AT&T 122 key: the elegant battleship

[ohaimark]

While browsing my eBay searches, I found a fairly bland keyboard. I checked it out, but before scrolling away I saw something. A NIB AT&T keyboard that was supposedly clicky. With low expectations, I followed the link. When the rest of the photos were visible, I locked on and pulled the Best Offer trigger.

Here we have the box. It is a nice box, with classy styling. 250 pound capacity -- nice. The seller cracked it open to check its contents. This is legitimate NOS.






The styrofoam is well formed. And what's this . . . ?





It is goddamn beautiful. Look at that slope; there's no ugly protrusion for the additional function keys, just seamless eye candy.









Have a look at its sibling.
Their sizes: 122 key = 53.4 cm x 21 cm x 5.8 cm | enhanced = 48.8 cm x 21 x 5.1 cm.






All in all, I'm impressed with this keyboard. I still need to test it with Soarer's converter and open it up to document its guts.

Edit: image of switches.

[emdude]

Wow, what an incredible find. That bezel is definitely more elegant than the later Model M122 keyboards.

The box is in such nice condition too! Hope you can get it working with a Soarer's, although personally I'd be loath to even touch such a specimen!

[ohaimark]

It's actually from June 7, 1990.

[seebart]

Impressive find, congrats. It's the better looking 122.

[Chyros]

Very nice! Indeed, very elegant. What switches does it use?

[ohaimark]

Oh, I figured everyone here would know it uses AT&T IBM buckling spring over membrane clones.

Edit: added a picture.

[Harshmallow]

Oh man I looked at that board so many times - I thought I had posted it in the interesting finds thread to ask people if it was a buckling spring, because it looked just like one. Glad it ended up here, congrats on the purchase!

[Mattr567]

Wow, I knew of AT&T 101 key Model M's, but a 122 version is something never seen before.

Great find!

[ohaimark]

Thanks everyone! I kinda became a buckling spring collector by accident... Stuff like that happens when you spend a ton of time here.

FYI -- most of my eBay searches only go up to $80. I don't consider anything above that a "great" find. It saves me a lot of pain, as my wallet can't accommodate high value items on a regular basis.

[tigpha]

Very elegant. The legends on the keys are beautiful, tastefully designed and very sharp. The space bar has the tiniest hint of yellow -- perhaps better to keep it safe from sunlight?

[ohaimark]

The space bars on AT&T boards are ABS (and two piece, oddly enough), which can yellow even without UV exposure, but the rest of the keycaps are PBT. The cases also appear to use yellowing resistant plastics.

Regardless, I keep my keyboards out of the sun.

[alh84001]

#DTA7

If these are clone switches, how do they compare to original BS?

[ohaimark]

I'm almost certainly ineligible for DTA7.

XMIT and I have confirmed that AT&T clones are lighter than IBM BSoM switches. I can't objectively say more than that.

Subjectively: they seem quieter and smoother. That's likely due to new tooling and their massively thick metal backplates.

[alh84001]

We await the video with sound comparison of the two then.

As for DTA7, no rule is left unbroken on DT

[XMIT]

XMIT and I have confirmed that AT&T clones are lighter than IBM BSoM switches. I can't objectively say more than that.

If you're comfortable pulling a spring from the top-side with everything still together, or have a junky AT&T board that we can bolt mod, let's get some photos and measurements of the springs to be certain.

[ohaimark]

I'll get out my force gauge again and post some measurements.