Post 4001 - A Call to Keyboards!

Well, that was fun.

Someone or something tried to clone or hack my Facebook this evening. I wasted no time in locking down my account. Changed the password. Modified my security settings so only I can see my friends list. Other friends of mine on FB can only see our mutual friends, which is fine. I clamped things down, which is something I should have done a long time ago.

This is not all earth shaking stuff, but it was a welcome change from the usual doom and gloom, sturm und drang of the Covid world of the past year or so. I would not want to go through this stress every day, but it was a different kind of stress if you catch my drift.

I meant to write this before, but thank you to the blog reader who sent me photographs of his keyboard, thinking it might be one of the legendary Model M keyboards which I so very much covet. I'm not sure how long he has been reading the blog, but he took the time to send me the photos and tell me a bit about himself. 

To tell him, and by extension all of you, all 4.7 of you that is, a Model M keyboard was manufactured by IBM in the 1980's through the early 1990's. These keyboards, and I am using one to type these words tonight, are big and bulky and heavy and have a satisfying click when you type on it. They have a very comfortable feel and are a joy to type on. 

Here are two pictures of my actual model m keyboard.

 

 

So, you'll see that someone long ago put a Lotus 1-2-3 template by the function keys. That was a spreadsheet and database application back in the 1980's. But the second picture shows the manufacture date along with the model number. You also see a bit of the radio I got at a yard sale in Port Williams in 2002 for the munificent sum of 50 cents, along with a piece of my Blue Yeti microphone for the podcast I keep meaning to start. Lastly, there is the perpetual calendar I received as a lovely parting gift when I left a government department in 1998. But I digress.

You see that the model number is 1391401, a very common model number for these keyboards. You also see that it was manufactured in 1989 in Mexico. Frig only knows how such a keyboard ended up in a box along with other keyboards in a thrift store in Halifax in 2017 or whenever I got the thing. 

Anyway, that is the kind of keyboard I want. The IBM logo on the top left or top right or wherever it is along with similar information on the bottom. The Lotus 1-2-3 template is an added bonus. 

I can order these keyboards online from a company that refurbishes these keyboards and even rebuilds them, but the prices of such keyboards are pretty high, a couple hundred dollars US, and nearly as much to mail it to me here in Nova Scotia.

 

That is why I ask you, my acolytes, my dear friends, to go out there and let me know if you ever see one of these remarkable keyboards out in the wild. Or maybe it is languishing in your office closet, or you find it at a yard sale or thrift store or something. If you find one, let me know, and I will make arrangement for you to send it to me, or we can meet up and do a cheap deal. 

 

Best bet is to email me here. Put "keyboard" in the subject line. 

 

Thank you so much.

 

It is past two in the morning. I really should turn in.

 

See you... later on today!

 

Bevboy