Hebrew Variant of IBM 5251 Keyboards Found

[Boot_8046]

Hey all, new here. :]
I looked if there's a page of user contribution, but I couldn't find any, so I hope creating a dedicated thread is okay.
I picked two IBM 5251 beamers a few days ago, it was an insane deal of about 75$ each, and both are the Hebrew variant (I live in Israel).
People told me this variant is undocumented, and that there are keycaps in irregular places, so I took a photo of the one that's in better overall condition and I hope it can be added to the appropriate place.
I'm glad to join this awesome community, I bought a model M almost 4 years ago as a bday present for 18yo me, and my crave for better boards didn't meet satisfaction until now. I do want to have a model F for my PC XT, but this can wait, especially with their bonkers prices. Cheers!

[Muirium]

Now that is a magnificent find, splendid hunting!

Beamspring tripleshots are some of the very finest keycaps ever made. A full set in Hebrew is just glorious.

The keyboard is quite something too.

Expect some excited offers for the second one. I’m sure you could afford whatever you like from Ellipse’s Model F remake lineup, let alone an XT, if you do sell one of these Israeli beams!

[Boot_8046]

It's insane how well built everything is, the keycaps are insane. Both boards have almost to no rust, I already have a xwhatsit with a solenoid driver on the way

[Muirium]

I’m guessing the LATIN ON and HEB ON keys toggled (or perhaps just momentarily controlled) which legends were active on the alphanumeric keys. Your replacement controller will put that responsibility in your own hands.

Speaking of which: how do you guys type Hebrew on modern keyboards? And are the characters laid out the same way as on these two vintage IBMs?

[Boot_8046]

The keyboard language layout are set at the OS level. We just set a shortcut (99.9% of the time it's ALT+SHIFT) to change between layouts.
We have both ANSI and ISO boards here. and the layout of the 5251 is very similar to our modern stuff.

[Muirium]

Very good. The Hebrew layout being similar is what matters most. With a programmable controller, you should be able to switch modes however you like. The 5251 gives you enough mysterious keys to play with, including of course those two explicit mode keys themselves.

Though, personally, I'd totally claim them for regular mods, as I do with my own beamspring. Indeed, lucky you for having those handy keys right there by the spacebar!

[guidemetothelight]

wow , just wow.
that might be the prettiest keyboard ive ever seen.....

[engr]

Beautiful! Hebrew keycaps for vintage boards are hard to find (it took me a while to find a used Alps keycap set with Hebrew sublegends).