Mechanical Keyboards @lemmy.ml Mandarbmax @lemmy.world 4 mo. ago

on the evolution of keyboard switches following the mass extinction of the late 90's-early 2000's

32 comments

I'm apparently the archeologist over here with my Model M and its buckling springs.
- Model M is another survivor of the mass extinction but since the switches aren't discreet it was hard to put it in the image. Great boards!
  
  Yeah definitely not discreet, more like obnoxious
  
  It's a survivor the same way the coelacanth or horseshoe crab is - a living fossil.
- That's a membrane keyboard
  
  Yes, and?
  
  lol no it's not, could even take pics to show you
No chocs? :o
- Should probably replace the irocks with a choc. Since I made this meme a few months ago irocks have gone out of production (barring a $10,000 order)
Has anyone attempted to draw the Victorian Era corollary to this subculture? Don't misconstrue, I am a member too, and I enjoyed a chuckle, gazing from over top my own personal click/clacker. But also, I pondered if 150 years ago something similar occurred in perhaps the shoehorn community. Know what I mean?
- No I don’t. Could you elaborate?
I love image. I'm glad to see a good number of less common vintage switches made the cut.
- Thank you! It is nice to be appreciated!
  
  Can you identify them all? I'm not gate keeping, I put some tricky ones in there as a joke for myself and I hope you might enjoy the puzzle. I can confirm any correct answers.
  
  Sorry, didn't see this reply until now. I don't know all of them for sure (especially the few that look like really old Cherry like the MY and M9?), but own or have owned a quite a few of these. I parted with a bunch of my collection when I moved states last year, but still have several old boards that have SKCM Alps, vintage Cherry MX, and my clicky space invaders and some not pictured like my SMK Cherry MX mount and a few Model F and Model M.
What are the two switches in the middle?
- Cherry MX black and Tai Hao APC blue (an alps clone still in production pretty much unchanged since the late 80s as far as I can tell)
  
  Thanks!
- I think they are logitech's switches and cherry mx
  
  Close! MX and Tai Hao APC, not Logitech. Logitech doesn't actually make their own switches, Omron does it for them. You can see an Omron B3GS in row 2, column 2, and an Omron Logitech switch (can't remember the series name off hand) in last row, 3rd column.
  
  Yeah I couldn’t find pictures and they do look like the Logitech switches. But according to op it’s apparently alps.
we’re due for another extinction. never cherry mx again.
- MX has a lot of high points, it tends to be binding resistant, relatively dust resistant, reliable, small, and cheap. Not the best switch design of all time, but we can't all be mitsumi minimechs.

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