How desirable are vintage MX blues?

[fohat.digs]

I just bought a keyboard on ebay with (supposedly) blue Monterey switches, but it turns out to be blue Cherry MX. I would guess the date to be late-1980s or possibly early-1990s.

The board is yellowed but the keys feel pretty good - some have lost some or all of their click, but I am guessing that is not a big deal.

Since I am not really a Cherry aficionado, I am looking for opinions.

Thanks!

[esoomenona]

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[SpAmRaY]

What layout and what about the key caps?

[strict]

Has anyone done research to find out what causes blues to lose their click?

[zennasyndroxx]

Maybe they lost their click due to old age?

Imo vintage blacks are more desirable than blues cause i normally see people want vintage blacks more

[esoomenona]

.

[fohat.digs]

still using vintage without quotation marks

I know that the definition of "antique" is generally accepted as ">100 years" but I was not aware that "vintage" had a similar usage convention.

And since a quarter of a century is at least half of "the computer age" as we know it, the term seems appropriate.

[esoomenona]

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[keymaster]

I threw out the MX Blues when I had a Dolch PAC because the clicks were inconsistent throughout the board. I can't be the only one bothered by it, so I assume this would make them lose some value. Even a few inconsistent clicks would annoy me.

However, I did have the chance to try a Dolch PAC at Chicago KeyCon which had consistent clicks AND felt much better than regular MX Blues.

[IvanIvanovich]

They can feel different than current production. Some people will like them, others not... and some can't tell. Consistent click seems to have always been an issue. The nice thing about if you are assembling a board out of used blues is you can sort those that are inconsistant to another area, like the function row if needed so it's not a constant irritation like in the main typing block. Generally they are no more valuable than any other common used switch in my opinion. Perhaps if NIB I would say more desirable.

[nubbinator]

I hate Blues.  That said, I actually like the "vintage" (and by vintage I mean broken in and well used) Blues from my Dolch PAC.  I think they are dramatically better than modern Blues.  Now are they worth more?  IMO, no. I think the whole "vintage" thing is hype.  The better term is broken in since broken in Browns and Blues both are nicer to me than new ones.

[smolid]

I read that older mx switches are not as 'scratchy' as newer batches. I don't know when the change took place since I don't follow mechanical scene. My only experience with 'scratchy' switches is a single (or possibly 2) keys which needed some breaking in on a mkb I bought a few years ago. It just took around maybe a few hundred presses at the very most to make them feel the same as other keys.

[digi]

That said, I actually like the "vintage" (and by vintage I mean broken in and well used) Blues from my Dolch PAC.  I think they are dramatically better than modern Blues.

^^^^^^ loooove "vintage" blues!

[dorkvader]

I think they're like whites but more consistant in feel / sound. I would say they're probably worth a little more but I dunno. Maybe people will pay more for the vintage aspect.

[jacobolus]

What keyboard?

[fohat.digs]

What keyboard?

I have tried to post photos multiple times and it crashes the connection.

Even single photos of moderate size ~200K are too much. Saying things like "just upload them to Imgur and then make a link" is ridiculous and makes me want to just quit wasting my time here.

The keyboard is a KB-5181 with Chicony listed as the manufacturer.

[SpAmRaY]

What keyboard?

I have tried to post photos multiple times and it crashes the connection.

Even single photos of moderate size ~200K are too much. Saying things like "just upload them to Imgur and then make a link" is ridiculous and makes me want to just quit wasting my time here.

The keyboard is a KB-5181 with Chicony listed as the manufacturer.

fohat I can post the pics you sent me if you would like, just let me know

[jacobolus]

Saying things like "just upload them to Imgur and then make a link" is ridiculous and makes me want to just quit wasting my time here.

Personally, I find uploading to Imgur and then posting a link dramatically faster and easier than trying to deal with this forum software’s attachment features, and it’s better for geekhack’s servers and readers’ page-load times if people put large images somewhere designed for hosting big images (which this forum software clearly is not).

You’re certainly right that in the ideal case we’d have more sophisticated technical infrastructure set up which would handle any upload you threw at it (including images hosted elsewhere and hotlinked in img elements), properly resize the images for the context in-thread and put both the original and resized versions up on a CDN somewhere. But we don’t have a massive technical infrastructure here, and the technical side of the site is run by a quite small group of volunteers as far as I can tell (thanks guys!), so we have to work with what we do have.

[yasuo]

intersting
http://deskthority.net/photos-f62/not-another-one-t2467.html

[fohat.digs]

easier than trying to deal with this forum software’s attachment features,

I just get impatient when even the tiniest simplest thing turns into a big cumbersome kludge.

Opening Imgur, passwords, uploading, linking, pasting, it all just makes me want to say "screw it" and not bother.

[jacobolus]

I just get impatient when even the tiniest simplest thing turns into a big cumbersome kludge.

Opening Imgur, passwords, uploading, linking, pasting, it all just makes me want to say "screw it" and not bother.

Oh, absolutely. Every bit of friction is annoying.

I should implement something for myself that uploads image(s) selected in my file browser to imgur, and then fills my clipboard with

Code: [Select]

[img]http://url1[/img]
[img]http://url2[/img]
...

[Demetrium]

>almost 2015
>still using vintage without quotation marks

ishygddt

>greentexting on GH

[jacobolus]

Wow, fohat, the price on your auction seems pretty cheap: http://www.ebay.com/itm/251706063077

[davkol]

I'm definitely interested in some detailed pictures of the switch internals, if possible. I have some 5191s with blues lying around and I'm curious to see, how the parts changed over time.

Mine have different spring color (material?) and plastic texture inside, compared to a modern MX Blue I bought from WASD Keyboards.

[fohat.digs]

Wow, fohat, the price on your auction seems pretty cheap

The keyboard was pretty shabby, even after I went to some trouble to clean it up.

I sold it for what I had in it just to get it out of the house.

[davkol]

Okay, here we go.

There are better pictures of disassembled switches at Deskthority (and KBTalking), but here's another one for reference. Springs are different, stems are different, logos are different, the housing plastic might be different as well.


More interestingly though, they sound different. Modern blues have a much sharper click; OTOH the vintage ones are muted quite consistently across the board. This is caused by the switch stem.

[tp4tissue]

They're so desirable that you had to ask how desirable they are..

[chyros]

Roughly when did this transition take place? Also, it's hard to make out any definitive features on that comparison photo; is there an easy way to tell them from each other? I'm wondering whether either of my MX Blue boards have these in them...

[davkol]

Around 1991. There are switches with both old and new sort of parts as well. For example, I have several sets with the older type of springs and logos, but modern stems. The old type of stem doesn't have a "tooth" in the crossbar. It's the stem that causes the difference in sound (and perhaps a tad bit sharper tactility, but I haven't tried with sound isolation, thus I could be biased); I haven't observed any other differences in feel (esp. smoothness).