I just picked up my K-258 at our friends's in WA (it didn't make much sense to spend more on postage than the board), so I'm the last one to get mine.
I immediately noticed that it wasn't white, as the overexposed eBay photo:
...had made it seem. Rather, it's IBM beige/brown. So it looks more like a baby Model M, which is okay with me. It was just a bit surprising—at first I thought they'd sent me the wrong board.
The clear dust cover is a nice touch, as is the substantial M-style coiled cable. (I suppose this was made before cables started getting cheapened down along with everything else.)
Yup, genuine white ALPS all right (unless there are counterfeits that say "ALPS"?). As I mentioned, this is my first ALPS board ever, and getting a NIB pre-Windows one this cheap is a thrill. It's delightfully clicky... The switches feel very much like Cherry MX blues to me—just as crisp, and loud enough to look forward to using them to annoy my family. :?)
I swapped the delete and num lock keys shortly after I got it and remapped it via software...
Yeah, the layout
is funny, isn't it? Can't blame njbair for thinking it was ISO; I've never seen one quite like it either.
I'm not crazy about the half-size Backspace. And yeah, it was quite odd putting Insert and Delete on the bottom row and pushing over the spacebar like that. I sympathize with metalliqaz ("As someone who presses spacebar with their right thumb, that layout is b0rked"), but apparently I tend to keep my hands more toward the KB's center, as I haven't missed the spacebar yet.
The big-ass Enter looks even more big-assed than usual on this little board.
Humourously big-ass. Typing-wise, though, it doesn't bother me at all. (I never did get why BAEs turn some people off so much... The bottom half, where a regular-size Enter usually is, is the same shape as a regular-size Enter; it just has an extra piece above that, which you're free to ignore. Maybe I'm missing something.)
I'm typing this review on the Unitek (seemed appropriate), and it's taken me only a few minutes to adjust to it. Personally, I think it's good for our brains to cycle through some odd layouts. You not only get used to each layout, you develop the general skill of adapting to
all odd layouts. With the right attitude, we're remarkably adaptable creatures—and new challenges are what enabled us to evolve that way.
So to sum up, despite the quirks, this was definitely worth the dough to me. Thanks again,
grazed!
And what is a good way to get that awful postage off of the box...?
Funny—they reversed my box so it's plain on the outside and printed on the inside. Wonder why they started bothering? Maybe the P.O. complained about the printing?
A lot of times hotplugging PS/2 requires a reboot, even on newer computers. But if you use a PS/2 to USB converter, a reboot is not necessary.
i've also heard there's a possibility hotplugging PS/2 can blow out your motherboard. not sure if that still applies to modern machines...
It sure does! You should
never hot-plug PS/2; it wasn't designed for that. I don't know about blowing out your mobo, but you can certainly blow out your PS/2 adapter (which is part of your mobo, and thus not replaceable). This is why USB was so cool when it came out—it
could be hotplugged.
Once you connect your board to an active USB adapter, though, as far as your PC's concerned, it's a USB device—so hotplugging it then is no problem.
