Northgate OmniKey ULTRA review (Alps SKCM White)

[chyros]

This time a fairly rare OmniKey! This video took me quite a while to make but it was worth it . Hope you enjoy it!

P.S. Next week it's going to be something especially funky xD .

[losing_ctrl]

Nice review! Thanks for posting that. I'd love to have a Northgate OmniKey in mint condition, those are really sweet examples of the golden age of keyboards.

[chyros]

Cheers, glad you enjoyed it . Yes, they're very good keyboards indeed, they put a lot of modern "high-quality mechanical keyboards" to shame xD .

[Vectrex720]

It's awesome to see the Omnikey be discussed about more, I love my 102. It's a shame they aren't more widely available. Here's an old image of my 102 -

[umeboshi]

Thanks for the review!  Always wondered why there were 2 sets of function keys...

[khronokrator]

Thanks for the review, Chyros! Your excellent YT videos have been the cause of many 'splurges' on vintage keyboards this year. 

I have a mint condition Ultra TP (which is like yours, except it lacks all the cool programmable keys, DIP switches and has a Windows key) I recently bought from Omnikey guru Robert Tibbets for quite a cool chunk of change. It's basically the same as Vectrex's, except I have a full row of SF keys on top.

While the keyboard itself is beautiful, I'm not as pleased with the feel of the switches, however... I have my suspicions that these might be Fukka/Fuhua simplified White Alps clones, because they sound (and feel) *a lot* like the Matias switches I swapped into my older Omnikey 101. And I think I read elsewhere that they did switch over to Simplified Alps toward the end of Northgate's lifetime, and CVT supposedly used even crummier Alps clones in their knockoffs.

[chyros]

Thanks for the review, Chyros! Your excellent YT videos have been the cause of many 'splurges' on vintage keyboards this year. 

I have a mint condition Ultra TP (which is like yours, except it lacks all the cool programmable keys, DIP switches and has a Windows key) I recently bought from Omnikey guru Robert Tibbets for quite a cool chunk of change. It's basically the same as Vectrex's, except I have a full row of SF keys on top.

While the keyboard itself is beautiful, I'm not as pleased with the feel of the switches, however... I have my suspicions that these might be Fukka/Fuhua simplified White Alps clones, because they sound (and feel) *a lot* like the Matias switches I swapped into my older Omnikey 101. And I think I read elsewhere that they did switch over to Simplified Alps toward the end of Northgate's lifetime, and CVT supposedly used even crummier Alps clones in their knockoffs.

Cool, glad you enjoyed it!

Yes, I suspect they might be simplified Alps. Easy to find out though, just open one up, doesn't even require desoldering.

[khronokrator]

Any particular telltale giveaways? I only have my gut suspicion, based on their resemblance in feel and sound to Matias Clicky switches. They don't feel like the ones in my Focus (which is also vintage-new, but has a less high pitched sound, and they don't feel as 'snappy'), which is what led me down this path. The switches in the Focus sound more like the Omnikey in your video.

But I have noticed that all the Alps logos on my Focus are slightly off-center, whereas the ones on this Omnikey are perfectly centered, like the SKBL example on Deskthority. Ugh, this is really disheartening, after what I paid for this keyboard... 

[chyros]

Any particular telltale giveaways? I only have my gut suspicion, based on their resemblance in feel and sound to Matias Clicky switches. They don't feel like the ones in my Focus (which is also vintage-new, but has a less high pitched sound, and they don't feel as 'snappy'), which is what led me down this path. The switches in the Focus sound more like the Omnikey in your video.

But I have noticed that all the Alps logos on my Focus are slightly off-center, whereas the ones on this Omnikey are perfectly centered, like the SKBL example on Deskthority. Ugh, this is really disheartening, after what I paid for this keyboard... 

Just open up a switch, the switchplate says everything (you don't need to desolder Alps to open them up)..

[sintklaas73]

great review! I would love to try white and blue clicky alps one day...

[SamirD]

Great review as always!  I especially enjoyed the explanation of the historical aspect of Northgate--they really were the Dell of their day.