I was just wondering if anyone has any stories of scoring unexpected keyboards locally (apart from the interenet).
My first Model M.
I remembered that as a young kid I really loved the click of the keyboards we used to have in grade school. I started visiting thrift stores for some time looking for one without really knowing what it was that we used to type on. My first mistake was picking up a Key Tronic rubber dome board thinking it was a mechanical one. I was happy to clack along (bottoming out the whole time) simply because it was noisy. It wasn't until later that I found out that it just had an identical shell. About a month later I started avidly searching for a Model M.
I had passed a keyboard at Salvation Army that I assumed was broken due to the curvature of the keys. The space bar was bent in slightly and I assumed it to be broken since all current keyboards are not cupped. I came back a week later feeling that something was not adding up. I touched all the keys and they all seemed to click. The board marked Lexmark seemed to be in good operating condition. I'd only seen IBM boards until this point online. After asking my dad to float me 3 dollars, I got into the truck. After I got in with my dad ( we often go junking together) I saw that it was marked Model M on the back. Could this be one of the mighty keyboards I'd read so much about online? Then the proof came, the ps2 plug was marked "IBM" in large block letters. I knew I'd found my Holy Grail. All this in the middle of a Montana town where everything is simply thrown away.
Model M 52G9700 and AT&T mechanical
I'd just registered at a private Catholic college (No I'm not Catholic) to finish my computer science degree. I;d been looking for an old overhead projector for some time in order to hack it into a DIY digital projector using an old computer LCD screen. I aquired a broken one there (they gave it to me on the false assumption that it was FUBAR but I fixed it). Now, knowing that they kept old stuff around I asked a professor there about acquiring some old clicky keyboards. I got the aforementioned Key Tronic mistaking it for a Model M. As soon as I got in my truck I realized that I had not even looked, I just felt under pressure and grabbed and went. Half a year later I decided to go again. I saw no boards in the store cubby. However I was taken to a closet. There I saw a box filled with many Model M styled boards. They nearly ALL clicked. My teacher told me that I could have two, I took the Model M and the AT&T. I drove terribly all the way home under the adrenaline from the hunt. The Model M still needs some work as some of the stems seem to be sticking (springs are fine). The AT&T works great.
It is not so much about having the boards, I love the hunt. The persistence and then the reward.
Now, please tell me about your local triumphs for boards. Not internet stuff, anyone can do that.
