Help me obsess over a blurry jpg of a switch.

[RoflCopter4]

So there's a sale on eBay for a NIB Focus FK-2001. I have no interest in actually purchasing the board and I won't link to it because this is not the vendor forums, but I am kind of curious as to which switch it uses. I got the seller to take a photo of the switch but naturally he took the photo with a potato and then compressed it a dozen times into a blurry ass jpg. I think, judging by the short tabs, that this may be genuine complicated white alps, but the numbering seems somehow off. There seems to just be one patch of lettering at the top of the key which would be consistent with simplified white Alps. However, like I said, the tabs are too short.

Does anyone out there with more experience obsessing over terrible quality photos or with experience with Alps able to tell one way or the other?

The photo:  http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTIwMFgxNjAw/z/c0UAAOSwiCRUjwXj/$_57.JPG

For reference: http://deskthority.net/wiki/Alps_SKCM_White

and: http://deskthority.net/wiki/Alps.tw_Type_OA2

[E TwentyNine]

Simplified Complicated alps whites.

http://deskthority.net/wiki/Focus_FK-2001

[jacobolus]

Looks like complicated white Alps to me. Does the keyboard have windows keys? Also, go ahead and link the auction if you want to.

Edit: http://www.ebay.com/itm/371135543049

Definitely complicated white Alps. I got a nearly new one of these (Magitronic branded, no box or dust cover) for <$20 shipped a few months ago, and it’s pretty nice to type on. Good condition white Alps switches are great.

[E TwentyNine]

Definitely complicated white Alps.

Yep, forgot about that windows key factor in which switch it is.

[RoflCopter4]

I was definitely leaning towards it being complicated white as well. Thanks.

Anyone wanna play round 2? This photo is even worse:

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTYwMFgxMjAw/z/fh4AAOSwD0lUjym7/$_4.JPG

http://www.ebay.com/itm/231398732114

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Yep, forgot about that windows key factor in which switch it is.

MouseFan cites 1996 as the last year in which complicated white Alps was found:

http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~hisao/alpsk.htm

Complicated Alps and Windows keys are not mutually exclusive, although it's a combination yet to be discovered.

However, he doesn't cite any references, so I have no way to independently verify any column of his chart, and one column was massively revised only recently.

The switch depicted above has slits, though, setting (again, based on MouseFan's unreferenced data) a range of 1988–1993.

[RoflCopter4]

Yep, forgot about that windows key factor in which switch it is.

MouseFan cites 1996 as the last year in which complicated white Alps was found:

http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~hisao/alpsk.htm

Complicated Alps and Windows keys are not mutually exclusive, although it's a combination yet to be discovered.

However, he doesn't cite any references, so I have no way to independently verify any column of his chart, and one column was massively revised only recently.

The switch depicted above has slits, though, setting (again, based on MouseFan's unreferenced data) a range of 1988–1993.

I agree that the first one is almost certainly complicated white Alps. Incidentally, its a shame that so much of the very limited info that is available on these switches is of such a dubious nature. Oh well.

That said, I cannot for the life of me make out the switch on the second board I linked. I appreciate that the seller took the time to take off a keycap and get a photo, but the photo is just so terrible that there really isn't any way to be sure what I'm looking at. If I had to guess I'd say simplified Alps of some kind or another, but that would only be by virtue of any identifying feature of complicated Alps being hidden behind the low quality of the photo. They might be there or they might not.

[jacobolus]

To be honest I’d skip the second one at that price regardless of the switch.

[RoflCopter4]

To be honest I’d skip the second one at that price regardless of the switch.

Not even remotely interested in buying it, I just want to identify it.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Round 2 — no way to tell from that photo. It's a Focus FK-2001, the keyboard known for the Simplified Alps Type III, which is a fake blue Alps switch. From that photo, it's impossible to tell if the switch is Alps-branded or a new fake. Chances are though, it's white complicated Alps (it's the correct shape).