Starts at $420!

It’s aluminum!

What price keyboard perfection?

If I still did a lot of keyboard inputting, I might spring for it. (I used to do heavy transcription.)

I think I mentioned this before when I was raving about my new mechanical keyboards...

A few years ago, I was cleaning out my basement. I had a pile, literally a PILE of old IBM PCs. Model B five-slot PCs, several PC/XTs, a PC/AT, a couple non-IBM units, and all the accoutrements... monitors, printers, a complete original IBM PC Network with miles of coax cable, and at least a dozen keyboards. I also had an IBM 3101 terminal - a dial-up terminal for mainframes. I sold the entire pile to one kid for a couple hundred bucks.

The 3101 had beamspring keys, the previous generation of technology before buckling springs. They were the keyboards that came with IBM Mainframe Terminals in the 1970s and early '80s.

I have given away a lot of those keyboards over the decades. A friend of mine from high school asked if I had a spare one because his kid loved the sound and was always trying to poke at the keys when dad was trying to work. I took one off the pile, cleaned it up, removed the cord, and gave it to him.

They were build solid. They were made to last forever. They were made to feel like an IBM Selectric typewriter, and to most people, they did.

I do still have one Model F keyboard, a rather unique one with an "IBM Instruments" logo and no adjustable back feet. I used to have two of those. I think I gave the other one to the kid who got the pile of PCs.

I can console myself that it takes some real finagling to get one to work with a modern computer, and you still have to work around not having all the keys a modern keyboard has.

Still, I never thought I'd want to have that old 3101 around just to plink on the keyboard and bask in the sound.


I think a new keyboard with Cherry MX Blue switches is a good emulation of an IBM Model M (the PS/2 era keyboard), or at least a really really really good board for typing on today. I've decided they are a little to ping-y for my ears. I have gone to Cherry MX Brown switches with thin silicone O-rings under the keycaps to dampen the bottom of the stroke. My arthritic fingers are much happier after a full day of typing.

I strongly recommend mechanicalkeyboards dot com. They did me a real solid recently when I was trying to find some specific keycaps. Great people. The only problem is that selection is kinda limited right now due to the supply chain problems everywhere in the world. I really like Leopold and Varmilo boards. Ducky seems to be the most popular brand. The advantage Leopold has is that it has a menu key to the right of the spacebar instead of a second Windows key like most boards. And I am hooked on the TKL size. Still all of the navigation keys, but no tenkey keypad. If you have your mouse to the right of the keyboard, that removes a good three inches between the main keys and your mouse, for much less fatige.

A decent board is $100 and up. But if you type all day, it is so worth it, especially if you learned to type on a real typewriter (like the Olympia manual beasts we had when I was in school) and you can't stand the mushy keys on the cheap piece of junk that came with your computer.

I was hoping you’d chime in on this thread, PJ. I had you in mind when I posted it.

Thanks