The
IBM Model M keyboard is a keyboard you either love or hate. Some
consider the IBM Model M keyboard the greatest keyboard ever made with
its clicking keys and almost indestructible body. The Model M provides
a tactile feedback in the keys like no other keyboard.
The
most identifiable feature of the keyboard is the vertical spring that
buckles and clicks every time a key is pressed. One of the biggest
complaints people have about the keyboard is the clicking noise from
the keys. Just imagine what a computer lab with thirty Model M
keyboards would sound like, and people say computer labs are to loud
today. Most modern keyboards do not use springs under the keys to
activate switches but rather a use a rubber underlay printed with
conductive tracks, which terminate little pads. If you have ever opened
up a remote control, you have seen the same basic technology used to
make modern keyboard.
Modern keyboards are
significantly cheaper to produce than the IBM model M because it is
cheaper to produce a flexible rubber underlay with metal contacts than
it is to make a keyboard with over a hundred individual switches.
A rubber keyboard mat from a modern keyboard (no switches
needed here)
When
IBM spun its peripheral hardware off to their subsidiary Lexmark they
included the IBM Model M. While being made by Lexmark the Model M went
through several revisions including a cable that could no longer be
detached and a thinner case. Other than bearing the Lexmark name rather
than IBM, the keyboard looked the same but was lighter and not built to
last as long. After Lexmark started making only printers, they sold the
patent to Unicomp who still makes the keyboard today for $50. IBM and
its subsidiary made the Model M from 1986 till the Mid '90's. There
have been other companies that have tried to copy the Model M design
however none have successful been able to achieve the same quality and
feel of the real thing.
Picture showing were keyboard cable plugs into keyboard
The
pictures on this page show a Model M made in 1986 and still works just
as well now as it did almost twenty years ago. The Model M was made to
last a long time unlike most keyboards today that are designed to be
cheap as possible as last only a couple years till the computer it came
with is replaced. Unlike modern keyboards where the rubber under they
keys wear out after flexing so many times, the Model M has to rubber to
get old and wear out. If by chance a spring on a Model M wears out it
can easily be replaced, however in 18 years the keyboard in the
pictures on this page has yet to have any springs wear out even after
being used daily for years. The IBM Model M keyboard is one of the only
remaining computer relics from the '80's that can still be used with
modern computers.
Serial Number Tag on Keyboard (Note date of manufacture 05May86)
Technology 
