[WTS] AT Model F (SOLD), Refurbished NeXT Keyboard with USB Converter (pending)

[bcg]

Hi Guys

I need to raise some cash so I am putting up a couple of my restoration projects up for sale.  I hate to do it but such is life.  I put a lot of effort and elbow grease into these so I'm hoping that they can go to someone who will appreciate them and their rarity.

First up is a NeXT computer keyboard, restored by myself.  NeXT was Steve Jobs' company that he started after he was backstabbed at Apple in the 80's... after developing all sorts of innovations there, it was bought up by Apple again and its technology helped reinvigorate the company.  For example, the UNIX-based NeXT operating system was the foundation for OS X.  Tim Berners-Lee invented the WWW and HTTP on a NeXT computer, and made note that it was made possible by NeXT's innovative operating system and programming model.  NeXT equipment is extremely rare and collectible, the keyboards often go for well over $100 on ebay, sold "as is" with blurry potato pics.  Even a NeXT mouse can bring $80-90.  The keyboard has some pretty significant scratches at the top, and a metal security thingy screwed into it as well - I'm knocking some dollars off of the price because of that.  This has black Alps switches with "tabs" and doubleshot plastic keycaps.  The caps on the home row and other alphanumeric keys as well as part of the spacebar have notable "smoothing" from use.  I've cleaned up and tested this keyboard, and also I'm including a custom NeXT-to-USB converter.  As far as I know those things don't exist for sale anywhere except for this one... I built it myself after porting some code written by Ladyada to hasu's TMK firmware, so the converter has all of the familiar TMK features and you can do whatver remapping you like.  The converter comes with this mapping.

$120, includes keyboard and converter

             

Next up is a refurbished AT Model F.  This one is cleaned up and refurbished - I disassembled everything, sanded and painted the steel plate, and rearranged the barrels to so that you can use a Model M's backspace, backslash, and Enter key.  I also added the dental floss mod to dampen the metallic 'twang' a little bit.  I like this keyboard a lot and I put a lot of hours into refurbing it but I don't use it enough to justify keeping it around right now, and I would like for someone else to be able to appreciate it and enjoy it.

$220, includes AT-to-PS2 passive adapter plus either a free "blue cube" USB adapter, or for an extra $10 I'll make you a Soarer's Converter instead of the blue cube

******** AT Model F Sold! ***********

           

I can accept Paypal or Dwolla payments.  Please PM me with the email address for your account as well as a shipping address and I will send you an invoice.  You will need to pay within 24 hours of receiving the invoice, otherwise I reserve the right to offer it back up for sale.  I will ship via USPS Priority Mail, insured for the purchase price of the keyboard.  Postage costs for CONUS are included in the prices above.  If outside CONUS, you must PM me first with your location so that I can give you an exact price given the extra postage costs, and I won't necessarily hold it if someone else wants to buy it in the meantime.

Thanks guys, please let me know if you have any questions or would like more information.

[ninjadoc]

GLWS. That NeXT keyboard was quite a find. I looked at getting a whole system a while back when they were floating around and I didn't grab one. That was very foolish of me.

[mkawa]

next is not unix based. actually, it was a denial of unix' monolithic architecture. unix variants run _on top of_ the mach microkernel in next machines. what rashid et al set out to prove was that even a monolithic operating system like unix could be run as a user-level application _on top of mach_, which contained only the most basic set of abstractions of the underlying machine, and you would not only gain a huge amount of flexibility, but also execute many workflows just as fast as if you were running unix on the bare machine.

linus torvalds' counterpoint to this was that a unix-like monolithic kernel didn't have to be large. in fact, it could be extremely small, and still deliver the services offered by the large unix kernel but significantly faster than either a microkernel or a large monolithic kernel.

in the intervening years, the monolithic kernels, primarily freebsd and solaris, but also linux -- particularly with the addition of KVM -- have adopted quite a few of the "good" parts of microkernels to increase their flexibility, while microkernel-based OSes (primarily XNU/darwin underlying both ios and macos) have broken select bits of core microkernel abstractions, eg, during boot, to increase performance to match that of fast monoliths like linux without sacrificing too much of the flexibility that their architecture provides.

ps, nice boards

[bcg]

next is not unix based....

Great info, thanks mkawa

[bcg]

NeXT Keyboard is pending!   

[bcg]

Bump!

[bcg]

AT Model F SOLD!