I've been curious about NEC blue oval switches so when I came across this board for a decent price, I went ahead and picked it up. As appears to be common, the board was severely yellowed but otherwise in good shape.
There was moderate gunk inside but not too bad:
I did read in other posts about using care to remove the keycaps from these switches, but despite trying to be careful I did manage to pull the top off the F9 switch. After tracking down the spring, the switch was not difficult to reassemble and luckily the top switch cover plate didn't break so I was able to just snap it back in place. Part of the lower switch cover plate is missing but it hasn't caused a problem and the switch works fine (I guess until dirt gets in it anyway).
I retrobrighted the case and keycaps and got pretty good results:
The light keys are grey double shot and the dark keys are black double shot.
The board works well with an AT to PS2 adapter to Blue Cube and also works with the PS2 keyboard/mouse converter I got off Amazon now that the original Blue Cube no longer seems to be available.
I really do like the blue oval switches and should be getting some decent use out of this board.
