Tuesday, April 29, 2008

IBM Model M

Recently I aquired two used IBM Model M keyboards. Both were dirty but looked OK otherwise. Since I got a week off, I decided to take the time to clean them up. In order to do that I needed to buy a special 5.5mm screwdriver which cost me about 8 Euro. To be honest, that's more than what I paid for both keyboards combined :)

It took me about four hours to clean the keyboards and then it was time to test them. As it turns out, I should have tested them before cleaning because on of the keyboards is only partially functional. Luckily the other one appears to be fine. I'm left with a spare parts keyboard and a bunch of keycaps which are basically useless because all three keyboards are using different font on the keycaps. Interesting but still kind of annoying.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Flea Market Finds #4

After not seeing any old computer in months at our local flea market, I finally saw one breadbin being sold two weeks ago. Having enough Commodores as it is, I didn't buy it (but somebody else did). I did however buy another IBM Model M keyboard (this one also needs thorough cleaning) with two missing keycaps. It seems that it's nearly impossible to find a Model M with all the keycaps still in place. Anyhow, last Sunday I got lucky as I stumbled upon a boxed Atari 130XE complete with boxed cassette tape drive and a joystick. As I already have one such system, I picked this one up for a friend of mine that also collects old computers.