Episode: 798
Title: HPR0798: The IBM Model M Keyboard
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0798/hpr0798.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 02:41:38

---

.
Hello HPR listeners this is Jeremy Geek just a quick episode on the wonderful
IBM model amp keyboard. I'm going to apologize in advance here for the terrible audio
quality I'm using a stock pair of HC headphones of the built-in mic and my
Android phone so I'm not gonna be the greatest but hey it's a podcast it's not
the quality that matters well the quality anyway it's the information
quality blah blah blah blah blah and you the model amp what the hell is it well
back in 8485 the wonderful IBM company came up with this keyboard now you're
probably asking yourself what the hell this isn't very interesting it's a
keyboard but here's the thing these keyboards are widely regarded as the
greatest keyboards ever created for most of the reasons quality the
features await the deliciousness and honestly the geek factor it's a keyboard
standard size and it's a heavy motherfucker now these keyboards are
originally distributed with some of the original IBM PCs which is why they're
generally a rather massive amount of floating around now both people won't
using these days but they found a niche market a nice little place in the
heart of typists around the world it's also the greatest keyboard ever it's
built to last like to buy one of these keyboards and you're gonna easily pay
anywhere from $6,000 to $100 but it's gonna last 20 plus years for example the
keyboard that I'm using right now was produced in 19 you know give me one
moment why fuck this thing over let's find out produced in on the 29th of
April 1993 now the only damage that this thing has sustained in its 17 plus
years of use just a bit of yellowing it's actually older than me and it's
perfect for day to day use it weighs about 3 to 4 kilograms 70 pounds for
you American folk use the metric system much better just said and it's built
to last like I have literally taken my keyboard and beat people with it no
damage to the keyboard and a slight fracture to the other person funny story
I'll tell it sometime ask me in person anyway but some of the cool things about
this keyboard it actually has removable keycaps now normally this isn't a big
deal because you just swap keys around but you can actually pop off the
individual keycaps and move them around which is ridiculously amazing so for
example on my keyboard here I've actually swapped the tilde and escape key and
caps lock and a control key just for easier access so when I'm using BAM or
just coding some general stuff I barely have to move my hands from the keyboard
itself over extend is what I mean it's actually really productive that's the
word I'm looking for it's it makes you really productive it's really cool but
because these keycaps are removable it also means that they're easily replaced so
for example you can you can actually buy colored keycaps and different keycaps
and blank keycaps and all sorts of keycaps so for example if you're one of
those wonderful folks like to use things like the bore act or zirty or some
other obscure random fucking keyboard way you can easily just buy a stock
cordy keyboard and just swap the keys around and less than five minutes it's
really interesting now I think that's really cool about this is and what makes
actually unique is how the keys are done now the keys
use what's called buckling spring well buckling springs or whatever technology
point is the keys actually go down farther and how do I explain this apologies
in advance I'm really not terrible I'm really not good with words so anyway the
keys themselves actually have springs and whatnot and they go down a lot
farther and they make a mechanical click so what you actually hear when you
press on them is a click-clack on the way down and on the way up now compare
that to something like a standard keyboard which just uses a membrane which
is just a little dome that's just squished down and up and it's a lot it's a
lot louder and a lot more tactile so you'd so the only way you can tell
it and a lot more tactile so when you press a key you know you press the key
keys are also very well spaced out so you're not gonna go accidentally hitting
keys or anything like on the newer MacBook keyboards or the Apple keyboards
or whatever it's really really nice and it makes a very nice clack a clack a
clack of sound for example you kind of hurt earlier I'm just gonna take on
microphone right by the keyboard here just match and keep random buttons are
but you can really tell when you're typing it's really kind of cool and I
think I'm not sure if it's just me here but I find how it's been to
concentrate while I'm working it's kind of nice but I'm just a weird crazy
motherfucker any who but these keyboards because they came from like
way back in the day they do have a few issues namely power these things
draw power like crazy god help you if you are using a laptop because it will
drain that battery like nothing else most keyboard hubs these days actually
don't provide enough power to power these things because they just drain
it massively but there's a few little high power hubs out there that you can
get that'll deal with it just fine and convert your older damn PS2
whatever high-ve model to standardize USB it's kind of nice but anyway also
these like really nice old-school looking oh excuse me
LED's in here it's really kind of nice now one of the problems with these
keyboard another problem with these keyboards was the cost see as I said
earlier you're easily gonna pay between and you're from sixty to a hundred
dollars for a new keyboard but here's the thing most computer users don't
care about this kind of stuff the C a keyboard is just something they're
gonna use whatever it doesn't matter the quality of it compared to buying a
really good pair of like generic shoes comparatively to like the bargain
been ones anyway so the IBM actually stopped making these things quite a few
years back and when they close down their plants their plant up a few of the
employees went and a few of the employees actually bought the patent and went off
and made their own keyboards and those guys are called a unicorn now they
actually sell new models of this amazing keyboard online so if you go to
PC or but PC keyboard stores dot yaku dot net I'll throw a link in the show
notes you can you'll go to their store and they have an amazing variety everything
you could possibly imagine from the standard model end to black models to models
with a track belt integrated which oh my god I want to get my hands on various
terminal emulators even a value line and finally enough they also have a Linux
variant which has the key caps which to uh exactly my uh set up here which is
the tilde and escape swap and the caps and the control swap which is really
useful when you're using it um these keyboards the older ones actually predate
the windows key so if you use things like windows or the super key or what have
you um you're gonna have to figure out a way to remap that to another key like
write alt or something but apart from that it's an amazingly robust and
delicious keyboard I'll throw a few links into the show notes for where to buy
this and some communities around it it's honestly the greatest keyboard you
were ever purchased slash used typing on it is a dream just because it's all
tactile delicious loud and the keyboard itself is a work of art if you can even
say that about a keyboard um a few things that you'll find really useful for
something like this if you use a mainly keyboard based uh window manager such as
X Monad X Monad X Monad however you say that X Monad let's go with that if you
sound like X Monad where everything's key based it'll really make using it
amazing you will find yourself rarely reaching for the mouse even more so if
you live in a shell and these things like screen and vim and all that lovely
jazz but I really think that wraps it up it's a short this has been a really
short probably terribly done sorry about that HPR episode I'm just doing it
after eating some lunch here um pack public radio can be found at hackpublicradio.org
if you're considering contributing please do I mean we can always use more
people on this lovely little boat of ours show it to Ken Fallon he's amazing
set me some stickers fuck yeah alright you people have yourselves a lovely day
thank you for listening to hacker public radio for more information on the
show and how to contribute your own shows visit hacker public radio dot org
m
m
m
m
m
m
m
m
m
m
m
m
m
m
m
m
m
m
m