14:29:25

Quote from: TexasFlood;163961

It looks nice but also looks virtually identical to the Scorpius M10 which has had reportedly had quality control problems.

But it also has NKRO, which makes it an awesome deal. Even if it has some quality control issues, for the price this is the best starter mech board I've seen in this price range.

Title: delurking: Taking baby steps out of the buckling spring world
Post by: JBert on Sun, 14 March 2010, 15:01:42

Quote from: ruumis;163912

[snip]Manyak’s extensive “mechanical keyboard guide.”[/snip]

OFF TOPIC

I noticed only now that the elusive Manyak copied quite some pictures from Geekhack, especially the key printing post (http://www.overclock.net/computer-peripherals/491752-mechanical-keyboard-guide.html#post6009482). At least he has the decency of hosting them on overclock.net instead of hotlinking them.
I don't know our attribution policy though...

Title: delurking: Taking baby steps out of the buckling spring world
Post by: bhtooefr on Sun, 14 March 2010, 16:12:58

I'll note that I have a (mildly modified - IIRC, velcro under the space bar to dampen it) Scorpius M10, and don't have a problem with it.

I think I'm the fourth person on Geekhack to use this keyboard, come to think of it, and its third owner (the other two being on here as well.)

Title: delurking: Taking baby steps out of the buckling spring world
Post by: spolia optima on Sun, 14 March 2010, 17:10:24

the LSCRC-2 is perfectly evidential of Fukuyama's Integration theory.
A German keyboard with American layout and Chinese letters?
I mean come on, this keyboard could lead to world peace if they just made a few more of 'em.

Title: delurking: Taking baby steps out of the buckling spring world
Post by: ricercar on Mon, 15 March 2010, 19:13:45

Quote from: ripster;163955

Gotta love those Early Adopters!

Show Image

(http://www.1234zzzz.com/pub/90sNewton.jpg)

That ad pictures the MessagePad 110 or 120. We real early adopters bought the MessagePad 100.

Title: delurking: Taking baby steps out of the buckling spring world
Post by: MsKeyboard on Tue, 15 June 2010, 17:40:09

Received a MKB 125B today for a possible custom job.  Actually a nice little board, but not quite as compact as I thought it would be.

Let me know if anyone has any questions.............Later

Title: delurking: Taking baby steps out of the buckling spring world
Post by: MsKeyboard on Tue, 15 June 2010, 18:48:27

The printing actually looks pretty good on this one.  They are pad printed, so don't know how they will hold up in the long run, and you can feel the print if you try, but otherwise the font is real clean and the characters are large.

Actually a nice footprint, although the short space bar might take some getting used to.  On my Topre I can see where I hit, so maybe it would not take that long.

Overall, for the price seems like a fairly good deal on a Blue Cherry board in a compact layout...........Later

Title: delurking: Taking baby steps out of the buckling spring world
Post by: ricercar on Tue, 15 June 2010, 19:02:14

Ms Keyboard,

If, when you are finished testing the MKB 125B, and you need a customer to buy the out-of-box MKB 125B, please look for me.

Sincerely,

-ricercar