4 ms·

You wouldn't drive a Ferrari every day because they're not comfortable or practical, and because they have short service intervals and very expensive consumable

You wouldn't drive a Ferrari every day because they're not comfortable or practical, and because they have short service intervals and very expensive consumable parts. And a high performance car is almost necessarily not a reliable car since it's operating near the limit, especially once it has tens of thousands of miles on it. OTOH a mechanical keyboard is much more comfortable than rubber domes for many people. And they can last almost indefinitely, even if a switch breaks, you can fix it in a couple minutes if you have a soldering iron. If you spill coffee on it, you can clean it with isopropyl alcohol and most of the time that will fix any issues.

cr0sh 7y ago
I have a Model M with the flow-thru option; keyboard is probably 30 years old or so. My mobo still has a PS/2 port, but I bought an adapter for USB when that time comes. Other than needing a really deep cleaning (something I really need to do) - it works flawlessly. And it doesn't have any of the "Windows Key" junk that happened in the 90s to distract from my *nix aesthetic. Only downside is that it is beige, while the rest of my system is black. When/if it ever breaks - I have another one waiting in the wings, plus a Unicomp USB classic also available (I've been thinking about swapping it out to keep the aesthetic - and replacing the 'doze keys on it with Tux keycap covers or something like that). Somewhere, in my junk stash, I also have an old SGI keyboard that I need to look into making an adapter or something for...
- justwalt 7y ago
  There was a Linus tech tips video a while back about a new run of copycat Model M keyboards using some combination old tooling and new techniques (I don’t remember the specifics at the moment). Are you familiar with those boards at all?
  - rhinoceraptor 7y ago
    The company is Unicomp for those wondering.
  - lewisflude 7y ago
    IBM sold off their keyboard division to Lexmark, and eventually Lexmark decided to stop doing keyboards, so two Lexmark employees bought the tooling to make the very last model of the "Lexmark Model M" and still make them to this day under the Unicomp brand.

cr0sh 7y ago

I have a Model M with the flow-thru option; keyboard is probably 30 years old or so. My mobo still has a PS/2 port, but I bought an adapter for USB when that time comes. Other than needing a really deep cleaning (something I really need to do) - it works flawlessly. And it doesn't have any of the "Windows Key" junk that happened in the 90s to distract from my *nix aesthetic. Only downside is that it is beige, while the rest of my system is black. When/if it ever breaks - I have another one waiting in the wings, plus a Unicomp USB classic also available (I've been thinking about swapping it out to keep the aesthetic - and replacing the 'doze keys on it with Tux keycap covers or something like that). Somewhere, in my junk stash, I also have an old SGI keyboard that I need to look into making an adapter or something for...

justwalt 7y ago
There was a Linus tech tips video a while back about a new run of copycat Model M keyboards using some combination old tooling and new techniques (I don’t remember the specifics at the moment). Are you familiar with those boards at all?
- rhinoceraptor 7y ago
  The company is Unicomp for those wondering.
- lewisflude 7y ago
  IBM sold off their keyboard division to Lexmark, and eventually Lexmark decided to stop doing keyboards, so two Lexmark employees bought the tooling to make the very last model of the "Lexmark Model M" and still make them to this day under the Unicomp brand.