deskthority

Since all this has been covered before let me make this short, this is the rubberdome Olivetti ANK 25-102 in Swiss QWERTZ with blue dyesubs on PBT from 1986. Keyfeel is similair to 45g Topre with a very short keytravel, quite nice in this massive case with the quite heavy metal plate. The keyboard speaks PS/2 and has a SDL connector. I love the instructions for the feet on the back of the case. Enjoy the pics.

You can get all the technical infos here:

wiki/Olivetti_ANK_25-101

Oh my word, those legends are delightful.

Never mind the legends, look at those wonderful random walkers!

Though, after looking at the flip-out feet instruction, the random walkers are suddenly only my second favorite part of this keyboard.

The keycaps are really the best part for me. And the fact that it's PS/2 ready to use 30 years later is pretty cool, it's a very solid daily driver. This is what the Olivetti M450 looked like:

vsev had one of these at his place when I visited in Paris. I actually enjoyed it so much that I swapped out the Novatouch to use the Olivetti. I think a comparison to Topre 45g is an apt comparison. The keycaps also add to the typing experience, they are hearty and low profile.

That's quite a story. Picking up an Olivetti ANK 25-102 in Paris from a fellow DT'ler.

For me the ANK 25 is a product of art. Weird that the left ALT is red?

I appreciated the younger brother, ANK 27, in my thread:

photos-f62/t-ng-s-little-collection-t50 ... collection

seebart wrote: That's quite a story. Picking up an Olivetti ANK 25-102 in Paris from a fellow DT'ler.

Oh, I just used it during my stay, there was no transaction involved.

Nice pics, seebart!
This reminded me that the two 101s in my possession have a distinctly different feel. From memory, the one I got from NL was much snappier to the one I was using as my daily driver for a while there. I'll have to dig it out and do another comparison. This is the one:



An old pic of my daily driver board (this is the one I used for the wiki pics):

002 wrote: This reminded me that the two 101s in my possession have a distinctly different feel. From memory, the one I got from NL was much snappier to the one I was using as my daily driver for a while there.

Interesting, both mine are quite similair in feel, but it's been a while since I used my first ANK-102. Possibly there is some deterioration after thirty years, I'll have to get my ISO one out for comparison also.

Oh man those blue/red stickers look soo nice on that ANK-101 of yours...

I have to wonder if the stickers were some factory option or third party. It bothers me that they don't align nicely with the number row or F-keys but still cool none-the-less.
I think that this one from NL that webwit helped me to get was well looked after. It even still has the box and the plastic cover after all so I wasn't too surprised when I noticed the difference with my other board.

The keycaps on this keyboard are something else man. I don't think I've ever seen such substantially beefy and well-done dye-sublimated caps on any other keyboard.

I've never seen any other ANK-101/02 with stickers like yours, possibly for some third party software. Regardless, they look awesome. The dyesubs are sublime on these, I know there are certain Cherry boards that have similarly nice dyesubs. I'm pretty sure t!ng managed to find an ANK-102 in the Kleinanzeigen recently, I'm sure he'll post some pics for us.

Jeez, those legends are pretty amazing Oo . Olivetti really had a blue thing going on too, didn't they? xD

seebart wrote: I've never seen any other ANK-101/02 with stickers like yours, possibly for some third party software. Regardless, they look awesome. The dyesubs are sublime on these, I know there are certain Cherry boards that have similarly nice dyesubs. I'm pretty sure t!ng managed to find an ANK-102 in the Kleinanzeigen recently, I'm sure he'll post some pics for us.

I have a set of Olivetti Cherry dye-subs (in ES layout, IIRC) and they are also very, very nice.
Hoping t!ng posts pics -- I can't get enough of the ANK 25-10X

Chyros if you ever come across one of these in at your recycling place don't pass it up even though it's a rubberdome.

002 wrote: Hoping t!ng posts pics -- I can't get enough of the ANK 25-10X

Same here, I'll add some pics of the ANK-102 layouts to our ANK-101 wiki page when I get time.

Chyros wrote: Jeez, those legends are pretty amazing Oo . Olivetti really had a blue thing going on too, didn't they? xD

They certainly did! Such a tasteful yet subtle change. Not as jarring as the HP-inspired "Red Alert" (which I also love). Just the right amount of pizzazz!

seebart wrote: Same here, I'll add some pics of the ANK-102 layouts to our ANK-101 wiki page when I get time.

Cool -- I think we might be able to get away with having pages for each major iteration -- e.g. 'Olivetti ANK 25 series', 'Olivetti ANK 27 series' or something. I'll have a look at how other pages with regional layout variances were done so we can amalgamate them nicely without specifically referring to the 101.

seebart wrote: Chyros if you ever come across one of these in at your recycling place don't pass it up even though it's a rubberdome.

I do have an Olivetti rubber dome, but it doesn't have quite this kind of legends xD . I showed it briefly at the end of my dome with slider megareview. Pretty good for typing, actually .

002 wrote:

seebart wrote: Hoping t!ng posts pics -- I can't get enough of the ANK 25-10X

Be sure of it =)

Edit: I think I have a problem.

Ugh, different fixed connectror??! That's NOT what it looks like on mine. Hmm. But it is the ANK-102 right?

Yes definetely:/

Then my guess is it also speaks PS/2. Strange that Olivetti would have variations. I'd still like to see some more pictures of the actual keyboard please.

I find it hard to capture the blue font with my Smartphone.
Anyway here is a first glance:

I just noticed.... There are 2 ESC keys on it:/ ???

Nothing closes fullscreen porn faster than pressing ESC while holding down ESC.

Wodan wrote: Nothing closes fullscreen porn faster than pressing ESC while holding down ESC.

t!ng wrote: I just noticed.... There are 2 ESC keys on it:/ ???

WOT? You got the super ESC version t!ng ?!? Looks great though, thanks for sharing.