Beautiful Alps caps on ebay - but out of my price range

[fohat.digs]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=251271596186&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:3160

[CPTBadAss]

Damn 

I wish that didn't cost so much!! It would look great on my upcoming Alps TKL board

[fohat.digs]

You do know that "Buy-It-Now" evaporates as soon as the first valid bid comes in ?

If you bid $20.01 and nobody else bid against you, then you would get it at that price.

[CPTBadAss]

I honestly have only done Buy it now and made private offers on eBay. I've only bid on an item once or twice. So no I didnt know

Maybe I'll bid against you

[fohat.digs]

I am not bidding. Even at $43 shipped, it is too much for me, since I don't have anything that would reasonably take the set.

That would be a nice retro laptop to use as-is.

Ebay does weird things sometimes, and people don't always understand how to use starting bid - reserve - buy-it-now - until-it-sells - etc - to their advantage.

Ebay charges extra for any of these services, and it is stupid to have a starting price and a buy-it-now close together - you pay extra for a service that doesn't gain any benefit (speaking as seller, of course).

When I sell, it is either fixed price, or auction with a starting point at the least that I would realistically take for the item. Ebay does not like this, and punishes you with fees, because they want to provide buyers with opportunities to get things at bargain prices.

Ebay's ideal situation is a short term auction with starting bid at one cent, the worst scenario for a seller.

[esoomenona]

That could be a great laptop to mod to something more modern. Put a nice color LCD in there, and upgrade the internals somehow. BOOM! A nice bedside geekhack posting machine.

[Tarzan]

I have some Alps sets up in the Classifieds.  None specifically from the T3200, but I do have dark grey/graphite, light grey, and coffee/tan with cream font.  All doubleshots.

Most of the sets from Toshiba laptops work best as 37-key replacements, different laptops and luggables used a variety of odd modifiers and function keys.  I was collecting these for use on a Focus keyboard, but that project is on hold in favor of some G80 action.

[dorkvader]

That could be a great laptop to mod to something more modern. Put a nice color LCD in there, and upgrade the internals somehow. BOOM! A nice bedside geekhack posting machine.

Or keep the vintage and totally awesome display in there and use it as a portable terminal, IRC client, live-update computer stats, etc.

The question is: how easy would it be to get some sort of linux to run on it.

[Hak Foo]

Don't scrap it.  It's beautiful!

[gunnish]

How do you know it has alps keycaps? Which toshiba laptops has these?

[Tarzan]

How do you know it has alps keycaps? Which toshiba laptops has these?

The Toshiba T1200, T2100, T3100, T3200, T5100, and T5200 models, according to this thread on Deskthority;

http://deskthority.net/photos-videos-f8/toshiba-t3100-t5200-t4711.html

I also got a set from a Sharp PC 7241 luggable computer, and I think the older Data911 keyboards have Alps switches.

[gunnish]

How do you know it has alps keycaps? Which toshiba laptops has these?

The Toshiba T1200, T2100, T3100, T3200, T5100, and T5200 models, according to this thread on Deskthority;

http://deskthority.net/photos-videos-f8/toshiba-t3100-t5200-t4711.html

I also got a set from a Sharp PC 7241 luggable computer, and I think the older Data911 keyboards have Alps switches.

Ah, too bad. I just happen to have a T1000le

[Mandolin]

They look like double shots because of the contrast between colors. Beautiful terminal like laptop. Didn't know that formfactor was avalible back then, so small and cute.