Comment by brudgers | Hacker News Reader

Comment by brudgers | Hacker News Reader

Just an anecdote about the Unicomp Model M's.

I treated myself to one about four years ago. After many years of telling myself it was too expensive.

It was complete crap. I mostly kept it in its original box except for fooling around with it on an rPi. It failed in less than two years.

I sent it back for repair under warranty. The warranty required I pay for shipping it back. Another twenty-five bucks down the drain.

A few weeks later its back. In the interim, I am poking around on the Unicomp website and notice that it lists the weight as...I don't remember, but like five or six pounds.

The one I bought from Unicomp weighed in at just under three. I remembered when the Unicomp arrived and thinking it felt light and flimsy compared to my memory of the original Model M I'd had back in the 1990's (salvaged from a 8580 headed to the dumpster).

I got the replacement back and sell it on eBay to cut my losses.

I bought the Unicomp before the pandemic, so it wasn't a supply chain issue. Just a company maximizing profits. Requiring customers to pay for shipping under warranty is probably a sign that the company knows it will have a lot of warranty repairs.

My advice is don't buy a Unicomp. But YMMV.

The parent comment is a bit hyperbolic and under-informed, so let me try to provide some color on the Unicomp brand.

I own a half-dozen Unicomp keyboards, have used original IBM Model Ms, Model Fs, and has a pair of the Model F Labs F77s, so I have some familiarity with buckling spring boards.

Unicomp's manufacturing equipment came by way of Lexmark and the quality suffered as the tooling aged. They replaced their tooling in 2020 when the shipped the New Model M. Fit and finish is much improved since then.

From Wikipedia:

"Unicomp continued to use the original IBM machinery to produce Model Ms, leading to a gradual decline in quality as the tooling became worn. This, and various problems with their USB controllers helped keep a market for vintage Model Ms thriving. In 2020 Unicomp replaced its tooling and shipped a "New Model M" with noticeably improved build quality that more closely resembles the classic 1391401 (though with a 104- or 103-key layout and USB); many older variants are no longer sold on Unicomp's website and some still on sale have been deprecated."

There are a few issues with the Unicomp boards:

1. Thinner plastic cases and a lighter backplate. The case was improved with the new tooling, but the backplate still changed the feel compared to the originals. 2. Plastic rivets breaking. The board itself is sandwiched and held together with plastic rivets. These rivets will eventually start failing, which leads to key detection issues or complete board failure. They have to be bolt modded to fix this. 3. Non-customizable USB controller. Programmability has become expected with mechanical keyboards and other than Unicomp themselves flashing a layout at the factory there's nothing here.

Customer service from the company has always been excellent, in my experience, but it's definitely a firm that gives the impression of trying to keep the lights on for 30 years and just barely making the margins pencil out (thus paying for return shipping).

Some people really love buckling springs. Unicomp makes a decent board that gets you that for a price less than $500, but if buckling spring isn't your terminal value in a keyboard, consider one of the dozens of excellent mechanical keyboards out there with modular key switches.

I checked my records. I bought it in 2020. So it was the “new model.”

The keyboard Unicomp sold me was complete crap. It failed after a dozen hours of use (just being plugged in to an rPi is in that number) over a few months. Otherwise it sat in its box on a shelf.

I was into the original keyboard for $150. Another $28 for shipping under warranty.

It didn’t feel like quality.

It didn’t perform like quality.

Unicomp didn’t stand behind it as if they believed it was quality.

I bought a Unicomp 15 years ago, no regrets. A couple years ago i had to replace it (a couple dead keys) and 8 keys on the new one didn't feel right. Kind of mushy and wiggly when fully depressed? I swapped in the keycaps from the old keyboard and now they're fine. This keyboard has a date of 2/25/2020 but my issue was with keycaps so no idea when they were made. In 2038 when this one dies I'd prefer to buy another Unicomp but we'll see.

I had two crap Unicom’s, and they also refused to pay for shipping when they broke.

I then heard that they revamped the e keyboards and I tried again. This one has been problem free for a few years now.

That's a damn shame, I bought mine in 2007 and it is still actively used and awesome.

In the end I bought a Hermes Baby typewriter and got a tactile writing experience.

I have tried just one.

I concur. Not a patch on the real thing.

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