Clickety clack!

If you've listened to the TGT podcast, you may have heard my keyboard in the background as I type away going to web sites we're talking about, taking notes, or doing whatever. You may have also noticed it's quite loud.

That's because I'm a proud owner of an IBM Model M keyboard. More specifically it's a model M13, and as you can see from the above image, it was manufactured fourteen years ago. How many of you out there can say you're using a keyboard that's more than a couple of years old? ;)

To be fair, though, I bought this one as "new old stock" from a surplus parts shop here in town. It was still in the box, and when I opened it the keyboard was still packed up in the original styrofoam and wrapped up in a plastic bag, just as if it had come from the factory yesterday.

I had been looking for a model M keyboard for quite some time since I had heard about them somewhere online. I finally found two M13's at the surplus store I mentioned earlier, and I snatched one up for twelve bucks.

There are many things that make these great keyboards. I think the biggest thing is their durability. They're built like frickin' tanks. They weigh about five pounds because they have a steel backplate inside, all the keys are individual buckling spring switches (no squishy rubber dome membranes here!) so there is very good tactile and auditory feedback as you're typing along. And the keycaps themselves are a whole topic of their own. The letters will not wear off. They are actually molded right in to the keycaps. There are no stupid little decals or silkscreen letters to wear off after you've used the keyboard for a while.

And, in a pinch, you could probably whack an intruder over the head with it, and do a lot of damage, too. Damage to the intruder, of course, not the keyboard. It's practically indestructible.

One thing you may notice is there is no Windows flag key on this keyboard. The original model M's were all manufactured before the flag key came along. If you use that flag key a lot (I do) then there are a couple of options if you want the IBM Model M goodness.

The first choice is to head on over to Unicomp and just buy yourself one. Unicomp bought the technology behind the Model M keyboards from Lexmark (Who was manufacturing them for IBM) and now makes their own equivalents called the Customizer. These are every bit as good as the original Model M keyboards, but they have the Windows flag key and either a PS/2 or USB connection. Your choice.

Another choice, and this is the route I went, is to get yourself an gen-yoo-wine IBM Model M keyboard and modify the keyboard scan codes in your Windows registry to make some other key act like the flag key. How exactly to set that up is a topic for another post. Coming soon!

In short, this keyboard is rock solid and will probably outlast me. Unless, of course, I just get tired of it and decide to get another one, but I don't see that happening any time soon.