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Comment by analognoise | Hacker News Reader

Or you could buy a modern model M from the people who still make them - Unicomp - for ~$100

https://www.pckeyboard.com/

They're awesome.

I treated myself and bought one last year. It failed electronically six months later despite spending nearly all its time in the box...I bought it to use when using an RPi. Unicomp fixed it under warranty but made me pay for shipping it back to them.

To me, not covering shipping on warranty is a tell that their quality is low enough that failed keyboards are common. I don’t think I have ever seen a device have an electronically failed USB port...cables sure but this wasn’t.

Anyway mine was junk and might still be. I wouldn’t recommend Unicomp anymore.

For what it's worth, I own a Unicomp keyboard I got in 2013 and it still works flawlessly to this day. Not doubting nor disqualifying your experience, but just want to provide a counterbalance.

Failing USB electronics seems symptomatic of corner cutting at the level of pennies per unit. Sure anyone can get a bad batch of chips. It’s what gets done about it that speaks to quality.

This wasn’t rough use by me. It was barely used. It was a manufacturing defect and there is no way that Unicomp could not know after the keyboard was in their shop and unlikely they didn’t know before. You just can’t be in the keyboard business that long and not know what is going on.

They probably made good keyboards for a long time and might again. Mine was poorly made in terms of reliability and I don’t have confidence that they repaired it with more reliable components.

I have a Model M with a 1984 date code. The most interesting thing was that keyboard at IBM (at the time I was there) were a "green" tag part, meaning that you could just replace at customer no questions asked, not a ton of tracking. The number of these that got swapped just because they were dirty was scary. We did not have to account for them. I wish I had kept a bunch at this point.

My Model M is used on the gaming PC (Civ, XCOM and the like, not FPS).

For everyday use on the laptop I have a Japanese layout Filco Majestouch Convertible 2 TKL w/Cherry Red switches (45 cN force). I also have the same with Cherry Brown switches (55 cN). Not sure which I like the best at this point. The Model M is 70 cN.

I have a Model F somewhere around here in box. I think I need to find it and clean it up.

They're a little cheap and light feeling compared to the oldest ones but they get the point across with their satisfying key feel.

Hmmm, maybe just add some weight and get the full deal, like it doesn't move easily.

Good to know.

I love older clicky keyboards. Everyone around me hates them.

With Covid in play, now is the time to do some retro keyboarding goodness!

> I love older clicky keyboards. Everyone around me hates them.

Mood; I'd love to have a 'vintage' or modern overbuilt keyboard, but they're just too damn loud.

That said, at home I have a Filco keyboard with cherry blue switches, it's noisy but great :D

Part of me wishes I was a sysadmin, so that I could install Model M's at the server racks and workbenches and the like.

Was a sysadmin. Yup. One of the guilty pleasures is hooking up cool stuff.

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