This thread is beautiful.
Awww...show us where the keyboard hurt you.
Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk
mature response from the average redditor with a mind of a child.
you're all neckbeard losers, really, showing off your collections to each other because nobody in your real life cares.
**** yourselves!
You seem to either be intentionally trolling, or have no idea of what you speak. Most people here are here specifically because they prefer oldschool forum formats to the useless projectile vomit that is Reddit. As already mentioned, most of my vintage boards were saved from scrapping without their corresponding computer around. The rest were purchased from who-knows-where over the internet. I have even saved a few boards that were previously inoperable and/or missing parts, including an F XT that some monster cut the cable off of for exactly the sort of display you assume we do ... which we do not.
I also have an old Blue Chip XT clone I saved from recycling that I want to try to get DOS running on, for which I would have no keyboard at all without my collection. Vintage computing was barely in my peripheral vision prior to getting into the boards. My love for Leading Edge keyboards has even tempted me to pick up a corresponding computer. This hobby can be a gateway drug into a greater appreciation for computing history.
Most boards with the most interesting and satisfying switches have been completely out of production since the 1980s. Most of these boards use either a relatively standard protocol (XT or AT) making them usable with most PCs of the period regardless of their origin, and many were third party knockoffs anyway that never shipped with a computer. For the ones with weird proprietary protocols (mostly early 80s and prior), how many people actually still have working examples of these systems and desperately need the corresponding keyboard?
This is a very real problem, but most people are not intentionally separating keyboards from their matching systems. If the layout is still usable, many of these boards are completely timeless and can serve a purpose indefinitely. Even those that cannot are interesting pieces of computing and typing history in their own right and deserve preservation one way or another.
Do you have a working IBM 4704 banking terminal, and some urgent need to access 1980s financial records? If not, I'm going to keep typing happily away on my F107 keyboard. The original cable was long gone by the time it came into my possession anyway.
now i'm just going to gut every vintage keyboard i get my hands on to spite you lol
Respectfully, please don't. Try some of the new Clickiez switches if you haven't. They're very nice.