Monterey's grand children

[poxeclipse]

http://www.hua-jie.com/

Did somebody try those Keyboard Switches ? It seems that Monterey was produce there, long time ago.

[Dgsbllx]

*awaits groupbuy*

[jwaz]

Woohoo, awesome find, looks like someday we may be able to make a DIY successor to the Minitouch. Maybe even a modified version of the Ergodox.

IMO the Monterey blue switch is second only to IBM Bucking springs, in terms of clicky switches.

[lazerpointer]

If you look under "keyboard switch" it shows a red Alps and a green Alps switch. Has anybody tried these switches? Very curious what they are like.

[poxeclipse]

If you look at the specifications, they have for sale only ivory (60 gf, click), green (70gf, click) and yellow (70gf, tactile).
I don't know how to call them, for they are not Alps. Alps is a Japanese manufacturer, these guys are in Taiwan.

[Grimey]

Interesting find for certain.  Makes me fantasize about a custom ALPS board group buy... if the phantom PCB design could be modified to take ALPs switches and a  plate or two to go along with it, throw in a custom set of ALPs double shots for SP, this would be a fun project (implying these switches are nice).  I guess a case would also be nice to have, but making it fit in the existing cases would be a hell of an addon.

[Grimey]

Broke down, sent them an email asking about pricing for a small batch of each to try them.  I will update if/when I get a response.

[kmiller8]

Broke down, sent them an email asking about pricing for a small batch of each to try them.  I will update if/when I get a response.

awww yeaaa

* kmiller8 loves the Ducky Green ALPS

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Is this a cross post from my post on Deskthority? These are nothing to do with "Monterey" switches. These are probably the "XM" switches in the SIIG MiniTouch, which are not actual Xiang Min switches.

Monterey report that they got their blue switches from SMK. Chicony also tell me that they got them from SMK, and the Chicony KB-5181/2 has "SMK SW" on the PCB. The evidence suggests that Monterey switches are just custom SMK switches with a modified shell that had the logo omitted. I've also asked SMK, to triple-check.

[fohat.digs]

That is good to know.

Are there any decent quality, ANSI-style boards with SMK switches commonly available?

I know that the answer to that was probably in the pre-R00TW0RM wiki ......

[Daniel Beardsmore]

As far as I know, SMK switches are no longer made. Modern keyboards are all Cherry and Alps clones. There are few commonly available vintage keyboards anyway. Vintage boards are pot luck.

If you mean, ones with the IBM Model M/Cherry G80-3000 layout, probably not. Asian keyboards—which is most of them by the mid 80s onwards—by and large had bigass enter keys and other abominations such as placing \ between ctrl and shift, and single-unit backspace (which is of course still the Japanese form — hope they don't make too many typos). The move to modern enter keys is a recent change, and some companies still haven't changed.

Later Acer membrane keyboards had a nice layout though ;-)

[fohat.digs]

Too bad, I love those switches.

The only one of those items you mentioned that I absolutely cannot abide is the small backspace.

I will keep my Chicony 5181, but I rarely use it anymore, mostly for that reason.

[Grimey]

Well I got a very un-informative response ...

Code: [Select]

Channing
 
Please help
Which was forwarded to some email with the name of Channing.  I suspect I may need to google-translate a message or type very plain English just asking to buy around 10 of each switch.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Same response here.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Well I got a very un-informative response ...

OK chaps and chapesses …

I followed up with Channing and I have some specifications and samples.

Executive summary:

• LED and latching action switches, plus the alternative family are all phased out (I really wanted to see their latching switches)
• Current generation AK-CN2 and AK-DN2 (labelled "AK-CN2(2)" and "AK-DN(2)", and the only switches still made) have identical internals to Xiang Min KSB-C and KSB-N
  
• The plastics (shells and numbering) do not match Xiang Min
• Both clicky (C) and linear (D) use ivory sliders with a numbering scheme that does not match any prior model (NE:#,SW:# — not the same as the NW:#,SE:# seen before)

My Xiang Min samples were labelled with both Xiang Min and Hua-Jie part numbers, yet they're not the same switch. Xiang Min never did respond to me asking why they did that. The metal parts appear to come from the same factory, but the plastics are different.

@Grimey: I have 5 of each, so if you want 2 of each type, I'm happy to send them to you for free.