Wonderful analysis. We had an IBM PC Convertible when I was younger, and I always thought its keyboard was remarkably good. I've never seen the same type of switches used on any other keyboards since then. Nice to see it getting some recognition.
Great video! Brown alps are the best tactile switches out there in my opinion. I hope one day someone finds a good solution to converting these because it is really a shame that people tear these apart for the switches.
I'm looking forward to the day that someone picks up the proverbial torch and starts reproducing old ALPS designs. I mean, you've got Matias out there making bastardized versions, but I'm talking legit reproductions of SKCM-series switches, sort of like what Ellipse is doing with the buckling springs in the Model F reproductions.
This popped up in the YT algorithm. I do watch your videos and they always make me reminiscent of all my old keyboards from childhood. I really wish I could afford to go out and buy and restore something like this for my own computer now. This keyboard would be wonderful!
"Some of the most inferior pieces of infernal poopshit I've ever come across." I died. Yep, I'm gonna go ahead and use that one in our next quarterly performance review.
Those are really nice stepped keys. The steps are not so wide as to create canyons between the keys, yet wide enough to give the keyboard a little bit of distinctiveness.
I found one of these today, that has been faithfully maintained and used up until this year. I got it thinking it was an interesting piece of history, but I have been typing on the thing all day! I LOVE the Brown ALPS!
Giorgio Rafaelle If that one had the life my late aunt's Smith Corona PWP 350 had sitting on a home office desk for years near a window that got a lot of sun then your right. I had to do some serious retrobrite to the keys on that poor board before putting the machine up for sale on eBay last year.
I just got a Magnavox Videowriter myself & it is pretty much the same as yours. Not NOS, but damn close. Very very clean, especially the switches & it was made in 1986 also. If I had to guess it was never used or only used very few times by the original owner, then was very lightly used by any enthusiast owners it's had since then. The switches feel the same as the few NOS loose SKCM browns I have, even though the seller rated them 8 out of 10. Overall I have to agree with you, it is one great feeling board with a very usable layout. With this board too I'm coming around more to your point of view on collecting vintage boards. I had originally planned to harvest the browns for a custom ALPS 60% build, but after getting the board in my hands & giving it try I decided it's too nice & rare of a keyboard for harvesting. I plan on converting mine to USB, making a custom keymap for it, & using it as is. I know there is a few people who have successfully converted these to USB by removing the stock cable, installing a Teensy or Pro Micro, & running a USB cable out from that. Although I would really like to find a way to keep the original cord & use some type of plug in converter like a Soarer's converter if possible. Anyways great review as always & PM me on here or GH if you still haven't converted yours. I'd be more than happy to pass on anything I learn about the process as I research it & tinker with mine. These boards are too nice to sit in a collection in an unusable state IMHO! 😉
First thing I noticed during the typing demonstration is the sound the spacebar makes. Damn that was a good sound! Sounded way better than the rest of the board!
I feel like a unicorn because I have two Filco Zeros. One with blue alps and one with brown. I want two more, one with a linear alps switch and another with neon green ones. Perhaps one day
Although they are tactile, something in the way they sound as they get pressed during the typing demonstration made me think of purely linear switches.
Hm, I think I understand what you are saying, after all I 've only been exposed to the Cherries and lately to Matias quiets, so when I saw the brown color I instictively connected it to the Cherry MX shit which of course has a somewhat audible actuation point+tactile bump transition sound.
Actually it was Commodore who destroyed the TI-99/4A, not IBM. Under Jack Tramiel, Commodore slashed the prices of their VIC-20 and C64 computers so much that in order to compete, Texas Instruments ended up selling the 99/4A for less than what it cost to make them, driving them out of the home computer business.
I didn't say IBM killed off the Ti-99 though, I just meant that because IBM were dominating the PC market so much, other companies vied for the cheaper markets.
I had one of these as a kid (somewhere around 2005), but it was Panasonic branded. Most of them have gone by the wayside in the dumpster when people harvest the CRT out of those for HP-80 series computers that need that wide tube. oh god. I can recall doing so many school assignments on it, saved to a 720K disk, printed out the top, and it was a loud experience at that. Eventually used up the ink ribbon and neither of my parents wished upon me to use that infernal thing any further and forced me to be rid of it. I miss it, and its amazing keyboard, dearly.
No, that's a different one. That one was clearly nowhere near crap enough for Apple - recently event hey themselves admitted their Butterfly switches were poopshit xD .
Finally get to hear your thoughts on SKCM browns! SKCM browns are the king of tactile ALPS IME! I got the pleasure of doing a build for a friend that used SKCM browns recently & was shocked at much better they feel than say SKCM orange or salmon. TBH neon greens are the only tactile ones I'd put above browns, but the feel is so different between them & any other SKCM tactile switches I kinda feel they are their own type of switch. Which are excellent switches IMO as well. Of course as you said they are very rare & expensive so I hold out hope that I will one day have a KB with SKCM browns, but still put that more into my pipe dream category LOL!
leah Knight Model Ms are damn nice keyboards, both my vintage boards are Model Ms (but regular European layout PC ones), one's my daily driver and the other one has (according to the eBay seller anyway) only been out of its box and tested once when it was new and sits in its box as a spare. Would love to own an F122 one day though.
Goddamn, this keyboard sounds good. Ever since I first tried a loose Brown switch, I've wanted a keyboard with Browns. Based on my single loose switch, they feel the most like what I think a tactile switch should feel like. I've been trying to fill the gap with Zealios for years now but, while great, they're just not the same.
The optical aspect of the switches don't even give any actual advantage like something like the Bloody LK or especially the Wooting - it's legit just a contact switch but the contacts are replaced with a laser, no matter what it's still binary.
I know classic keyboards are your thing, but I'd love to see what you thing of the new razer huntsman keyboard. All the reviews I've seen seem pretty ill-informed, by people who've pretty much only had exoerience with mx switches, and only in the context of playing games. Getting an opinion from someone who knows what the hell they're talking about would be nice.
Yep, those purple switches, apart from the laser sensing thing, look fairly interesting in terms of their wacky design and how they managed a clicky feel (because I can’t spot where or what the clicker is from the other videos)
Dang that nav at the top, holy crap someone please bring that back! Reminds me of the Playstation d pad a little though diagonals are probably going to be a pain (thus is why I still prefer controllers for fighting games like street fighter with a analog thumb stuck)
Indeed a nice board, and I'm thinking it would make a decent layout for a Chrome OS based system. I hope you can get your hands on a few different Chrome specific keyboards at some point, even if they are not mechanical just to comment out their layout.
Chyrosran can you do a review of lubed Cherry MC blues? I didn't like mine until I lubed them with Silicone WD-40. I'd like to know if doing this could make you like Cherry blues.
Fuck me blind with nettles!!! I don't believe this! I had this!!! I had it almost 30 years ago!! My mother got one from her office to do some side work at home!!! I was just a kid not knowing a thing and when the writer broke down she threw it away!!! ToT Fuck my damn bad luck!!!
oh, i have been looking for mechanical mini F-keys for years and this is the first i have ever seen. thanks to this video i quickly located this page: deskthority.net/wiki/Alps_SKCL_Compact i wanted to make keyboards for children/small hands/disabled and could see no good options. at least we know that this has been done (and can be redone).