Alps CB14182B / SCB1A163 aka "Super Alps"

[HaaTa]

Still have one more keyboard I snatched from b***a during my winning spree near the beginning of this year, but this is the one that made him desperate. According to the seller, this keyboard was the keyboard of the first computer at UCLA.

Here's the message from the ebay seller after I had won:

Hi, Thank you for your purchase! I will ship your item on Monday. I was contacted by the other bidder that wrote that they would be interested in it if you didn't pay. They said that they made a mistake on bidding and offered $800 for the keyboard if you didn't pay. I told them that you paid very quickly. I also told them that I would pass that information along to you. If you want to sell it to this buyer, please let me know and I will give you their info. If I don't hear anything back from you, I will go ahead and ship on Monday as promised. Thanks again and congratulations!

Of course I'm not giving up a potential part of keyboard history (and if someone is gonna keep it from a museum, it's gonna be me ).


There is no competition, these are the best linears of any keyboard I have tried. Even the smooth Fujitsu I recently posted, doesn't hold a candle (which is #2). bluesmoke from GeekHack described them as "buttery" when I brought it to the recent Bay Area Meetup.
They are Alps Reed Switches, or "Super Alps" for short because too many of the other magnetic reed switches are crap

Now, the "lighted" keypad on the side uses ultra crappy industrial switches, don't even bother looking them up. They are exceedingly awful.









It might be hard to tell, but all the letters (and APL) are "doubleshot engraved", while Shift Lock is true doubleshot. I spent hours cleaning out the engravings...






Shift Lock mechanism




"Real" Keycaps







Mounting brackets













The switch
Notice the rubber stopper on the slider, suppresses the rebound noise (inverse O-Rings if you will). And the bottom where the spring attaches is also rubber, suppressing bottom out noise.
The red glue is covering the magnet (very pretty looking for keyswitch magnets which are often sloppily cut).
Not sure of the plastic of the slider/housing but it is very very smooth (not quite UHMWPE though ).
Contains a diode and magnetic reed switch (blueish tube).
The copper ring is the plate securing spring (keeps the switch extremely secure, and takes a bit of practice to get them in and out easily).

And the crappy industrial switches...



Full Album -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/triplehaat ... 545864692/
Sorry, couldn't find any patents. Mind, outside of the plastic choice, slider design, and rubber placement there isn't much to patent as reed switches weren't new...

I'll post a video this evening if there is interest.
More keyboard pics sometime this week

[webwit]

Good seller. A *cough* mistake on bidding (lowballing), and then trying to snatch it anyway, pah!

[Retrete]

Waiting to hear that "linears", nice work.

[Game Theory]

Maybe you are beating out a computer history museum:)

[REVENGE]

Good seller. A *cough* mistake on bidding (lowballing), and then trying to snatch it anyway, pah!

Non-sensical really. He should have just sniped 800 if he was willing to pay as much. Lowballing is for best offers.

[Elrick]

Maybe you are beating out a computer history museum:)

Or someone who worships ALPs and wants the very earliest record of them being made, so that they could place them on the wall of their City Apartment .

[HaaTa]

Not as much sound in this one...well because it's a quiet keyboard
The blurriness in the corner is just the reflection of the label.

[tlt]

Very nice looking caps and those switches looked like they have a really interesting feel on the video. Is the travel really deep on them? Do you know what the NUL key was for, for some reason I want one

[Muirium]

They look like they really swing, to me. Like there's weight in the mechanism (rather than weight in the spring for a change) which gives a wave-like ripple to the way you press them. But it takes trying them yourself to see, I'm sure.

[dorkvader]

Will honeywell keycaps fit on those stems?

This keyboard is very impressive in person and feels great. It made me interested in reed switch keyboards for a while, but after further research (finding out they are often not that great) I am not pursuing this as actively anymore.

I wonder how long ALPS produces these? It would be cool to find another.

I also note that there is some similarity to the mounting scheme between this and a "vintage" microwsitch keyboard. They both have the switches equally spaced on the row and the entire row is "shifted" a little to the side to make the stagger proper. I've always liked that design.

and I think everyone loves mechanical linkages connecting shifts.

[HaaTa]

Honeywell caps do not fit on the stems.
However, the Alps caps *do* fit on the Honeywell stems.