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Hey guys... I like alps SKCM creams... can you tell? :)
Great switches indeed. Too bad their so rare. The NeXT ebay guy is really our only main source for them. Seems he got a hold of a warehouse of old stock or something. NeXT computers were only sold for a few years and less with the non-adb variant. The next best source is those big AP Canon typewriters. I think people would pick them up a lot more but A not a whole lot of people know about them and B you can really only get them locally, ebay shipping is ridiculous (but expected) and rarely does a seller do free ship.
It's kinda like SKCL Striped Amber as well. Some of the best switches Alps made no one got. When the NeXT's dry up we will have a Cream crisis on our hands :rolleyes:
Also about the NeXT thing the vintage computer community hates us, destroying/modifying old hardware! I think some guy called us vultures lol. I try to preserve old hardware when I can and definitely respect it when I do have to take it apart, like the Tandem terminals for example. Or most of the time I repurpose them with new switches etc. The 5140 feast is another one they really hate.
Of the five keyboards the NeXT eBay guys sold me, three were missing caps, had cracked cases or non-functional. He was surprised I even wanted them. I kept a working one then the other four were harvested and sent off to Mike and E3E. So that only counts as me killing one of them :(
Its a shame that in order to obtain SKCM Ambers and SKCM Browns people basically trash the whole computer. At least on the IIcs, the caps are worth anything to most people, so you could presumably solder some black alps in and resell it intact. The good thing about harvesting switches from 5140s and IICs like my two, is that the broken ones go for much cheaper!
Still haven't touched the 5140 but I would like to do something along the lines of
what I saw on DT. Not really harvesting, just temporarily repurposing.
My only KB guilt I carry is the Zenith ZKB-2R sitting in the closet without any switches because its missing a keycap. All the switches were seeming glued to the pcb by whatever gunk was leftover.