SIIG MiniTouch age/switches

[Daniel Beardsmore]

After e-mailing SIIG, they've confirmed Monterey International in Taiwan as the OEM of the mechanical switch MiniTouch boards up to 2002.

Since the same design was maintained until relatively recently, I have to wonder whether Monterey switched from the mystery blue switches to XM some time after 1997. People claim XM as the type of Alps clone used, but so far I've seen no direct evidence, but now that we have the date of the final order placed to Monterey (2002), then XM becomes possible.

Does anyone have purchase dates for MiniTouch boards together with the switch types found in them?

I'm also going to contact Monterey directly and see what they know about the mystery blue switches.

(Interestingly, Monterey now sell Cherry MX boards instead!)

[Burz]

Hmmm... bad news. I had a 1903 already and then bought a 1948 so I could replace the XMs with Matias switches.

If the keyfeel is the only thing that changed beside the connector, then the pinouts on the 1948 will be incompatible with Matias and other ALPS switches.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Montereys are not pin-compatible with Alps. I don't actually know whether the white switches were pin-compatible with Monterey (Xiang Min's website shows various non-Alps-compatible keyswitches and it's possible that Monterey had XM switches custom built to be Monterey-compatible) — or whether the "XM" MiniTouch boards just got a new PCB and maybe even a new plate.

Good question. We assume Chicony changed PCB/plate a lot as the KB5181 and KB5182 have been reportedly sighted with Monterey, Alps (clone presumably), Omron, Cherry and Futaba switches!

These are the sorts of simple questions that should, one by one, get confirmed on the wiki as our collective knowledge increases.

No word from Monterey yet — will probably have to give them a poke.

[maxrunner]

I have a Siig Minitouch with blue montereys but i don't know the sell date.I can try ask the previous owner.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

These are the dates according to SIIG:

1. JK-AB0211 (MiniTouch Plus; KB1941) – first PO placed on 10/22/2002; last PO placed on 7/30/2008
2. JK-APS311-S1 (MiniTouch PS/2 Plus, no more model# used) – first PO placed on 9/15/2005; last PO placed on 1/23/2009
3. JK-APS011 (MiniTouch PS/2; KB1948) – first PO placed on 1/4/2002; last PO placed on 1/15/2003
4. JK-A10032 (MiniTouch; KB1903) – first PO placed on 1/4/2002; last PO placed on 1/15/2003

Despite having no Windows key, and coming in a PC/AT variant, it's a recent board.

That may have something to do with applications of these keyboards. As far as I know most of SIIG customers use these keyboards for factory control console, stores, etc., due to small footprint design and durability. Windows key may not be a must to have though.

I'm genuinely surprised by this. Curiously, and if I understand this correctly, they only made the mechanical version (underlined above) for one year — January 2002 to January 2003, in which time there were two switches used!

[Daniel Beardsmore]

http://deskthority.net/wiki/SIIG_MiniTouch rewritten with all the current info from SIIG plus a bit of digging.

In the new year I need to have another go at getting switch info out of Monterey.