Hello all,
I've decided to register on the forums here because I started getting curious about different keyboards, mainly the Model M, and needed to be able to search posts
I've found a vast amount of useful information so far and when I started googling for "Happy Hacking Keyboard" I paused, and realized that in a matter of days this place was well on it's way to making me want to do irrational things with money, like buy strange keyboards, leatherman tools or type with a dvorak or colemak layout.
Well some good did come from this however,
I am now the proud owner of a Das Keyboard Professional S and a made-by-ibm Model M blue label, on which I have already dyed the escape key a lovely sapphire and the WASD keys a brilliant royal blue and because this is a geek forum, we need pictures to geek out to, so here you go:
IBM Model M SetFanatic much? perhaps. But I'm old school. My first PC was a TRS 80 model 1, soon followed by a very memorable Leading Edge XT, with clicky alps-style keys IIRC, but i moved onto a 486 when I turned 15. I wore out the cheap keyboard within 3 months of discovering the BBS scene...wore out 3 more keyboards, sifted through way too many cheapos.
An old friend of mine always had this IBM AT, and we'd write code together. It reminded me of the PC's at my old school's lab, it had the big terminal layout model M keyboard. I'm pretty sure his had a model F keyboard, and that keyboard and the feel of my old Leading Edge (Which I still had at that time) persisted, and I eventually found, in the "Bargain Bin" of the local PC shop, a mint lexmark model M keyboard. "That keyboard! That's the one! I have to have it!" It screamed to me and all the memories came back, I bought it for $10.
Eventually it got dirty over the years and so I tried to disassemble it. I must have damaged the clips because the case never closed properly again, and the membrane also got damaged. I was stupid, and I was kicking myself in the head for that. I spent the next 8 years using generic dell and logitech keyboards but something was always a miss..
After reading this forum for about 20 minutes, I finally decided to give an old friend of mine a call. He works at our local electronics/computer/AV repair shop. I asked if he had any of those IBM keyboards around.. he responded "I don't think we have anything from the 8088 era, but i'll look"... a half hour later I was connected with my new best friend, the 1993 made my IBM model M. The feeling was brilliant. Everything about it screamed "I am a professional.".
I also knew that I'd need something suitable for work, something more modern and something that would be excellent for gaming as well as being compatible with a mac, so I purchased my Das Keyboard. It's definitely a decent piece of hardware, although why the **** is the cable right in the middle of the top of the case? I mean, damn it's so frigging distracting to have to look at that.
I'm not sure if this is the "Re-released" version of the S model, but it seems to work really well, and have not experienced any of the issued previously mentioned here, so anyhow - there's my introduction. A sort of random rambling but that's how I roll.
Peace, and thanks for making an awesome community and place of valuable information.
nf
