mmm wrote: 23 Jul 2022, 00:20
It always amazes me that nearly pristine tech from the 70ies can pop up in e-waste containers. Out of curiosity, what kind of area was this container located in? I have a hard time stringing up the chain of events leading to it being there. Amazing boards!
It’s kind of a long story…
I work in a large office complex and one day one of the offices that had appeared to be closed for years suddenly had an old computer rack with a MicroSwitch SD keyboard outside the office door. Weeks went by and curiosity got the best of me and I decided to check it out. The insides were removed but the shell and keyboard remained. I decided to periodically check on it in case it was getting thrown out.
One day this office was open with more stuff outside including more computer racks, filing cabinets, and other boxes of stuff. I talked to the man and learned he was getting kicked out and couldn’t believe that his contracts had expired, no one tried to renew them and his management wants him to get rid of everything and move out. He was too upset for me to ask about the keyboards but I went by everyday hoping for a salvage opportunity.
A few days later there were several managerial-type people outside the office with a few large e-waste boxes setup and I went over to ask salvage opportunities. Apparently this person was kind of like Milton in Office Space where he had been forgotten about and the large company he worked for had continued paying the rent for his office space even though the contracts had run out. They hired an e-waste company to clear everything out and as long as it was OK with them I could have whatever I wanted! They also let me check out the office.
The office wasn’t large but OMG was it packed with stuff. This person was an electronic repair technician and he had some kind of maintenance contract going back decades and had kept everything he had ever gotten to hoarder levels! The office was piled high with so many different items it was overwhelming.
I was able to directly get two MicroSwitch SD keyboards and several Chicony KB-5181 and 5191 boards. I got friendly with the two guys clearing out the office and told them I would take every keyboard they came across. This resulted in more MicroSwitches a couple orange alps M0116s and an orange alps M0115 in great condition, along with a lot of rubber domes, oh and an all metal keyboard and mouse combo with Marquardt Series 6184 switches for the keyboard and Mx Blue for the mouse buttons. Below is a pic of that interesting board.
There was a post years ago of someone in Argentina finding an IBM F77 in a garbage pile outside of a bank (
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=22176) and after reading that amazing post I always check to see if you can find treasure in other people’s trash! Sorry for the long story but I hope that helps explain how I got those keyboards.
Metal Keyboard and Collection Closeup:
- Collection Small Size.jpeg (161.17 KiB) Viewed 2255 times
Marquardt Series 6184 Switch Closeup:
- W Switch Closeup.jpeg (964.33 KiB) Viewed 2255 times
