Difference between IBM Model M 1391401 Blue Label vs White Label

[yuliadobe]

Hello

Besides the color of the label, what exactly is the difference between

the IBM Model M 1391401 Blue Label made by IBM: http://www.clickykeyboards.com/index.cfm/fa/items.main/parentcat/9231/subcatid/0/id/391409

and the IBM Model M 1391401 White Label.

Thank you

[bazemk1979]

No difference , blue label came in later date than the white logo. Its the same keyboard. I believe white logo was first made in 87 and only that year had the shine metal plate, I also think they stopped making white logos by 91 and 91 they replaced the the white logo with the blue logo. Blue logo 1391401 was made from 91-93 and I also believe that year 93 is when Lexmark picked up production.

[7bit]

No difference , blue label came in later date than the white logo. Its the same keyboard.

I only know silver and black (square, metal), and grey, black and blue (oval and plastic) labels. How looks a white one?

[Drew Baumann]

No difference , blue label came in later date than the white logo. Its the same keyboard. I believe white logo was first made in 87 and only that year had the shine metal plate, I also think they stopped making white logos by 91 and 91 they replaced the the white logo with the blue logo. Blue logo 1391401 was made from 91-93 and I also believe that year 93 is when Lexmark picked up production.

So no difference in the feel?

[bazemk1979]

I only know silver and black (square, metal), and grey, black and blue (oval and plastic) labels. How looks a white one?

Here are the white logos, I got 2 new ones

[bazemk1979]

So no difference in the feel?

nope, they all the same in feel and sound. You might sometimes hear people saying well Unicomp Model M does not feel or click like the original IBM's, but thats only because its new one, grab new IBM or Lexmark and compare it to typing vs new Unicomp, it feels the same....same ole patent, now Model F is a different story.

[yuliadobe]

Here are the white logos, I got 2 new ones

Thanks everyone for your response. I own a Blue Label made by IBM in 1993 and I would say that there is no difference in feel between the Blue Label and the White Label in terms of feel as long as both are made by IBM (and not Lexmark).

@bazemk1979, may I ask where you got your White Label keyboards?

[bazemk1979]

Thanks everyone for your response. I own a Blue Label made by IBM in 1993 and I would say that there is no difference in feel between the Blue Label and the White Label in terms of feel as long as both are made by IBM (and not Lexmark).

@bazemk1979, may I ask where you got your White Label keyboards?

I've typed on all Lexmark,IBM and Unicomp, new ones and used ones, they all feel the same to me.

Got them both on ebay a month  go for $270 free shipping. Bought one for $150 and there was one more left, seller offered to include the second one for $120 more, but before I agreed I posted here in great finds section, went to the gym came back in 2 hrs no one showed interest so I ended up snatching the second one also. Irony is few weeks a go one new in box sold for almost $300 and another one 2-3 months a go sold for $180 new with styrofoam but no box, go figure.

[Drew Baumann]

Gotcha. Lexmark and IBM feel different though?

[bazemk1979]

Gotcha. Lexmark and IBM feel different though?

they dont feel any different. I know people think that Lexmark started making IBM boards at 1993 but Lexmark actually  was formed on March 27, 1991. So there is nothing strange if Lexmark started making Model M's every since 1991, the famous white lablel and blue label 1391401 its possible that Lexmark made some of them, but on the back sticker says otherwise because Lexmark I believe stood its grounds in 1993 and started badging the keyboards on the back with made by Lexmark. Lots of peeps think if the sticker has made by IBM then it must be made by IBM..... not really, for example, keyboard model KB-0225 (for IBM and Lenovo ThinkCentre systems) is made by Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd., but if you look at the underside label, all you see is an IBM logo, giving the impression that the keyboard is made by IBM.

I can also vouch that the very early Model M's (square badges) feels same as Lexmark and Unicomp Model M's , but thats just my opinion, the patent is the same, the only thing that changed is the plastic casing and thinner metal plate as time passed by. But other than that everything is same, same buckling spring, same rivets  holding the metal plate, heck if you have Model M gone bad you can fix it with spare Unicomp Model M parts.

[The_Beast]

That's good to know. I'd love you buy a ibm model m but my wallet want me to get a unicomp model m.

[Internetlad]

I have a Lexmark M and a Unicomp M and they feel pretty much the same. I would easily reccomend either to any interested party.

Beast, get a kentucky wildcats m

[bazemk1979]

I have a Lexmark M and a Unicomp M and they feel pretty much the same. I would easily reccomend either to any interested party.

Beast, get a kentucky wildcats m

i can also vouch for the kentucky, lovely board

[OrangeJewce]

Still waiting for the TKL Unicomp...

Cheers,

[bazemk1979]

Still waiting for the TKL Unicomp...

Cheers,

If it happens wont be anytime soon

[dorkvader]

My unicomp and beige oval M were noticeably different.... because I bolt-modded the M.

Other than that, they were both excellent, and basically felt the same.

[Internetlad]

Still waiting for the TKL Unicomp...

Cheers,

Didn't the equipment to manufacture the SSK's get broken and wouldn't be worth the reinvestment for the 10 they would sell?

[yuliadobe]

I would say that there is a slight difference.

IBM's build quality was definitely better. Further, the keys feel a more uniform in terms of the force you have to exert and the sound you hear back.

Hope this helps.

[bazemk1979]

I would say that there is a slight difference.

IBM's build quality was definitely better. Further, the keys feel a more uniform in terms of the force you have to exert and the sound you hear back.

Hope this helps.

better because they used somewhat better plastic for the casing, and most likely the metal plate is somewhat thicker, other than that its same same same.....same patent people!!! it went from IBM to Lexmark to Unicomp....

[OrangeJewce]

Didn't the equipment to manufacture the SSK's get broken and wouldn't be worth the reinvestment for the 10 they would sell?

Source?

AFAIK, after the Unicomp agent told GH to flood the ticket system of unicomp as a form of IC, and the reaction was to the point they had to tell us to stop, the number of people buying clearly must have been greater than 10. Again it's pure speculation, but what else could the "limited small batch" link on their website be for? If the demand is so low, why do IBM SSK's sell for 3x the cost of other Model M's?

Cheers,

P.s.
Link to old "flood system" thread

http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?25797-Unicomp-customization&p=485463&viewfull=1#post485463

[Internetlad]

Source?

Yeah, only selling 10 was an exaggeration.

http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?21935-Interest-Check-IBM-Industrial-SSK-Cases-from-Unicomp
OP's statement points to the mold being broken or missing, but the ability to remanufacture if demand was high. Due to the fact that Unicomp SSK boards are NOT available, and applying what we know (Unicomp is fully capable of manufacturing full size Unicomp style M's, both physically and legally, and holds the patent rights to the SSK as well), one would have to assume one or more of the following
 
A. Unicomp is NOT capable of remanufacturing a mold (this goes against what I had personally assumed, but could indeed still be valid)
B. The demand is too low for Unicomp to justify remanufacturing parts and starting the line back up
C. Unicomp is lazy/dislikes money (IE Lack of desire on their part)
D. Unicomp is hush hushily manufacturing these boards already, and there is simply no available info on them yet.

Perhaps a better statement than "demand is too low" is that "demand is not high enough" From the numbers in the aforementioned posted thread, they would need to sell 20,000 dollars worth of SSK's just to break even on the manufacturing. that's 100 units at 200 bucks a pop, say,  to simply break even

In my opinion the "ticket system flood" is largely irrelevant as they probably got annoyed by ripster sending in dozens of requests per day to their one employee who is used to handing a handful of questions per week as opposed to a ton of similar requests for an SSK.

If the demand is so low, why do IBM SSK's sell for 3x the cost of other Model M's?

I had always assumed it was small supply rather than high demand, and that people only wanted them due to the fact they were rare. IE, they were coveted only because they are rare and no longer manufactured. Maybe it's just me, but I personally don't see the use for a BS tenkeyless KB, as I consider them a "data entry" or "Business" keyboard. Personally If I wanted a straight gaming keyboard i'd get a TKL Cherry Red or similar. Personal preference and no real backing, so take it with a grain of salt.

That said, I have, in the past, considered picking one up because of the nerd factor. Like it or not GH covers a very specific subculture. High Demand for GH may mean that a high percentage of current, regular forumgoers want this item, but a high percent of a low number is still a low number.

I'm not trying to say "i'm right, you're wrong", that's just my line of reasoning and why I assume as I do.

EDIT: Regarding "Small batch limited edition", I had assumed it was for batches of custom keyboards (their "Kentucky Wildcat" style board, for example). an investment such as bringing SSKs back into production would hardly be considered for a "small batch limited edition" board, in my opinion.

[bazemk1979]

they will sell at least 100 of them in the first week, thats $10.000, and to fix, repair or build new tooling they said was around 20.000. Problem is whether they go the new toolin route or fixing the old one I hope they dont adopt their current " Space Saver " casing and make it into TKL, I owned one and the casing flexes, warps a lot.... But if they keep the traditional SSK- original looks, there wont be any worping or flexing.

 Some GH'er opened their current space saver board and in order to keep both parts of the casing in 1 place they had to insert sticky tape patches in some places... This problem we dont see in the Customizer, On The Ball , or the 122 Terminal board. The 122 terminal board has minimal flex on the upper right side, but so does the IBM and Lexmark made one. While the Silver Logo 122's have no flexing whatsoever, nor the the Model F's nor the latest model M's made in UK

[hxu1]

year is different

[OrangeJewce]

Yeah, only selling 10 was an exaggeration.

http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?21935-Interest-Check-IBM-Industrial-SSK-Cases-from-Unicomp
OP's statement points to the mold being broken or missing, but the ability to remanufacture if demand was high. Due to the fact that Unicomp SSK boards are NOT available, and applying what we know (Unicomp is fully capable of manufacturing full size Unicomp style M's, both physically and legally, and holds the patent rights to the SSK as well), one would have to assume one or more of the following
 
A. Unicomp is NOT capable of remanufacturing a mold (this goes against what I had personally assumed, but could indeed still be valid)
B. The demand is too low for Unicomp to justify remanufacturing parts and starting the line back up
C. Unicomp is lazy/dislikes money (IE Lack of desire on their part)
D. Unicomp is hush hushily manufacturing these boards already, and there is simply no available info on them yet.

Perhaps a better statement than "demand is too low" is that "demand is not high enough" From the numbers in the aforementioned posted thread, they would need to sell 20,000 dollars worth of SSK's just to break even on the manufacturing. that's 100 units at 200 bucks a pop, say,  to simply break even

In my opinion the "ticket system flood" is largely irrelevant as they probably got annoyed by ripster sending in dozens of requests per day to their one employee who is used to handing a handful of questions per week as opposed to a ton of similar requests for an SSK.
...

I had always assumed it was small supply rather than high demand, and that people only wanted them due to the fact they were rare. IE, they were coveted only because they are rare and no longer manufactured. Maybe it's just me, but I personally don't see the use for a BS tenkeyless KB, as I consider them a "data entry" or "Business" keyboard. Personally If I wanted a straight gaming keyboard i'd get a TKL Cherry Red or similar. Personal preference and no real backing, so take it with a grain of salt.

That said, I have, in the past, considered picking one up because of the nerd factor. Like it or not GH covers a very specific subculture. High Demand for GH may mean that a high percentage of current, regular forumgoers want this item, but a high percent of a low number is still a low number.

I'm not trying to say "i'm right, you're wrong", that's just my line of reasoning and why I assume as I do.

EDIT: Regarding "Small batch limited edition", I had assumed it was for batches of custom keyboards (their "Kentucky Wildcat" style board, for example). an investment such as bringing SSKs back into production would hardly be considered for a "small batch limited edition" board, in my opinion.

Thanks, really nice post.
 
I guess I would find it interesting if Unicomp had no interest in bringing the SSK back that they would then do some sort of field check in 2012 after clearly stating that without venture capital they had no intention of ever building any more SSKs in 2011 (at least that what the source thread made it sound like.) I totally agree that the GH community is relatively small. But then again so is the entire Buckling Spring / Mechanical keyboard community, and that is Unicomp's target audience. I don't know how large/small of a company Unicomp really is, but $20k is not a lot of capital even for small businesses, so I doubt that's what is holding them back.

Fact is we just don't know what they are thinking. Hopefully they will stop being hush hush about it and make an announcement sometime in the near future (Try asking the chat support, it's good for a laugh).

We can't see the ticket stuff, so it's hard to tell, but based on the number of replies in that source thread alone, it couldn't have just been ripster.


Right now, TKL is all the rage in the mechanical KB community. If that wasn't true, you wouldn't see Coolermaster et al. releasing TKL boards. How many professional coders make use of the numpad? At my workplace I am one of two who are using 104+ boards (And I only do because I can't get rid of my Ergo 4000 until the ErgoDox happens). There is definitely demand for TKL for use at work. IMO there is a lot of demand for this product, but since I don't have enough money to do a field study I can' know.

Cheers,

[number7]

Yes huge difference. I have a blue 99 and a white 88 and the 88 is way better. I am on this board to try and fix my white 88 as typing on the blue is not nearly as good.
(used whites for 15 yrs)

[mkawa]

i think the most important point regarding the difference between X model M, Y model M, and Z unicomp branded M is condition. There are some mild differences between the materials used for the internals, but with units this old the major differentiator is just mechanical wear. just because it's hard to break a model M in two and they keep sending keystrokes does not mean that they don't change in feel etc with mechanical wear. at this point, i've now rebuilt my primary SSK three times, and each time i learn a bit more about what materials and construction techniques contribute to the feel and sound of the board. i would say for the most part that a freshly built M feels pretty close to any other freshly built M, with some exceptions primarily the material of the mat/blanket, the spring weights used and the precision of the hammer/membrane alignment.

regarding a potential SSK relaunch: i've been chatting with unicomp support (who i assume is mostly/all jim, but apologies if it's not, whoever you are) quite a bit recently, and my impression is that a) they have no capability of producing tenkeyless cover sets. b) without cover sets they have no desire to do any production runs of any of the other SSK parts that they can either manufacture new or adapt from their current manufacturable designs. finally, they're just not seeing the overall demand that they would need to either design a new cover set from scratch or repair/rebuild what remains of the old cover set molds. i can't blame them either.

what i can say is this. i believe that they can provide us with enough material to construct every other piece of the SSK's internals that we need. hence, if we want this to happen, it suffices for us and us alone to figure out how to design and manufacture SSK-compatible cover sets in small quantities. if we can find ourselves up to this challenge, we'll get new SSKs. otherwise, we're going to have to keep scavenging.

[dorkvader]

better because they used somewhat better plastic for the casing, and most likely the metal plate is somewhat thicker, other than that its same same same.....same patent people!!! it went from IBM to Lexmark to Unicomp....

In my opinion, unicomp uses better case material, I believe they use a mix of ABS and PC Plus, it comes also in black (like that M13). Didn't ripster post about this once?