Blue Alps IBM Model M ?

[Mr.Nobody]

Any one knows anything about this curiority ? Obviously, the Keycaps are ABS, and you can see some of the letters have wear off partially ... The owner thought it was some kind of cheap ALPS clones,and during the process of cleaning he broke several switch pins...what a pity.

[XMIT]

photos-f62/ibm-blue-alps-t12798.html

Another!! I wonder how many more are out there. These seem to crop up more often in China.

[micrex22]

They pop up now and again; I personally haven't done much research on them so can't tell you any specifics. If I had to guess, perhaps they were sold in the Asian markets as an alternative. But I've never seen them paired with PS/55s.

EDIT:

photos-f62/ibm-blue-alps-t12798.html

Another!! I wonder how many more are out there. These seem to crop up more often in China.

Now that you mention it... they're definitely not in North America, and these don't show up in the Japanese markets (else I would have seen it). It could be they were used in China for something.

[Mr.Nobody]

photos-f62/ibm-blue-alps-t12798.html

Another!! I wonder how many more are out there. These seem to crop up more often in China.

Thanks for the link, from the link you provide, the owner claimed: quote:"This keyboard is actually rescued from a public school in Chicago suburb. A friend of mine knows I'm into keyboards, and picked it up for me. I've double checked with him already. All other IBM keyboards are normal buckling springs." end of quoate.

So it does appear outside of China, at least there are some in US somewhere.

In the post aforementioned, two things made most people suspect 1. the metal logo is different, IBM positioned in center of the square not the upper side of it. 2.The light lable is not round-cornered. But this one has none of the problems mentioned above.

My wild guess is: these were specimens for IBM, maybe some manufecturer attempted to win IBM contracts...

[Mr.Nobody]

They pop up now and again; I personally haven't done much research on them so can't tell you any specifics. If I had to guess, perhaps they were sold in the Asian markets as an alternative. But I've never seen them paired with PS/55s.

EDIT:

photos-f62/ibm-blue-alps-t12798.html

Another!! I wonder how many more are out there. These seem to crop up more often in China.

Now that you mention it... they're definitely not in North America, and these don't show up in the Japanese markets (else I would have seen it). It could be they were used in China for something.

check this out, it did show up in North America...
photos-f62/ibm-blue-alps-t12798.html

[Mattr567]

I got a super beat up one of these with no case from Taobao for it's switches/parts

Still have the keycaps and PCB.

[Mr.Nobody]

I got a super beat up one of these with no case from Taobao for it's switches/parts

Still have the keycaps and PCB.

So are you interested in rescuing this one(which is not beat up and has case at least)

[Mattr567]

I got a super beat up one of these with no case from Taobao for it's switches/parts

Still have the keycaps and PCB.

So are you interested in rescuing this one(which is not beat up and has case at least)

You don't want it?

Well it is certainly in better condiction than mine was (BTW I restored those switches thanks to help of E3E and his ultrasonic cleaner)

[Mr.Nobody]

I got a super beat up one of these with no case from Taobao for it's switches/parts

Still have the keycaps and PCB.

So are you interested in rescuing this one(which is not beat up and has case at least)

You don't want it?

Well it is certainly in better condiction than mine was (BTW I restored those switches thanks to help of E3E and his ultrasonic cleaner)

Holy crap , it looks like it's just been excavated from some pharoh's Tomb. I am not that into Alps, I'm kind of IBM buckling spring fan boy.

[micrex22]

Holy crap , it looks like it's just been excavated from some pharoh's Tomb. I am not that into Alps, I'm kind of IBM buckling spring fan boy.

Breaking news, Mattr567 discovers Pharaoh's ALPS keyboard:

tombalps.jpg (155.6 KiB) Viewed 10735 times

I'm sure those keyboards will be desired by people who want ALPS and buckling spring form factor. But it looks like the labels wear off more rapidly than black M13s.

[Ir0n]

Wth? This is really cool! I've never seen this before.
If I ever want to shoot for blue alps now I think this is what I would want..
Nice find!

[lemur]

Considering the IBM terminal boards for the 4700 system in the asian markets with the japanese and chinese language caps ('pingmasters') also had Alps (vintage tee mount greens) I wonder how common these kind of boards could be?

Nobody seems to have seen a 'used' japanese/chinese IBM green alps 4700 board in the wild..... maybe these blue alps ones are simply rare as those were?

[seebart]

This one again, we've had this here before, let me see...

photos-f62/ibm-blue-alps-t12798.html?hi ... ps#p282974

[Mr.Nobody]

The seller refuses to sell the board...WTF...and here is what he told me :" You are now just like what I used to be...obessed with keyboards, I give you an admonition, buy NORMAL keyboard not this one..." Sounds like this keyboard is cursed...

[arkanoid]

I previously desoldered blue alps switches on this board. I only had the pcb at that time, so I had no idea what the name of the board is, and now I know it.
I think it's a fake Model M. Long stem function keys were interesting, but I discarded all the keycaps as there were so many broken ones.

[orihalcon]

Nice to see another survives!

Here's the progress on mine. As you can see, was pretty dirty when I got it and had ABS with pad printed caps. I had a partial PBT set that I got from the same seller, and replaced most of the caps with those. I retr0brited the ABS ones and they came pretty close to the original color as pictured. I used Green alps for the top rows because they tend to bind easily given the keycap shape and greens are much smoother. I think that is why a lot of the top row keycaps on these have get broken. Unfortunately, a regular Model M case will not fit this even though you'd think it might :/

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[Mr.Nobody]

I previously desoldered blue alps switches on this board. I only had the pcb at that time, so I had no idea what the name of the board is, and now I know it.
I think it's a fake Model M. Long stem function keys were interesting, but I discarded all the keycaps as there were so many broken ones.

I don't think they are counterfeits, keycap molds are rather expensive to make,and a set of keycaps needs several molds; if some people planned to make fake Ms, and they had already got the molds done, they'd have made millions of keyboards to cover the cost of manufacture and to make margin...if millions of this kind of keyboard had been manufactured then it wouldn't be so hard to spot one...but it's so rare and obsecure.

[Mr.Nobody]

Here's the progress on mine. As you can see, was pretty dirty when I got it and had ABS with pad printed caps. I had a partial PBT set that I got from the same seller, and replaced most of the caps with those. I retr0brited the ABS ones and they came pretty close to the original color as pictured. I used Green alps for the top rows because they tend to bind easily given the keycap shape and greens are much smoother. I think that is why a lot of the top row keycaps on these have get broken. Unfortunately, a regular Model M case will not fit this even though you'd think it might :/

Cool project and nice job, more photos plz, backside of the pcb and side-view of the mounting plate.

[micrex22]

I don't think they are counterfeits

It is a high possibility because they usurp part number 1390131 and lack a serial, which is NOT an ALPS-based keyboard. And the IBM Japanese ALPS keyboards actually had dedicated proper part numbers and serials.

Also, there are inconsistencies with the cosmetics like the silver badges and keycaps and label printing:

keycap molds are rather expensive to make,and a set of keycaps needs several molds; if some people planned to make fake Ms, and they had already got the molds done, they'd have made millions of keyboards to cover the cost of manufacture and to make margin...if millions of this kind of keyboard had been manufactured then it wouldn't be so hard to spot one...but it's so rare and obsecure.

The keycap profile on these is *insane* because they're trying to mimic the buckling spring curved plate with flat ALPS, meaning the keycaps feature the tallest ALPS key stems known to man and also problematic on the taller keys as a result:


If they were actually designing the keyboard properly, they wouldn't have taken that route. Anything that was [once] mass manufactured becomes less common over time. Especially problematic clones :0)

EDIT: and the fact that whoever made these was obsessed with ABS prone to excessive yellowing. IBM used good plastics and mixtures to evade yellowing, take a look at any PS/2 system from the time. The quality only started to drop on late Greenock-made Model Ms; but this wasn't a 'thing' in the first half of the 80's.

[Chyros]

Tai-Hao did virtually the exact same with some of their older FAME boards. I found an old FAME a few weeks ago, and it had those huge stalks on the F-key row exactly like these. I wouldn't be surprised if they made those Alps caps too because they look pretty much exactly the same from what I can see.

[Mr.Nobody]

The sole purpose of making counterfeits is to make money, whoever made those keyboards, why they chose Blue Alps? Wasn't cheaper altanative available at the time?

[Mr.Nobody]

The sole purpose of making counterfeits is to make money, whoever made those keyboards, why they chose Blue Alps? Wasn't cheaper altanative available at the time?

Indeed mass production keyboards will become rare as time elapses, but so rare? only 5 pieces known to even keyboard collectors and enthusiasts all those years?

[micrex22]

The sole purpose of making counterfeits is to make money, whoever made those keyboards, why they chose Blue Alps? Wasn't cheaper altanative available at the time?
Indeed mass production keyboards will become rare as time elapses, but so rare? only 5 pieces known to even keyboard collectors and enthusiasts all those years?

The Hong Kong facilities already had the tooling available and could easily pump them out with some minor adjustments. Back then keyboard peripherals were a lot more lucrative, considering an (actual) Model M sold for $200. Also remember these are cheap yellowed ABS with poorly made labels. That violates IBM's standards, especially if we're talking PS/2s.

They probably chose blue ALPS to mimic the best possible feeling to pass it off as a 'buckling spring'. or maybe they got the switches through a back door dealer. I sometimes wonder how sellers in China get their hands on so many things. Another explanation could be that they just wanted to use some decent parts, I can see some rubycon capacitors on the controller board--we'll assume that they're real and not 'rulycon'.

Rarity has no affect where a product is genuine or not genuine; although the scarcity could be explained by the very reason that they're clones and not real IBM products. These keyboards falsely identify themselves as a Model M (!) with no serial (!) and masquerading under a false part number to deliberately confuse with another product (!), and have a lot of inconsistencies with branding and keycaps (!).

All genuine IBM products *have a serial number*, and for a keyboard to be called a Model M it needs to conform to the Model M specifications; even the 'rubber dome' Model Ms still use the same components, just with a rubber membrane and a filled in stem. These ALPS keyboards not only claim to be Model Ms (they're not), but have the nerve to say 1390131. A 1390131 is not an ALPS keyboard.

[Mr.Nobody]

If they wanted to make fake Ms to fool anyone, they'd have manufectured buckling springs which is cheaper and not hard to manufacture at all, as bootleggers they had no regard for patent anyway...

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Keyboard enthusiasts in Asia have been active since the early 2000s. MouseFan for example has a date of 2001/11/22 on his oldest news post. Outside of Asia, the hobby is over eight years old.

By now, you'd think that we would have found pretty much everything.

Yet this is not true. Not only are there be huge numbers of keyboards still to be documented, but we are still finding new switches. It's hard to imagine the scale of an industry that produced so many different switch types that after more than 16 years of collecting, we never seem to be close to the end.

Often, a switch will be known from only one or two keyboard examples. ITT ETL18 for example: precisely one example. (Not one model of computer: one single keyboard in a collection.) That weird little switch in a supposedly Tai-Hao keyboard: two examples found (one here, and one hidden away in a photo on AliExpress where it's barely recognisable). Some switches are known for a few years before they actually show up in a single keyboard (in particular Stackpole discrete).

The amount of these fake Model M keyboards found substantially exceeds a lot of legitimate products in terms of the number of examples discovered. The first example found was suggested to be a Photoshop¹ job, but you could see that it was clearly a physical object. Whether it was depicted as-made or adjusted with a hacksaw was not resolved at the time, but as time passed, more of them have shown up. Whatever it is, it clearly went into production, but there is no evidence anywhere that IBM had anything to do with them. It's curious, as it's very rare in keyboard industry to see outright brand piracy. For example, the only known Cherry MX clone with "CHERRY" written on it is [wiki]Aristotle Yellow[/wiki], and that seems to be a mixture of real Cherry parts and replicas (including some replica shells). Even identical replicas of MX switches were generally left unbranded in the past.

We know that IBM catered for China, as IBM Japan made Chinese-language keyboards (subcontracted to Alps), but these fake Model M keyboards aren't even made for the Chinese market. It's not impossible for them to be prototypes: IBM did use other keyboard manufacturers, in particular Alps, Micro Switch and Oak Switch Systems, so it's not out of the question that they were toying with Alps-based keyboards made cheaply in the Far East, and maybe the OEM just re-used the model number of whatever sample keyboard IBM shipped out to them to copy.

One day, we may find the truth. I would say "never", but the amount of things we discovered and learnt this year alone tells me that nothing is ever excluded from being learnt one day somehow.

¹ or GIMP or some other program of choice!

[micrex22]

If they wanted to make fake Ms to fool anyone, they'd have manufectured buckling springs which is cheaper and not hard to manufacture at all, as bootleggers they had no regard for patent anyway...

As was pointed out they would have already been manufacturing ALPS keyboards and would have had the parts for it.

Let's reverse your initial statement, if IBM wanted to make a believable real ALPS "Model M", why do they suffer from the following problems:

• Why don't they use genuine Model M or IBM parts? At the very least the external chassis, silver badge, or LED covers could have been used*.
• Why don't they have a valid product serial
• Why don't they have a valid part number (1390131 is not acceptable)
• Why don't they call themselves something other than a Model M as they're not, all genuine Model M alternatives have something to tell them apart (re: M2, M15, M5-2, 'soft touch' etc).
• Why don't they use PVC for the chassis instead of ABS, this was a huge factor especially on the early Ms, very high quality plastic.
• Why don't they use two-piece key caps like the 1390131 & 5576-001?
• Why aren't the key caps the same quality as 5576-001 and the 5140? The 5140 in particular blows the quality of the keycaps on these ALPS knockoff Ms straight out of the water.
  Spoiler:

  
• Why aren't these ever shown or listed with a Personal System/2 back in 1986? While IBM did sell keyboards in a stand-alone fashion, they were always designed to be paired with a system. PS/2, PS/1, PS/55, PCjr, PC JX, IBM RT (6150), PS/2E (re: M4-1), etc.

*The IBM RT keyboards for instance, used the exact same silver badges as the Model Ms, whereas these ALPS knockoffs don't, in fact all three seem to use a different badge! Orihalcon's is physically smaller than the square hole in the keyboard, implying that whoever made these keyboards may have simply been popping random badges off of other IBM equipment.

Spoiler:

Versus the fake / inconsistent badges on the ALPS:

1390131 is not and never was ALPS. IBM does not violate their product numbering or serial scheme, I cannot stress that any more intensely-- it is used for warranty replacement and support purposes (IBM products especially in the 80's had decent warranties, not to mention these products had to fulfill lengthy contracts); if you want to believe they do then that's your qualm. I'm not going to argue any further until you can address the points laid out instead of going in circles why these keyboards used blue ALPS or why they're not buckling spring. That's the least of the worries with them.

EDIT: oh yeah, and 1390131s *would not* be cheaper to make than these knockoff ALPS keyboards. 1390131s used higher quality plastics, thick metal for the back plate (famously 'rainbow coloured'), two-piece keycaps and rather expensive controllers with very well made PCBs.

[Hak Foo]

All genuine IBM products *have a serial number*, and for a keyboard to be called a Model M it needs to conform to the Model M specifications; even the 'rubber dome' Model Ms still use the same components, just with a rubber membrane and a filled in stem. These ALPS keyboards not only claim to be Model Ms (they're not), but have the nerve to say 1390131. A 1390131 is not an ALPS keyboard.

One relatively related thing I can add:

Once I got a "bogus" 1390131 that was basically an early 1391401 with a fake label. http://imgur.com/a/wcuGz I don't understand why someone would fake the label.

It reminds me of how there's a lot of Arati 8-bit stuff out there that was seemingly acquired from dumpster-diving or abandoned factory line clearouts-- cases with no boards, a lot of items with no serial number label-- perhaps this unit was scavenged from waste and given a fake identity with a photocopied sticker.

If we assume the simplest explanation is that this was some off-brand manufacturer trying to sell a knockoff product, how did it enter the supply chain? I'd expect especially early on, most of the IBM boards were being sold direct or through authorized retailers, who would presumably not be interested in dealing with a counterfeiter).

Options I can see:

* In locations where there was little/no real IBM presence. The fact some have been found in the US suggests not.

* Through aftermarket vendors-- the surplus networks of the time, someone drops in saying they have a bunch of 1390131s they can sell cheap, and nobody asks too many questions.

[arkanoid]

The sole purpose of making counterfeits is to make money, whoever made those keyboards, why they chose Blue Alps? Wasn't cheaper altanative available at the time?

Blue ALPS switch was a common clicky switch at that time. Most other switches were linear (except Cherry blue? Not sure when Cherry blue came out, but Cherry should be as expensive as ALPS). Also, square metal label Model M 1390131 was discontinued before white ALPS switches came out.

[Mr.Nobody]

If we've found dozens of Ms of this sort, I'd believe the counterfeit theory...presently I prefer the prototype theory.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

If we've found dozens of Ms of this sort, I'd believe the counterfeit theory...presently I prefer the prototype theory.

Well, as I said: there are plenty of legitimate keyboards where very few are still around.

Take for example the Monterey K7S:

http://imgur.com/a/oNiCm

It has an official Monterey label, official Monterey designation, and the FCC ID stated on the label is genuine and has a last-action date with the FCC in the same year as that shown on the IC depicted.

It's a completely legitimate keyboard. How many have we found to this day? One.

It's got a type of Mitsumi switch never seen anywhere before or since. Monterey moved onto Alps switches shortly after that.

The keycaps are remarkably similar in construction to those used in the [wiki]Tulip SMK series[/wiki]: note the solid first shot, step between the first and second shots, and circular parts along the reinforcing walls. However, the design is quite different, as is the typeface used for the legends.

There is a whole raft of mysteries just in this one discovery alone.