Hi to all fellow keyboard enthusiasts,
I have been lurking on gh (and deskthority) for a while and am just now leaving the shadows in order to write up and share the knowledge gained on my latest project, replacing the controller of a Sanyo MB550 keyboard with my own tennsy controller.
I got hooked on old mechanical keyboards in a typical way I guess: about fifteen years ago I read sth about the IBM Model M and bought one from ebay.
I quickly decided that I would never want to type on anything inferior ever again and so I bought one more and found another one in my universities trash.
I also found some 122 key model Ms with german layout and PS/2 connector - apparently quite a rarity.
These served me well for a while (I bolt-modded most of them and had to fix the circuit board with conductive silver sometimes), until I got my hands on a PC/XT Model F and loved it even more than the model M, except for the weird layout. I built my own XT/USB controller converter for the model F, but the original controller seems to be broken...
Nowadays, I'm quite happy with two 122 key model Fs in rotation with soarer's controller, but I have also continued collecting.
My latest acquisitions are a model F Bigfoot, the aforementioned MB-550 and an old terminal keyboard build by keytronic with capacitve switches.
GH has been a valuable source of information and inspiration over the last three years, big thanks to all of you for that
haphi
