Model M's with odd legends?

[ander]

Hey guys,

There's a lot of 3 Model M's here on eBay with strange green secondary symbols and bright red numpad Enter keys. Obviously the caps were aftermarket,
as the boards are from different years (and one's a Lexmark)... Does anyone have any idea what these boards might've been used for?

[Photekq]

I'm not sure but orihalcon has some.

Shame the price is dumb.

[fanpeople]

also...

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=67737.msg1633187#msg1633187

I have already messaged the seller asking if they know what they are from, saw this earlier today. Will post if results are had

[fanpeople]

Update.....

The seller didn't know

The mystery continues.

[aref]

I have a lot of Model M key caps with orange secondary symbols. I've not seen others with these orange-color symbols.

[Herothereu]

Semiotics.

[ramnes]

Nice find!

[ander]

Shame the price is dumb.

I dunno—$75 each does seem somewhat steep, esp. for a lot of 3 where you think you’d get something of a break. But the caps do seem pretty rare, and there are those nice red Enter keys too.  :?)

I have a lot of Model M key caps with orange secondary symbols. I've not seen others with these orange-color symbols.

They look green to me... Maybe that’s what you meant?

Semiotics.

Is that right! How did you know? Are you in that field? If you have time, would you mind giving us a brief description of how the symbols are used that way? I’m really curious.

[Herothereu]

Not in the field but if you are interested read Umberto Eco's book.

[Snowdog993]

I have seen these before!  But I don't remember what they went to, or what they were for!  That was long ago.  Maybe I will if I can jog my memory enough.  I won't make something up trying to say "Oh it was used for XYZ stuff".
But yeah they DO look VERY familiar.

[aref]

Ander: The symbols on the key caps I have are an orange-red. I've not seen other Model M caps this color.

[E TwentyNine]

You mean you have the same symbols as the ones on this keyboard or just orange secondaries?

Because APL keysets have orange and while not common, are not too rare:

[ander]

Ander: The symbols on the key caps I have are an orange-red. I've not seen other Model M caps this color.

Ah. When you said this:

I have a lot of Model M key caps with orange secondary symbols. I've not seen others with these orange-color symbols.

...I assumed you were referring to the symbols this topic was about. Many IBM keyboards have many kinds of secondary symbols, so I'm not really sure how that's relevant.

Not in the field but if you are interested read Umberto Eco's book.

Thanks, but that seems like overkill just to get a general idea of how these KBs were used. As far as I know, semiotics is the study of symbols—so these are symbols Eco devised to represent other symbols? I should've posted a photo rather than just linking to the page:

[smknjoe]

It's Icelandic or Faroese or something along those lines probably.

[ramnes]

Looks like an international layout to me, but not the classic US international we have those days.

[ander]

And can you figure why the secondary and tertiary numbers? For one thing, it's redundant. For another thing, it's redundant.

[Firebolt1914]

And can you figure why the secondary and tertiary numbers? For one thing, it's redundant. For another thing, it's redundant.

That's actually quite odd; are there codes for sub and super script? I can't seem to remember.

[E TwentyNine]

And can you figure why the secondary and tertiary numbers? For one thing, it's redundant. For another thing, it's redundant.

In short, layering.  Put the keyboard in a mode where one layer is active and you just need to look at that legend position on the key to see what it does.

You could have it so a blank legend in that spot means default to primary but that could look odd and can be user unfriendly.

So in short, layering.

[ander]

Hmm, you could both be right. The 2ndary numbers are noticeably smaller, too.