The $1 thrift store special

[1cewolf]

It started off innocently enough. I just wanted to buy a decent keyboard and I knew that they didn't make them like they used to, so I picked up an original Microsoft Natural keyboard. Then a quiet-touch Model M. Pretty soon, I was studying the different types of switches here and plotting the start of my very own keyboard collection.

I'm 1cewolf. And now I'm a keyboard nut.

After reading stories about people finding Model Ms and such at thrift stores, I was inspired. I, too, wanted to discover this fabled land of $5 vintage keyboards, so I went to http://www.thethriftshopper.com/, got a list of thrift stores around here, and paid a bunch of them a visit.

The Goodwills basically didn't have anything at all and I doubt I'll be back to them. But at St. Vincent De Paul's thrift store, I found a programmable PS/2 Gateway Anykey with a price sticker of $1.99. They were having a half-off sale, so I got it for a mere $1.07 after tax. Not technically a $1 thrift store special, but close enough. Here are a few pictures...





That's right - a $1.07 DEBIT. I didn't even have enough pocket change to pay for it.







The two feet on the bottom can be adjusted for two different positions, resulting in three total positions - flat, raised a little, and raised a lot.

In all fairness, I didn't know anything about it until I got home. The only reason I bought it was because I mistook it for some kind of mechanical switch board. It's kind of clicky, it gives good tactile feedback, and it looked the part after I popped off a key.

I looked up the Gateway Anykey on Wikipedia and was pretty impressed. A few excerpts:

"The Gateway AnyKey is a programmable PC keyboard that was sold with desktop computers from the Gateway 2000 company roughly from 1990 to 1995. It was manufactured in at least five known versions and incarnations by Tucson, Arizona-based Maxi Switch, now a subsidiary of LiteOn Technology Corporation. The AnyKey is no longer manufactured, with the latest dated model available marked 1996.

...

The AnyKey's most unique feature is its hardware programmability. The keyboard contains an internal controller as well as an EEPROM chip that can store user-defined macros. Any key on the keyboard can be programmed to contain a macro of arbitrary length or can be programmed to act like any other key on the keyboard (remapped). This is done on the hardware level inside the keyboard's controller itself. No driver software is required to use the AnyKey's programming functionality, as the keyboard's own controller dictates which keypress codes are sent to the attached computer. A utility for MS-DOS exists to quickly remap the entire keyboard to a predefined configuration or save its current configuration to a file, but it is not required to use or program the keyboard. The AnyKey's EEPROM memory will retain its data even if the keyboard is unplugged indefinitely, so settings and programming aren't lost if the computer is powered down, unplugged, or if the keyboard is unplugged or moved to a different computer.

...

The “extra” F keys on the left of the keyboard are essentially reserved for having macros programmed to them, though they mirror the function of the F keys along the top of the keyboard before they are programmed. The keyboard treats both sets of F keys as separate, however – Remapping or programming one of the F keys will not change the function of its counterpart."

There are five different known versions listed on Wikipedia, but this one doesn't seem to correspond to any of them. I'll have to update the entry appropriately if I ever figure out how mine is different.

But seriously, how cool is this Anykey? Maybe it's just the fact that I'm a n00b, but I've never seen anything like it. I'm dying to try it out once I get my desktop up and running again.

EDIT: Check out my video review of the Anykey here -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZdjSl_rQ98

[wellington1869]

welcome 1cewolf, nice find, fantastic price  That thriftstore website is handy.

How do you program this beast? (Whats the procedure to remap a key or assign a key-combo? Is it easy?

Also, when you get a chance, more description of key feel, and maybe an audio clip?

[1cewolf]

I've used nothing but rubber domes my whole life and this one didn't feel like one. It's definitely noisier than the standard keyboard and I can feel a little "bump" in the keys when I type. I'll take a video of it later tonight and put it on Youtube.

Here's the information Wikipedia had for its programming:

EDIT: Snip! Watch my video review if you want to see how to program this. The link is in my original post.

[Rajagra]

Now that's luck. I wouldn't worry too much about which switches are used, as you say it feels good and it has special abilities that are rare and expensive to buy in the nearest modern equivalent.

[wellington1869]

Every keyboard made should be programmable like this Great feature.

Btw, fyi, ebay completed listings show the anykey keyboard selling for around $30 or so.

A youtube video of it would be great to see.

[wellington1869]

A macro is programmed to a key by pressing the “Program Macro” button once (depending on the revision of the keyboard, the Ctrl key may also need to be held down), pressing the key that will have the macro assigned to it once, and then entering the commands to be programmed. Any sequence of key presses is valid input, including letters, numbers, keys used in conjunction with shift, alt, and control, F keys, cursor movement, remapped keys, and even other keys programmed with macros

I'm curious if its possible to map key-combo to key-combo. Its not clear from the above description if thats possible. The description is for single-key assignment, in other words.

To take an example, its clearly possible to map, say, the J key (a single key) to produce a key combo like "Control-Left."  
But I wonder if it would be possible to map Control-Shift-J to produce the same Control-Left.

[1cewolf]

Some potentially bad news...I tired plugging this keyboard in to an HP desktop that's a couple years old and it didn't work. In fact, when I plugged this keyboard in, the PS/2 mouse didn't work, either. I was thinking about why this might be the case when I remembered something I saw in a thread about the SGI Granite keyboard...

300mA? The Model M only requires a hefty 100mA... which is part of the reason it won't work with certain modern motherboards... This thing should have an even less chance of working with some motherboards that even the M is compatible with...

This Gateway 2000 says it takes 360mA max on the label, so it probably won't work unless it's plugged into a seriously heavy-duty motherboard. The GA-965p-DQ6 in my desktop is pretty hardcore, so I'll have to see if it's strong enough when my desktop's power supply arrives on Monday.

[watduzhkstand4]

wow nice find. Where do you live with 7% sales tax?

[Rajagra]

For that keyboard I'd happily buy a separate PSU and rig it up via a PS/2 extension lead.

[ch_123]

Would an active USB adaptor work with that? USB is 500mA so it should be enough...

[1cewolf]

Would an active USB adaptor work with that? USB is 500mA so it should be enough...

Good idea. I'm a little hesistant to buy the one sold on Clickykeyboards because it looks like CX23882 had problems getting his to work with an SGI Granite, which takes 300mA...

I've just checked this and mine appears to be the same hardware. The VendorID is 0d3d and ProductID 0001. I can't remember the name on the packaging, but the cube itself just says "USB Adapter" on the top and "USB to PS/2 Adapter, Made in China" on the bottom.

I tried it with a Dell AT101W, and it works perfectly. The SGI fails after a few seconds (but works fine when connected directly via PS/2). The main difference I can see is the power draw of the respective boards. The SGI claims to need 300mA whereas the Dell is only 10mA.

Am I mistaken in thinking that it wouldn't work with my Anykey?

[Manyak]

Oh man, I used to have one of these a long time ago....it came with my 486DX/2 66MHz

Get a PS/2 extension cord and splice it so that you can connect the +5V and Gnd wires directly to your PC's PCU instead of drawing power from the motherboard.


Two things you also might like to know:

1 - When programming the board, it will always register a key's original function, not the reprogrammed macro. So if you programmed the A key as '12345', and a macro you program later on the B key uses the A key, it will register as an A in the macro, not 12345.

2 - When programming/remapping keys they don't get sent to the PC normally as a single keydown/keyup. Holding a remapped key down sends the PC many down/up/down/up/down/up signals after each other, depending on the repeat rate you set on the keyboard.


And I'm pretty sure that there are rubber domes underneath those plastic things, kind of like the Dell Quietkeys. It's been so long I'm not 100% sure though.

[1cewolf]

Ahh, I see what you mean. Retail stores charge a fortune for cables, so I picked up a cheap PS/2 extension cable from eBay and it should be here in a few days. Altering it like that shouldn't be hard to do.

Thanks for the tips. According to the Wikipedia article, this is, in fact, a rubber dome keyboard.

EDIT: Oh, and since I was asked, I live in Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh.

[huha]

I have a PS/2 extension spliced up and connected to a USB cable. Originally for using with my endurapro, as I thought my adapter would stop working after a while due to high power draw, which was wrong, as the adapter didn't cease to stop working even with the cable connected.



As for $1 thrift stores: I just got my AT102DW. I bought it from ebay, NIB. EUR 1 + shipping. Nice board, yet somewhat light switches.


-huha

[keyb_gr]

As for $1 thrift stores: I just got my AT102DW. I bought it from ebay, NIB. EUR 1 + shipping. Nice board, yet somewhat light switches.

Good catch. I don't think they're very common here.

In terms of 1€ + shipping specials, I bought: a fairly well-kept G80-3000 with clears (1996 vintage), a well-kept (if label-less) OEM G80-1000 with blacks (1989), a dirty and heavily used G80-3000 with blacks (2002), a NIB OEM early G81-3000 (1992) and a well-kept G81-3000 (1998). Haven't looked for any more recently as I'm pretty much drowning in keyboards.

It can also go wrong though - I ended up paying almost 13 EUR in total for a heavily yellowed, defective G81-3000 (2000) as it had to be sent twice. Ah well, at least it made a good keycap donor and allowed me to study failure mechanisms.

[huha]

I'll stop buying keyboards for now, as I should now have a nice cross-section of keyboards. (Also, it's getting expensive).
As for the Dell with black Alps, I quite like them. They're a bit more tiring than for example brown Cherries (they feel a little bit "mushier"), but I still like the key feel a lot more. I guess I'm more of an Alps man than a Cherry guy.

-huha

[IBI]

This Gateway 2000 says it takes 360mA max on the label, so it probably won't work unless it's plugged into a seriously heavy-duty motherboard. The GA-965p-DQ6 in my desktop is pretty hardcore, so I'll have to see if it's strong enough when my desktop's power supply arrives on Monday.

I don't think it's the power draw, the beige AT102W claims 275mW (presumably the AT101W is the same) and I've not heard of problems with that from many people.

I've got the non-anykey version of that board and it works fine on my Asus P5Q Pro.

Mine's not clicky at all though, it's a very nice rubber dome that registers where it should. I don't know if you've tried any mechanical keyboards yet, but clicky ones are very definite clicks like snapping your fingers rather than the more gentle giving way of the maxiswitch.

Oh, and the keycaps are very nice and cherry MX compatible so you might like to do some mixing and matching if you ever get your hands on a keyboard with MX switches.