Sent this morning cleaning.

Started with this:

A filthy little keyboard missing a keycap and stinking to high heaven of stale tobacco smoke.

Removing the keycaps it looked even worse:

Looks like coffee...

So dumped keycaps and membranes into a pillow case for washing in the washing machine and set about disassembling the board:

BTC foam and foil. Never my favourite keyboard technology- it combines rubber-dome-like keyfeel with mechanical complexity. At least the capacitative sensing gives full NKRO. Still, vintage is vintage and the foam pads are in better shape than on my other foam and foil board. Interestingly, there are some penned-in legends on the back of the slider plate. Somebody has disassembled and reassembled this board before - and then spilled coffee over it and used it as an ashtray...

After putting plastic parts in the dishwasher and reassmbly:

Much cleaner. Still a slight whiff of stale smoke from it as I only wiped down the PCB and sliders. So will position it over my laser printer for an improvised ozone treatment.

Adding cleaned keycaps:

Much better. Shame about the missing right arrow. Due to that and my general lack of enthusiasm for foam and foil I can't be bothered to retrobright it, but it's fully useful with the (equally yellowed) mini-PC I got it with. Now to sort out the RTC on that...

LewisRaz wrote on 2020-03-21, 18:47:

Spent way too many hours and 3 different set ups trying to get this mouse to work. No luck.

Seen a few posts on here about mice with this switch but I just cannot get any joy from it. Annoying as my current project only has serial for a mouse.

Don't trust what other people are saying about this mouse. 'MS' is for Microsoft protocol and 'PC' is for Mouse Systems protocol. I still have the same mouse (FCC-ID), and I have the driver disk. I had it since it was new in the early 90s. Actually I used to have a bunch of these mice and threw them out over the years when the buttons wore out. They all worked the same way for the switch.

If you use MS, and run windows, it will be detected as standard serial mouse and you don't have to configure anything. I know the PC switch will work for Mouse Systems with the DOS driver, and will work in Linux. I'm not sure about in Win95, as I don't think I ever used it with the PC switch there. Generally speaking, I preferred the MS mode, as not many things used the third (middle) button. And you don't really have to configure anything.

I'm not sure what your project is, but please explain what OS you are running under and what you need to have happen.

Some time ago I got a Cherry keyboard with MX Black switches. I got it ridiculously cheaply, for 15€ including shipping... and it didn’t work. It would briefly flash the LEDs when the PC was switched on and that’s it.

Today I disassembled it and found a capacitor that went open circuit. Replacing it got the keyboard working again.

As a side note, for something that supposedly is the embodiment of German quality (and this particular keyboard really was made in Germany and not in Czech Republic) this is the worst piece of cheap shit I have ever seen. No plate and the case is flimsy as hell, it doesn’t even have any screws (everything is held in place with snaps). Any Filco keyboard (made by Costar in Taiwan) would run rings around it in terms of build quality.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2020-03-22, 20:59:

Don't trust what other people are saying about this mouse. 'MS' is for Microsoft protocol and 'PC' is for Mouse Systems protocol […]
Show full quote

LewisRaz wrote on 2020-03-21, 18:47:

Spent way too many hours and 3 different set ups trying to get this mouse to work. No luck.

Seen a few posts on here about mice with this switch but I just cannot get any joy from it. Annoying as my current project only has serial for a mouse.

Don't trust what other people are saying about this mouse. 'MS' is for Microsoft protocol and 'PC' is for Mouse Systems protocol. I still have the same mouse (FCC-ID), and I have the driver disk. I had it since it was new in the early 90s. Actually I used to have a bunch of these mice and threw them out over the years when the buttons wore out. They all worked the same way for the switch.

If you use MS, and run windows, it will be detected as standard serial mouse and you don't have to configure anything. I know the PC switch will work for Mouse Systems with the DOS driver, and will work in Linux. I'm not sure about in Win95, as I don't think I ever used it with the PC switch there. Generally speaking, I preferred the MS mode, as not many things used the third (middle) button. And you don't really have to configure anything.

I'm not sure what your project is, but please explain what OS you are running under and what you need to have happen.

The project is rebuilding my childhood PC. (486dx4, 16mb, w95.)

I have tried the mouse under w95 and w98 on 3 different systems and it is not detected in any with any of the switch options. So I should consider that this mouse is in fact broken.

The switch might be the issue. Going to order a new one and replace it and see what happens as mine does that as well, but works in a PS/2 port, which is the norm for the mouse and it's serial compatible.

In fact, I have a serial 3-button mouse that is Microsoft mouse mode only and no toggle switch. Sometimes, dirty contacts can cause the switch to get stuck (continuity is stuck on both leads, which is not normal). Heck, I should install a 3-pin header and put in a jumper and see if that works. If that does, then no need for the janky switch.

I have ordered a "new old stock" mouse from ebay but I really dont like waiting! Who knows when it will turn up in the current climate.
Tomorrow I will do a continuity test and see if the wires are OK. That is my biggest suspicion.

ShovelKnight wrote on 2020-03-22, 21:27:

Some time ago I got a Cherry keyboard with MX Black switches. I got it ridiculously cheaply, for 15€ including shipping... and it didn’t work. It would briefly flash the LEDs when the PC was switched on and that’s it.

Today I disassembled it and found a capacitor that went open circuit. Replacing it got the keyboard working again.

As a side note, for something that supposedly is the embodiment of German quality (and this particular keyboard really was made in Germany and not in Czech Republic) this is the worst piece of cheap shit I have ever seen. No plate and the case is flimsy as hell, it doesn’t even have any screws (everything is held in place with snaps). Any Filco keyboard (made by Costar in Taiwan) would run rings around it in terms of build quality.

Cherry G80-3000 by any chance? Yes, that's abominable crap. Only thing worse is the G81-3000 with wet-newspaper MY-switches. The old -1000 series was more decent, my son uses a Compaq-branded G80-11800, also with MX Blacks and that's a solid, decent board, although still nowhere near as solid as some other boards from the same era with the same switches. I have a NOS Wyse terminal keyboard with MX blacks - now that's the Rolls Royce of MX keyboards. Still nowhere near quality of the better Alps boards though, let alone IBM buckling springs.

dionb wrote on 2020-03-22, 22:30:

Cherry G80-3000 by any chance? Yes, that's abominable crap. Only thing worse is the G81-3000 with wet-newspaper MY-switches. The old -1000 series was more decent, my son uses a Compaq-branded G80-11800, also with MX Blacks and that's a solid, decent board, although still nowhere near as solid as some other boards from the same era with the same switches. I have a NOS Wyse terminal keyboard with MX blacks - now that's the Rolls Royce of MX keyboards. Still nowhere near quality of the better Alps boards though, let alone IBM buckling springs.

Yep, G80-3000.

I have a Wyse PCE INT'L with vintage MX blacks somewhere. It's kinda nice but not very nice.

Last time I moved to a different country, I gave away a large box full of mechanical keyboards, including two genuine Alps boards (made in Ireland) with dyesub PBT keycaps. One had white switches and the other had salmon switches. They both were very heavily used and needed thorough cleaning (some switches were completely jammed) but I still regret getting rid of them.

Well, I tried to install a Winamp and download music to listen it from computer)

Did a little bit of spring cleaning. It's an ongoing project now that I'm getting stronger instead of weaker. Lots of fiddly detail work in the last week, sorting and packaging small parts, cables.

Discovered that I can cut a USPS Medium box in half lengthways and a lot of non-full-height cards will fit in them (line it with anti-static wrap inside). They also make good motherboard storage, you can see both in the pic:

download/file.php?mode=view&id=79341

I did a stack before and it kind of leaned, not trying to set them at an angle helped and it's not like anything is falling out. The USPS half-boxes have a ton of models, NICs, low-profile video cards, serial/parallel/USB, etc.

Still figuring out where laptops and monitors are going to go, some of them are up on shelves but still some on the floor. Those early 286 laptops take up a *ton* of space.

I'm personally under lockdown for medical reasons but when I'm not I'll be selling some stuff, and I'll probably give a few things away on the giveaway thread (if it's even still up). Now that I'm healthy enough I have got a lot done I couldn't do before.

I may have lost the sheetmetal cover for an old AT U-tron case and I'm a bit annoyed about that. It's possible I'll still find it, but it's not quite a standard width, so 🙁.

ShovelKnight wrote on 2020-03-22, 22:38:

[...] […]
Show full quote

[...]

Yep, G80-3000.

I have a Wyse PCE INT'L with vintage MX blacks somewhere. It's kinda nice but not very nice.

Last time I moved to a different country, I gave away a large box full of mechanical keyboards, including two genuine Alps boards (made in Ireland) with dyesub PBT keycaps. One had white switches and the other had salmon switches. They both were very heavily used and needed thorough cleaning (some switches were completely jammed) but I still regret getting rid of them.

That cleaning of Alps switches is a pain. I have an SGI Granite bigfoot with Alps SKCM cream damped. Should be sublime, instead it's rough as hell. Not quite confident enough with my cleaning and reassembly skills to go to town on those damped switches. Waiting until I find a slightly less iconic board to practice on. My other Alps boards have white switches and are so little-used (one came from a data center at our work, probably only ever typed on to install a system a few decades back, the other a noname beige PC thing from the early 1990s that also looks and feels like it was never actually hooked up) that they don't need cleaning.

Merovign wrote on 2020-03-22, 23:42:

Did a little bit of spring cleaning. It's an ongoing project now that I'm getting stronger instead of weaker. Lots of fiddly detail work in the last week, sorting and packaging small parts, cables.

I'm personally under lockdown for medical reasons but when I'm not I'll be selling some stuff, and I'll probably give a few things away on the giveaway thread (if it's even still up). Now that I'm healthy enough I have got a lot done I couldn't do before.

Nice collection! Is that the DTK tower on the left? Anyway, the giveaway thread has been rather quiet lately for sure.

dionb wrote on 2020-03-22, 23:53:

That cleaning of Alps switches is a pain...

Whereas foam'n'foil is pretty straighforward. I did this 1993 BTC-5369 recently. I remain astonished that the foam holds up. This tech isn't my choice for typing either. It /might/ be okay if you could just feel the contact point. The softness is fine, it's the vagueness that bothers, I think. These are quite worth saving for a gamebox spare though.

liqmat wrote on 2020-03-23, 00:34:

Merovign wrote on 2020-03-22, 23:42:

Did a little bit of spring cleaning. It's an ongoing project now that I'm getting stronger instead of weaker. Lots of fiddly detail work in the last week, sorting and packaging small parts, cables.

I'm personally under lockdown for medical reasons but when I'm not I'll be selling some stuff, and I'll probably give a few things away on the giveaway thread (if it's even still up). Now that I'm healthy enough I have got a lot done I couldn't do before.

Nice collection! Is that the DTK tower on the left? Anyway, the giveaway thread has been rather quiet lately for sure.

Yes, that's *the* DTK tower. 😀

I'll definitely have some surplus parts and I'll be checking how to send small things internationally for cheap to see if I can do at least some of them as international giveaways. We'll see how the next month or two pan out. I'm trying to do as much organizing as possible while I have the time.

Hope you and yours are doing well.

dionb wrote on 2020-03-22, 13:59:

Much better. Shame about the missing right arrow. Due to that and my general lack of enthusiasm for foam and foil I can't be bothered to retrobright it, but it's fully useful with the (equally yellowed) mini-PC I got it with. Now to sort out the RTC on that...

Cleaning keyboards is disgusting business. I still have a Dell mechanical keyboard I need to clean and retrobright and I can't stomach it at the moment 😒

And to think I got into this hobby by trying to collect vintage mechanical keyboards..

I installed OS/2 Warp 4 on my 1997 budget workstation build.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-03-23, 20:58:

I installed OS/2 Warp 4 on my 1997 budget workstation build.

The eyes of my dad had nostalgia tears when he saw that. hahaha!

Bruninho wrote on 2020-03-24, 01:13:

appiah4 wrote on 2020-03-23, 20:58:

I installed OS/2 Warp 4 on my 1997 budget workstation build.

The eyes of my dad had nostalgia tears when he saw that. hahaha!

Oh sweet. How old is he? What is his experience with OS/2? So curious!

appiah4 wrote on 2020-03-24, 08:08:

Bruninho wrote on 2020-03-24, 01:13:

appiah4 wrote on 2020-03-23, 20:58:

I installed OS/2 Warp 4 on my 1997 budget workstation build.

The eyes of my dad had nostalgia tears when he saw that. hahaha!

Oh sweet. How old is he? What is his experience with OS/2? So curious!

He probably used previous versions. He has a still unboxed OS2 Warp 4 CD box stored somewhere in his office. Hes 61

appiah4 wrote on 2020-03-23, 20:58:

I installed OS/2 Warp 4 on my 1997 budget workstation build.

I thought about dedicating one of my retro boxes to OS/2 as well, so yesterday I gave it a try in a VirtualBox VM, which worked out surprisingly well.
Having never used that OS before, I wonder which version to install. Plain OS/2 Warp 4 or the updated 4.52? Hardware would most likely be some sort of Socket 7 system with anything from Pentium 166 MMX to K6-2 400.