Anyone bought from PartStore.com before?

[bhtooefr]

They appear to have 5251 boards relatively cheaply. ResellerRatings is full of terrible reviews, but their profile looks fairly normal on Google Product's ratings, which aggregate across multiple sites.

If they're not a scam, I'd like to get one, as my introduction to beam spring. The layout is almost identical to the original PC board, so it'd be the best bet for adapting to a PC, IMO.

[bhtooefr]

It could be that the ResellerRatings stuff has the negative bias thing going on.

I guess I'll take my chances. Ordered.

[bhtooefr]

This is the item: http://www.partstore.com/Part/IBM+Corporation/IBM/7362149/Refurbished.aspx

This is a photo of a 5251, which uses that board:


And this is a comparison between XT layout and 5251 layout, from quadibloc's site:


As for the crazy friend, I do have one or more of those... but I'm picking 5251 over 3278 on purpose, BECAUSE of the layout. I'm going to take a shot at wiring it up to a PC myself. I'll go to PS/2, mapping keys to their function on an XT layout, but as closely approximating AT scancodes as possible. I figure that's the best bet.

[bhtooefr]

Well, they haven't charged my card, so pretty sure it's not a scam, but it was backordered, ETA yesterday, I waited until (long past) 3:30 Eastern today like they said, and it still wasn't in. Cancelled the order, ordered it from SupplySale, which has higher ratings anyway. They claim to have two in stock, although their little real-time counter still says 2 after I ordered it - then again, that could just be how many are in the warehouse.

[bhtooefr]

I called humans multiple times in the past few days, and the last call was to cancel the order.

[bhtooefr]

Well.

There's a 13 pound package from SupplySale, on its way to me, estimated delivery is tomorrow. And it now shows one in stock: http://www.supplysale.com/00333441OP-discount-IBM-7361073+RFB--5251-Keyboard+br+Warranty+-30.aspx

I think I've got some beam springs coming.

[ch_123]

Definitely one of the more stylish of IBM's "door wedge" keyboards.

[bhtooefr]

The funny thing is, I didn't get the shipment notification until 5 minutes after I submitted something asking why it hadn't shipped to their little not-so-live chat's "leave a message" thing. However, it shipped yesterday, so they did ship it on time.

[phoenix]

Is supply sale the same as part store? (I searched for something else and they returned different results.)

[bhtooefr]

No, they're different, I just hijacked my own thread.

They don't even list the same part number - I believe the 7361073 part number is the FRU rather than the part number, and SupplySale lists that instead.

[phoenix]

So you actually ordered from SupplySale.com? If yours arrives in good shape and confirms that SupplySale is legitimate, I may have to try, too. They have another part that I'm very interested in. How was shipping?

[bhtooefr]

Shipping was $13.49 for shipping on a 13 pound keyboard. Not sure where they calculated that from, as they claim ground shipping is $0.79/lb with an $8.95 minimum on their shipping page, but whatever, $13.49 isn't bad for a 13 pound keyboard.

(It shipped from Minnesota, BTW.)

[bhtooefr]

Allegedly, there's a box sitting in front of my door.

http://www.fedex.com/Tracking?tracknumbers=175595110004657&action=track&language=english

In an hour, I'll hopefully be playing with beam springs.

[EverythingIBM]

I'm unfamiliar with beam springs, I'll need some info on them so I may acquire such knowledge.

[kishy]

Quick, everyone flock to Newark and start going door to door!

[bhtooefr]

Too late, I've already got the keyboard inside.

Anyway, the packaging... a cardboard box that arrived in quite good shape, but the keyboard barely fit into, and one layer of bubble wrap, nothing on the sides. So, I'd say they skimp on the packaging.