What makes orange better than salmon? The DT link says that salmon are heavier than orange:
The two are very similar. If you tried a keyboard with one type of switches, and then a half hour later tried a keyboard with the other type, I don’t think you’d be able to tell them apart unless you had quite a bit of practice picking out the slight differences. Even if you compared them directly back to back, you’d need to be paying quite close attention to tell them apart. Good condition orange switches are a bit smoother, and have a slightly “cleaner” force curve (for lack of a better word).
I’m hoping I can directly measure some of the force curves at some point, to demonstrate these kinds of differences in a more objective way.
The main thing you should care about is not the yellowing, but rather the condition of the switches. If they’re stored pressed down for decades at a time, or in a dusty/dirty environment, 25 year old keyswitches can get very unpleasant.
How would you know this without actually being able to use the keyboard?
You wouldn’t.
