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This was excellent. I’m just old enough to have learned to touch type on a typewriter rather than a computer, and I had old keyboards at home for many years that recently gave out. I decided to refurb my home office and a good tactile keyboard was at the top of my list. If it’s at least 80% of an old Model M, I’ll be happy, I don’t expect 100%. I do wonder which keyboards I actually preferred over the years. I used many IBM ones of all sorts in the 80s and noticed the different feel, but I didn’t remember the specifics of which ones I preferred. Too late now I suppose.

Awesome ! I’ve just got the same model and that’s a lovely machine :) The problem is the battery, the only way to get it working is to change the cells, which is a bit difficult and dangerous…

As far as I remember the UltraClassic has this weird area under the space bar because they used the same chasis for the now discontinued EnduraPro, their trackpoint board. This area would be cut out for the mouse buttons.

I love that you perfectly coordinated the color of your bandaid with the IBM logo. That's real attention to detail.

Is this hotswapable?

Bloody hell, I remember being on the STGN / SGN etc boards back in the day. I remember adding a minor sub mod to this that added the Starfleet Peregine Fighter to DS9.

Vintage Keyboard price are getting out of hand. Especially the Dell AT101 and Northgate Omnikey they never cost $200 when it was new. These eBay keyboard sellers need to get mental check to get out of fantasy and go back to reality that these vintage mechanical keyboards don’t worth that much even if it better than a modern mechanical keyboard

Thanks. What kind of laptop is that?

I had some simliar versions back in the late 90s early 00.. Key Tronic 2000 or something the name was. It was more ergonomic than the one you are showing. It had a grey space bar as well. I really enjoyed the sound and the feel. Are there any modern keyboards today and/or switches that i can mimic the same as near as possible?

Nice, I just got my Model F XT a few days ago; it arrived a little dirty; but it cleaned up REALLY nice and the foam was still intact! I'm currently typing on it right now!

Low profile, rubber domes are an improvement.

I bought the Unicomp Classic 101 March 2021 and now September 2023. Used a few times and was put into storage. Recently rediscovered and noticed "P" key was acting erratic requiring two or three taps to make contact. Contacted Unicomp and was given RMA but would cost $48.00 plus $16 shipping. After doing my own disassembly I found all but 6 plastic rivet heads were broken off. Unicomp claims this issue was resolved before I purchased in 2021. I would not advise purchasing from Unicomp based on my experience.

Looks bit like the Pro keyboard from the 2000s which I have just an older version. Might have to pick one up at some point but I love my Apple Pro keyboard.

He rly is underated :( pls let him be the next top 10 ksp youtuber

Just for the little skit of not liking parties you have earned my honest and sincere like on your video good sir. May you have a swell day

MDR-CD900ST were designed and made by sound engineers, for sound engineers. They are absolutely pro gear, hence the utter lack of marketing. Studios just buy them directly from Sony. They are the standard studio headphone for Sony Music and pretty much any other pro studio in Japan. You can buy literally any part directly from Sony if you need to fix them. As an aside... the default "in the field" headphone for sound engineers when it was still available was the MDR-D77 "eggo" phones. I have a pair of those, but unfortunately the plastic headband parts have become brittle and fallen apart. I hope one day to have replacement parts 3D-printed. If you ever get a chance to listen to them, I highly recommend it.

Clicked on your video because I had a heart attack seeing the thumbnail. I have been a huge fan of the MDR-CD900ST for *decades*, used for studio mixing and they are my go-to 'phones when I want to actually listen to something. I just wanted to say, I do NOT recommend using any 3rd party pads on them. The ones you have are way too thick. The proximity of the driver to your ear is a large part of the carefully designed sound-signature of these phones, any deviation will change the sound, which, considering how long Sony Music engineers worked on to perfect, is a Bad Thing. The OG pads can be purchased from Sony customer service for very little, which is great as they do tend to disintegrate every couple of years of use. EDIT: I hate the Brainwavez pads for that reason, I returned mine. I was not aware of the Yaxi ones, and if they do sit over your ears I'm intrigued as to the sound signature, and very skeptical. $40 is a lot of money to spend on an experiment, but maybe I'll give them a try.

No drainage holes?

A... A... A... Worst video ever.

I'm so confused with their model line. They have ultra classic and new model m as well but they just look exactly the same

Great video would love to see more linux vids from you , maybe a setup video aswell 😀

im here in tokyo, forget the mdr 1st youre not gonna like it.. 900st n 7506 are better.. but i stayed on ath m50x

This would be all awesome if they didn't try to "innovate" and put the RWin and RAlt keys in different order than all other keyboards. The advantage of Windows keyboards (apart from Unicomp it seems) is that the right Alt (aka the AltGr) key is placed in a more convenient position to use while typing in a language that uses AltGr as a modifier to get accented characters.

Hey! Great video you put up. Just out of curiosity which audio player are you using? I love that minimalistic interface!

I learned typing on the selectric typewriter...it had just come out! Amazed how we didn't have to push the lever for the next sentence. Very noisy in a typing class! Finally a class where I got an A always! But I was absent the week of learning the numbers and I still have to look down for them!

my buddy got a model m from his dad and says hes going to hand it down to his kid one day. so i got this thinking its the same thing. its not. this thing cheap lexmark garbage that im going to replace it with a real model m at the first opportunity. dont buy this pos keyboard. its junk.

got my model m for 100 it was super clean all the keys work its a 1994 ibm model m and it works amazing i brought it to school pepole loved it but probubly not the noise lol

cutest review ever

Just picked up a Model F XT for $80 locally in very good condition. Had to give it a wipe down, but it looks almost new now. Amazing feeling board that puts my modern mechs to shame. Would not have paid eBay prices for it, though.

Nice keebs

This was very helpful! Thank you.

Why does their logo have to be SO fugly?

How to replace the ugly Windows logo?

hello fellow linux user

so new Model M is better than classic, but why? what exacly is better? better palstic quality ? better keys?

You can mod them, pretty easily mind you, to just put the folding metal rails in there so they fold. Takes like 5 minutes to do

You should do more headphone reviews, your vids strike a great balance between being well produced but also feeling like just a guy making a video

Typing this from my New Model M i just ordered; they updated it again. This time, the annoying blue LED was replaced with a nice green one. No gripes from me! It feels absolutely amazing to type on!

I want to import my files and maintain my file structure exactly like you did. How do I do this? I have about 80,000 files in 2,000 folders so I can't really do it manually. Surely there is a way to import my top directory/folder and use the recursive import to grab and sort them all while maintaining the file structure like you have?

I confirm that original SSKs are in huge demand. Only a few pop on Ebay in Europe and I just lost an auction to a guy that was willing to pay up to 400 euros for it. Also it was for an ANSI layout, which is foreign to us. An ISO would likely be bought for even more here. Good common 104 models are being sold for 250 to 300€.

Man they just can not get this right. Still no metal plate on the back. Non-detachable cable. One piece keycaps. Are you serious. Just copy the thing you made in 1987 exactly. I can see I'm going to have to become an expert at restoring original Model M's because Unicomp is still churning out junk.

All 10 of my classic IBM PS/2 Model M keyboards I pulled out of the barn are going belly up. I'm skeptical if these new ones would last... if the original ones can't last just sitting in a barn doing nothing for 35 years then... do I want a new model that's the same design. These things are suppose to be good for millions of key presses, not to craap out after a month of use.

I received mine a couple hours ago. It'd been years since I had my original M, and an old unicomp. Feels weird using buckling springs again, but it's like getting to know an old friend after many years. Here's to hoping their new space saver comes back in stock soon :)

Considering what the original retail costs of these were if you scaled them up for inflation the current market is if anything low. These were expensive keyboards when they were new. It's part of why IBM and many other company's were pressured into doing the rubber dome era. Which isn't to say that also didn't benefit those companies. One of the issues with the model m's from a business standpoint is as you've pointed out. With minimal amounts of modding you can get a 35 year old keyboard up and running as if brand new again in a matter of a few hours work. These were pretty hard keyboards to destroy. These were one of those "The last one you'll ever need to buy" sort's of purchases. And that's just bad business. Selling a 20 dollar rubber dome keyboard that you make 10 dollars profit on might seem a lot less appealing then selling a model m that costs 300 dollars and you make 100 dollars profit. But considering those membranes we'll need to be replaced in a high volume work flow as often as twice per year and your model m's will likely never need to be replaced that different in profit quickly shifts into the favor of the membrane.

I have a unicomp model m it works pretty good it's had a couple cups of coffee so that probably will lower the life span a little Haven't used it a lot because of the 2 key roll

A wise man once said that Linux is like a motorcycle. Probably was not the first to say, but still.

Where did you get those neat Linux key caps, and are there any one piece one's that vendor sells that you would recommend?

Use the free utility SharpKeys to redefine your Right-Cntrl key to be the Windows key. Additionally, I redefined these other useless keys... Scroll Lock to be Mute; Insert to Be Play Pause; Right Alt to be Application Key. If you have better ideas for redefinitions, let me know.

They are actually pretty rare. My dad ran a computer recycling charity through the 1990's. Hundreds of obsolete 8bits and PC's he rescued headed for the dumpster being thrown out by businesses and schools upgrading entire labs or their whole office at a time. I went through his barn of hundreds of keyboards the other day an only pulled out 8 of these, all from some PS/2 Model 50 386's he brought home and summarily junked... but kept the keyboards in the keyboard pile. Every single one of them works... impressive considering they've been sitting in a barn for 25 years smashed together in a pile on a bread rack. At one time you are correct, they were not rare... now.. to find a PS/2 keyboard from an actual PS/2... very rare. Almost as rare as finding a Mac Lisa or Mac 128k keyboard. Nobody hung onto them. And why would you, when you could get a brand new $10 keyboard that wasn't grungy versus something heavy and old and built like a tank. They really were not prized back in the 1990's at all but considered old junk. PS/2s and OS/2 got orphaned on the computer tree of life and the keyboards went out into the dumpster with the PS/2s as everyone jumped on the whitebox build your own PC bandwagon. There are not as many of these as you might think I don't plan to sell any of mine. I just paid through the nose for a few replacement missing cables. The rats bit through all my cables for a taste but the shielding stopped them in every case. I had to hot glue over the bite marks though. They really are sweet to type on, if you're coming from rubber dome keyboards. i plan to standardize on my PS/2 Model M's as they are all identical to one another, which is rare. Other than hot gluing over the barn rat cable taste bites, I didn't have to do anything to mine. Rock tank solid. THIS TECH RECYCLING PLACE IS NOT PARTING WITH IT'S MODEL M KEYBOARDS. SOWWY! You can pick through our pile of used rubber dome generic keyboards though for free... I would not trade any of these "about to fail Model M's" for that brand new black Unicomp keyboard. Twenty five years (1997) in a non-temperature controlled barn and every key still working like a champ... yeah... that's time tested durable. These badboys scream Original Gangsta. :) If someone had given you 8 obsolete PS/2 Model 50 10mghz 286's in 1995 would you have saved them and their keyboards, when you're rocking a Pentium 100mghz..? The answer for both you and my dad was a clear "no"... the PS/2's went to the dumpster even for a dumpster diver like my dad... but the keyboards ended up overlooked by a chance of fate. Only by luck did they too not end up in the dumpster as heavy old junk with the 286 PS/2s... Thanks dad for looking out for me :)

It is still the case here in 2022 August ebay prices in the uk are a scam 200-400 gbp like for godsake i really want to get one but i cant find one for cheap