deskthority

Okie dokie. So, one of my first (if not my actual first, I don't remember) bolt mod attempts was this beat up space saver over a year ago. It was perfectly functional, but didn't feel quite right to me, so it sat on the shelf until recently when I decided to give it some attention. I've been curious for a while about what a Model M would sound like without the rubber mat, so I had to try it.

It's pretty epic.

It's as loud or louder than a Model F. I also put an extra spring in the space bar for a little extra "Umph!". I'm not sure what (if any!) long term effect the lack of a rubber mat will have on the membrane, but it's worth it because it's super fun to type on and makes me giggle every time.

She's a little rough around the edges. I wanted it to keep a bit of a utilitarian look and feel, so it's not as polished and OCD as my other work. Nonetheless, perfectly functional and very enjoyable.

Here's a video of three boards for sound comparison. There's a silver label terminal board that has a regular PS/2 controller in it. Normal volume.
There's a blue label that I grease modded just because I was curious. Rather quiet.
And then there's the "Loud Ass SSK." ^_^

More photos here!

Kinda tempted to take the rubber mat out of my one bolt modded M now for a test drive!

That ThinkPad is cute :3

Muirium wrote:Kinda tempted to take the rubber mat out of my one bolt modded M now for a test drive!

You won't be disappointed. You'll be grinning from ear to ear.

BlueBär wrote:That ThinkPad is cute :3

I know, right! Fantastic piece of engineering too! The keyboard tilts right up without any screws allowing you access to the battery, RAM, hard drive, and floppy. Saved it from the scrap heap!

That's cool! What OS are you running on it?

BlueBär wrote:That's cool! What OS are you running on it?

MS DOS 6.22.
It came stock with Windows 95, but I primarily use it for playing Prince of Persia and testing keyboards, so DOS is fine.

phosphorglow wrote:

SO glad you finally put your name to these IBM keyboards because restoring them is not an easy task. Perfect for people who are curious about who had worked on their SSK.

It actually looks like someone had built and/or tuned the keyboard from the mid-eighties .

Elrick wrote:

phosphorglow wrote: SO glad you finally put your name to these IBM keyboards because restoring them is not an easy task. Perfect for people who are curious about who had worked on their SSK.

It actually looks like someone had built and/or tuned the keyboard from the mid-eighties .

Heheheh! Awesome - that's what I was going for.
I did it in IBM's DisplayWrite on my Model 30 and printed it on old 20LB computer paper on my dot matrix.