![]() Strandberg's got preorders for more than 500 new keyboards, totaling a quarter of a million dollars in sales, all that with little more to show for his work so far than some videos of prototypes. It's a cost plenty of people are willing to pay. It's a number that will, maybe, help nerds (and their frustrated spouses) swallow the new Model F's more modest $300 price point, which reaches up towards $400, depending on various optional embellishments. It weighed nearly 10 pounds thanks to its metal case and cost a whopping $600 when debuted, which translates to some $1,700 today, the cost of a top-of-the-line gaming rig. The first keyboard of its type to be released by IBM, the Model F made no compromises. That attention to detail matters because quality is a Model F calling card. The Model F cost a whopping $600 when it debuted, which translates to some $1,700 today And the standards that IBM had for the keys were so precise that it's taken them a few extra months to get the key molds precise." That took them about two or three extra months. "They had to figure out how to do the powder coating to make it look like the old, bumpy, splotchy, IBM powder coating on the cases. "I was initially expecting to get these shipped out at the end of last year and we're probably looking at the end of this year," Strandberg says. In fact, the most recent preorder deadline just slipped from the end of June to the end of July. "With 3D printing," he says, "the keyboard wouldn't last a year."īut manufacturing is a painstaking process that has lead to continuing delays. ![]() Despite the expense (Strandberg estimates spending $100,000 to revive the tooling necessary for the production run), it was the only viable option given the kind of abuse your average keyboard takes on a daily basis. Working with a factory in China, Strandberg has carefully overseen the reproduction process one step at time, from the springs to the unique powder-coating on the keyboard's zinc case. Strandberg takes a more holistic tack: build the physical form of an old Model F Keyboard in its entirety, exactly like they used to be made in the 1980s, or at least as close to that standard as possible. "A self-contained switch would lose the richness from the steel plates." "There really is no buckling spring self-contained switch," he says. Strandberg is certainly wary of such an approach. They face engineering challenges but also rightful skepticism as to whether it's even possible. Some keyboard enthusiasts have endeavored to squeeze the buckling spring mechanism into a modern form, but to lukewarm results. It's that thwacking that both completes the circuit and gives a buckling spring keyboard its irreproducible sound. This buckling motion then torques a small plastic paddle beneath it, and the paddle slaps into the printed circuit board (PCB) and metal plate underneath. As detailed in the now-expired 1978 patent, these keyboards use a spring that buckles (go figure) as the key atop it is depressed. Each one contains two plastic parts that smack against each other on the way down, offering a signature click.īut both of these mechanical solutions are a shadow of their predecessor, IBM's buckling spring. The modern-day standard for "clickiness" are Cherry's Blue switches. Cherry is the brand name to know in this world, offering switches of varying design to provide different feelings-stiffer sprints for firmer pushback, and, of course, keys designed to clack. Instead of rubber domes, they tend to use individual switches with innards made of plastic and metal. Modern-day mechanical keyboards are different. But it's not rose-colored glasses that make you remember that 1980s keyboard fondly. "And, I know from this from watching old home movies: The first keyboard I typed on was a Model F." It's a simple story, and one that's familiar to plenty of nerds of a certain age ( including me). "The first family computer we had was an IBM PC," Strandberg told me. He started as a collector and restorer of genuine Model F keyboards-originally produced from 1981 to 1994-a process that familiarized him with their virtues and their flaws. ![]() The Model F Keyboards project, now taking preorders for the new line of authentic retro-boards, was started by Joe Strandberg, a Cornell University grad who's taken up keyboard wizardry as a nights-and-weekends hobby. Instead, it's the longtime work of a historian in love with the retro keyboard's unparalleled sound and feel, but frustrated by the limitations of actual decades-old tech. The second coming of the high-quality Model F (not to be confused with its more affordable plastic successor, the Model M) isn't a throwback attention grab from IBM, nor a nostalgia play from Big Keyboard.
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