[rescue] What would you pay for a Type 5 keyboard?

[Dave McGuire]

On 6/4/21 3:20 PM, Mouse wrote:
>> [...] the end result would still be a twenty-year-old keyboard.  Type
>> 4s are dropping like flies now, and Type 5s won't be far behind.
> 
> As in, existing ones are breaking?

  Yes, heartbreakingly.  Last year I went through my personal stock of
Type 4s looking for two good ones to set up at the museum.  I found two
good ones, and a stack of about twenty with key failures.

> My type-3s are still going strong.  I've had _one_ type-3 fail in the
> last...two decades for sure, three decades I think.  Coming up on a
> (short-scale) billion keystrokes, at a rough guess; while admittedly
> that's spread across multiple type-3s, I'd say I've got at least two
> type-3s that have each seen multiple hundred million keystrokes.

  Excellent.  But the Type 3 is a very different design.  The Type 2 is
different still, and is another one of my favorites.  Very slightly
clicky, and very fast.

> Maybe my perception that the type-4 and type-5 are cheaper designs is
> well-founded?  They certainly _feel_ cheaper.  (Here using "cheaper" as
> distinct from "less expensive".)

  A bit, yes.  The Type 4 is a capacitive keyboard that uses the little
mylar-ish disk glued to a foam pad.  They can be rebuilt, but it's very
time-consuming if you have more than one.  I'm overly sensitive to that
aspect of things because we have probably 150 keyboards at the museum
that need that repair. (for various systems and terminals)

           -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA