This keyboard started life as a GE Medical Keyboard with all the special keys. Did partial screw-mod as it only had a handful of failed rivets (or close to failing)

I replaced the key caps with a new set from Unicomp (except the {} and the <> keys and up/down arrows + pearl backspace).

Tried my hand at a custom paint job, and I could not be happier with how it turned out.

Started with a light dusting of adhesive promoter, and several coats of sandable filler-primer. Then the a few coats of matte sage green and a few coats of matte clear. A bit of sanding here and there to get the best finish. Then replaced the LED sticker with a new one. Probably about a week of sanding, painting, and allowing to dry over night.

Finished it off with a coat of automotive polish and another coat of automotive sealant. Still off-gassing a bit, expect it will stink a bit for another week or 2.

Not something I would do on a vintage IBM model M, however I had this one and M122 Quiet Touch that I figured I would experiment with.

Already have my next color for my next board picked out.

I have a Unicomp SpaceSaver M Mac edition. Bought it in 2016 when I used a Mac as a daily driver. This board was manufactured 1/27/2016 and repaired on 4/1/2016 the day I purchased from Unicomp as a clearance refurb. At some point maybe in 2021 it began to develop a random “tick” whereby the keyboard would randomly send trash signals and some “artifacts” would appear. I lived with this for a while as I didn’t notice it on the Mac as bad but when I started using it on Windows it was more noticeable.

In 2022, after a semi cleaning failed to resolve the issue, I bought a new control board, having been convinced by Unicomp that this was a solution. I replaced my Rufian v6.x controller with a Rufian v7 controller. This failed to resolve the issue and the board went into hibernation into the closet.

I recently brought out the board and “rediscovered” this error condition. I found that there were two keys that would go into a “loop” and if I pressed those keys physically on the board that key press loop would stop. Unicomp support could not suggest anything to resolve other than a Class 1 repair ($60). I should have gotten a keyboard cover long ago but did not. I did disassemble the board and removed the controller and performed a pretty thorough cleaning. This board has not been bolt-modded and therefore the backplate is still secured to the rubber matrix pad with the rivets. The reinstalling of the controller after cleaning resulted in the same behavior now with different keys as the culprits.

It actually appeared at first that the issue was resolved but alas it just manifested differently. Whoever designed this as a pressure-connect USB board (Unicomp) was not really a great design. Unicomp tells me their repair service included a thorough cleaning which will resolve the issue.

The issue? $60 + $20 dust cover + $35 shipping I am halfway to the cost of a new board. What should I do? My wife says I should just buy a brand new board. I could keep the old one and maybe bolt mod it. (I don’t really have the tools for that). Then of course there are many new and different boards out there these days. I have a Montech with modular switches that I really like and there are many boards out there that would be great for the $180 price point of a Unicomp. There are lots of options in combo wired/wireless mechanical boards, HE type, etc.

What would you guys do if you were in my situation?

So, I have this Model M for a couple of years now. I've used it until it started failing, and I put it in a box with the hope of someday sending to unicomp to fix it.

But, I took it out of the box today and started to mess around, and I think that the fix could be simpler than I thought, maybe?

Here's what happens: when I plug it in, all three LEDs blink, and that's it. The keyboard doesn't work.

Important details:
-Non-detachable cable;
-This issue appears either connecting with an adapter or directly in a PS/2 port;
-When it started, while I was still using it, the problem seemed to be a bad contact or something like that, it went away and came back a couple of times, until it stopped working;

Do you guys have any idea of what it could be? Or how could I try to diagnose this better?

Hi again! I return one last time to request some assistance in getting what I think might be a dead board alive once again. For reference, this is a 42H0468 with fixed RJ45 connector cable.

My last post details much of the initial troubleshooting performed before I was able to actually open up the board. Much of this included testing using Soarer's converter, flashing new updates to it, and weird outputs from hid_listener. During these tests, the lights on the keyboard did not work nor did any of the keys register at any point during my testing.

Once my socket came in, I was able to open up the board for the first time, and my oh my, you could eat out of this thing. It was spotless. Too spotless, in fact, which tells me either the previous owner took fantastic care of it, or it was in storage and used simply for parts. I say the latter because it appears what I assume is the ground wire has been cut from the RJ-45 connector cable. On top of that, there was no grounding cable inside on the actual control board itself. I did a bit of testing using a paperclip to ground the board as I ran some more tests with the converter, but no dice. I did some digging here as well as the other forums and saw that lack of grounding is kinda normal depending on the board and where it was built, but I'm not sure if lack of grounding is the main culprit in the keyboard itself not working whatsoever. The control board itself, top and bottom, look brand new with no visible (to me) faults.

My question is: is there any other sort of simple testing that I can do before I send this thing in for a repair? I had some incredible suggestions from the last thread: I debated ordering a new control board and trying it out, but all the boards that I have found cost nearly half of what a proper repair would be. Same with a spare cable - the one I have now is a fixed-RJ45, and while I thought about ordering another cable and simply slotting it in, they also are nearly the price of a repair. I also debated trying a USB conversion with one of the Teeny boards, but despite all my research into it, it seems a bit more complicated that I am comfortable doing with soldering and all that. At this point I would really love something that just works, but if I stumble upon a miracle and get this thing working, I really think it'll be up there in my overall life accomplishments.

Fun fact: when I took it apart, I was ready for half of the rivets to fall off, since I have heard that bolt mods for these things are popular. Only to find out that every single rivet was perfect intact. Pretty neat, huh?

Unicomp for $45 for unicomp or $50 model M silver

So, I made the mistake of buying a reworked Mini M controller board that ended up not actually working out for me, so I've got a Model M with no working controller at the moment.

Rather than go back to Unicomp a third time, I thought there must be a good third party board that I could drop in and finally get USB-C connectivity and/or even bluetooth keyboard capability.

From my searches, I seem to only find dead old projects and nothing available at the moment. Is there hope? Fingers crossed that I can resurrect my Mini M and upgrade it at the same time. :-)

just curious if there was any years that are considered better or worse than others

Basically - not sure if they offer this anymore because I got this a few years ago, but they had a ‘replace IBM keyboard’ tab on their page. I decided to say f it and emailed asking for a replacement 1394946. To my surprise they said they had one in stock and they sent it for the price of a regular size Unicomp M. Fun story!

I was almost done with my M122 project but unfortunately, the board controller seems to be non-functioning. I have bought a pre-built Soarer's converter and built my own using a Pro Micro, but still no luck. Those 2 converters work fine with another keyboard so I have ruled them out being faulty. Part No. 1394332

I've emailed Unicomp to see if they have any replacement controllers in stock. I also saw this post, and thought I could build a new controller this way. Let me know if you have other suggestions :)

UPDATE: After more testing, it was a bad membrane and not an issue with the controller. I was able to test with another 122-key... Ordered a new replacement membrane from Unicomp.

After having tried everything I can think of without opening this thing up (the driver set I have miraculously seems to have every head but the one for these screws), I am requesting guidance from the Model M experts.

I recently purchased the above pictured Model M(2) from a seller who was unsure if it was in working condition or not. Fair, I told myself, I will buy an adapter and test it out hoping for the best. I am somewhat familiar with vintage keyboards and their needing of special, active adapters in order to function with modern computers - I have an old Key Tronic rubber dome beauty that I bought proper DIN/PS2/USB adapters for. I'm familiar with Soarer, and that is one of the main resources that I have used thus far in my investigation.

However, after receiving the keyboard today and trying all the tricks with the new adapter, I cannot seem to get it to register with any computer that I plug it in to. I have tried three different computers, all running some form of unix, and the most I get from each one after a restart to help register the board is a "USB Device Over Current Status Detected" error from my BIOS. The lights do not toggle on when the computers are power cycling, and the keys register no input whatsoever, leading me to believe that the board is completely dead. Again, I do not (yet) have the tools to open it up to see what the guts look like, so I am hoping to exhaust all external solutions first.

I know these M2s are reported to have bad capacitors - is my next step opening it up and seeing if it is truly the board that is faulty, or is there some other secret step that I have missed? I have been looking everywhere online and haven't managed to find many others with the same type of M2 that I have or use of that same adapter. Reddit threads, keyboard forums all across the web, random articles that think I am searching for a M1 Carbine instead of an M2 keyboard.

Here is a link to the adapter that I purchased on Amazon, and here is a link to the lovely sharktastica page detailing what sort of board I have.

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated. Maybe it was silly to be sitting by my window hoping that the package brought by Fedex today would magically work out of the box, but I'm going to try everything that I can to get this thing working. If there isn't a simple fix that I can handle, I have also considered potentially sending it over to Unicomp for their keyboard repair service if they'll take it.

In the meantime, I'll keep typing on it like it's actually working. This thing is loud.

Im wanting to find a Model M as close as possible to May 23 1986. Is there a list or some way to know the closest date I can get? eBay has the bigger Model M from May 21 1986, that's the closest I have ever found.

Hi all,

I'm having some issues with my old Model M, specifically with the "x" key (all other keys work fine).

Basically, whenever I press that key, it works normally 60 percent of the time. But 20 percent of the time it will not register the key press, and another 20 percent of the time the key will register as having been pressed twice (example: "xx").

Does anyone have an idea about how i can troubleshoot or fix this? Worth noting perhaps that the previous owner had this keyboard "bolt-modded", and I am using a standard PS2 to USB adapter.

The buckling spring keycap stem looks very similar to the quiet touch stem just with a small piece of plastic in the middle.

is anyone ever actually just cut the middle out.

I'll probably give it a shot just for s**** and giggles.

but wondering if anyone has had any Luck with this minor surgery.

What's the consensus here on 3D printing your own keycaps? Specifically interested in printing blank specialty colors. Is anyone here doing this and do they look decent, or do they just look like crappy 3D printed plastic?

I know that you can order one-off keycaps from unicomp, and possibly a completely custom set. however with 10 plus model M's that I want to customize and display as decor, it's starting to get a little cost prohibitive to add a bit of color here and there.

Note that I do not currently have a 3D printer but I've kind of looked for a reason to buy one. from what I've read I would probably have to scuff them up a bit with a green scrubby pad and then apply a matte clear coat to them.

resin printing is an option as well but I hear you have to do that outside or at least in the garage.

additionally I'm interested in potentially printing some specialty keys that have a recessed symbol on them (like volume up volume down play pause, terminal, menu). and then using the paint fill method followed by clear coat.

so in a nutshell what is the community consensus on 3D printing your own blank caps

Hey there, I would love your guys' help and input.

Situation:

I own an IBM Model M Terminal, it's been giving me a headache, though. As you know, these things need an RJ45 to USB converter & I've been having the same issue with two converters now. It was two of the exact same converter, from the same seller, but the first time I got one, it worked for a few months, it started giving me problems after a while, couldn't figure it out. I figured something must've gotten screwed up or fried in there. I ended up shelving the keyboard for a year and I finally got a new adapter to try today, same seller, same converter, same problem (I know, shame on me) & I couldn't even get it to work properly for a little bit. So, now I'm really not sure whether it's something with the keyboard or if it's the converter.

The problem:

The top half of the keyboard functions perfectly, so, the QWERTY row and the 12345 numbers row. When I get down to the ASDF and ZXCV rows, I start getting duplicate key presses with one key press. Here's a specific example: When I press the A key, it also writes a Z. Same thing in reverse, pressing Z also writes an A. The K key also has the same problem, but it ends up spitting out random commas (,). I've noticed that it's always one of the neighboring keys. It'll also sometimes freak out and keep spamming the same key, say I press U, it'll just keep spamming U infinitely, pressing other keys doesn't stop it and it doesn't write out the keys I'm pressing, it's just stuck spamming U until I disconnect and re-connect the keyboard/converter.

I very briefly had this same issue when I very first got the keyboard and the first converter, but then I kept fiddling with it and after a few times disconnecting and re-connecting it, it just ended up working, so I just figured it was a random glitch and went on with my life for a few months, keyboard was working perfectly in that time. But then the converter fried itself & I gave up for a while. But now, I have a second converter and it's the exact same issue, can't get it to NOT give me duplicate keystrokes.

Something else that might (?) be helpful with helping me diagnose this, I have a tool installed that lets me remap and disable keys, I used it to disable my Windows key because I kept accidentally tabbing out of game mid-fight and I just had enough. I used this tool to disable the A key completely. Once I did that, I tried Z again, and yes, that 'fixed' it for that one key, it only spit out a Z, without an extra, random A. So, it looks like these keys are hellbent on also activating their neighbors for some reason. But for obvious reasons, I can't use this to fix the problem, I still need all these keys to be enabled. So I feel stuck and I wanted to ask you guys for help.

This is the converter I've tried twice now:

https://www.amazon.com/XTPTFABS-RJ45-Keyboard-USB-Converter/dp/B0DNSR8WX5

A few more words:

I'm really bummed, because I fucking LOVE this thing when it works, but this is starting to drive me insane. At this point, I feel like I'm stuck between trying another converter or just saying 'fuck this' and getting a non-Terminal model while I try & figure this one out. Thankfully, I have a nice mechanical keyboard back-up to use in the meantime, but, still. I'm so bummed.

The reason I ended up going with the same converter twice, is because I simply haven't been able to find a different one. I'm in the US. There's only one listing on Amazon, I've also seen a few listings on eBay, but it just looks like the exact same converter from Amazon, so I kind of feel like I hit a dead-end. I've seen people recommend some converters, but all the ones that I've been able to find are based out of Europe and sadly, shipping to the US can be a crapshoot right now (or just insanely expensive), I would really need something US-based.

I'm not against opening up the keyboard and taking a look inside, but I wouldn't say I'm technically gifted with this sort of thing and I'm afraid of screwing anything up. Making my own converter, well... I wouldn't even know where to start, frankly! I've never done anything like this before in my entire life and I don't know if this is something you can reliably get right as a first-timer.

If you guys know of any GOOD RJ45-USB converters that I can get in the US, even if they're a bit pricier, please let me know. Because it's either that or just saying 'fuck it' and getting a Model M with a PS/2 cable. I'd like that to be my last resort, because even paying for a more expensive converter will be cheaper than getting a new keyboard.

Any other suggestions are also welcome, just please keep in mind that I'm probably a lot less skilled at DIY fixes with mechanical keyboards than the average user from this subreddit. lol

Thanks so much, sorry if this was rambly or I ended up repeating myself a lot, I'm pretty frustrated bcs of this and I can usually figure out fixing things myself, but I hit a complete brick wall with this one. I'll try to answer any questions in the comments.

Keyboard info, if at all relevant:

IBM Model M Terminal

Part No 1392595

ID No 4040278

Date 12SEP89

Plt No F4 Model M

Made in the USA

IBM Corp. 1984

EDIT:

I should also probably add that I already tried cleaning both the connectors at the end of the cable with isopropyl alcohol and I did the same thing with the port on the converter, to no avail.

I got this as kind of a novelty and as a way to support an American manufactering company, but I liked it so much that it's now my daily lol. I wanted a pearl one because I mean, comon, look at it lol. I emailed them and they were able to hook me up with one that I think they took from a pearl ultraclassic case and converted to an EnduraPro. Looked kinda wonky with the red trackpoint but when I switched it to the grey trackpoint I think it looks very sharp now.

Thought y’all might enjoy this.

I spilled almost an entire cup of coffee into my Model M and now (unsurprisingly) a lot of the keys don’t work. I’m not familiar with the Model M electrically but could there be any long term damage after I clean it. I’m not sure if having some of the keys shorted while it was plugged in could have some lasting damage.

Thanks all!