Well, Fo, not to sound unappreciative or anything—but these 4th-generation 52* M's, being among the last produced by Lexmark before they sold out to Unicomp, can't compare in build quality to Lexmark's earlier M's, or IBM-made ones. They utilized Lexmark's lightest build; a more fragile flat cable, rather than the traditional round one; and a redesigned controller that, by many accounts, took economization a bit too far.
The M's I've come across that no longer worked have usually been 52*-series boards—while earlier M's, even those 9–10 years older, have usually worked fine unless they've been unusually thrashed.
(Interestingly, this does
not include Lexmark's later iterations of the 51G8572 for RS/6000 emulation systems—which, despite being produced during the same period, remained high-quality. I suspect Lexmark was shy about replacing cycled-out 2nd/3rd-gen 51G8572s with obviously scaled-back equivalents.)
This item's description doesn't match its photo, either. It's obviously not "fully cleaned and restored", and the numbers don't match. That's because the seller copied the description from
this previously sold 52G9700 at ClickyKeyboards.com, and either didn't read it carefully, or didn't care about details—not a good sign. :?|
Having said all that, I always appreciate posts here, am grateful that people take the time to do them, and always hesitate to say anything critical. (It always bugs me when people do that with mine!) So I hope you won't take my comments too personally. Cheers, A.
