Do-It-Yourself Steampunk Keyboard

An anonymous reader writes "Who said there's no use for your old IBM "M Series" keyboards anymore? This creative fellow shows us step by step how to convert the keyboards of yesteryear into keyboards of an even further distant, fictional time. H. G. Wells would be proud."

Brazil

[suso]

It reminds me a lot of something you'd see in the movie "Brazil". Pretty cool. I like the "Shift Freedom" key.

Keyboard

[MattSparkes]

I've been looking for one of those for ages, I want to use it standard. Modern keyboards just don't make the right noise...

Keyboards

[PatrickThomson]

not that I want to be pedantic, but the model M's are about the only old keyboards worth not cutting to bits.

What's with the summary?

[G. Ratte']

"Who said there's no use for your old IBM "M Series" keyboards anymore?"

What the hell?! Anyone with sense knows that the Model M is the best keyboard ever made. C'mon!

Re:but

[value_added]

But does it still make that super loud clicky noise when you type?

Even if it doesn't, it would definitely go a long way to training people to avoid the carpal-tunnel-inducing-typo-generating bad habit of resting their wrists on the keyboard.

For anyone who never learned to type in a typing class on a real typewriter, I'll point out that most everyone who finishes such a course ends up typing at about 90wpm. I enrolled on a lark (to meet girls, actually, but they all ended up resenting me because I typed faster than they did), but the habits drilled into me I keep to this day.

Take that Mavis Beacon. Now get off my lawn.

Great looking keyboard at any rate. What's missing is a big magnifying screen like those found in Terry Gilliam's Brazil. And some pneumatic tubes. Gotta have pneumatic tubes -- you can impress your friends and family and have fun scaring the shit out of the dog at the same time.

Re:but

[gEvil (beta)]

You've made a good point. I still consider the keyboarding class that i took on a whim in high school to be one of the most useful classes I took there.

Beautiful project

[siegesama]

The end result is very beautiful, and I'm seriously considering attempting to duplicate this project, but with a few changes:

• use green felt (like from a pool-table)
• use symbols for the non-alpha-numeric keys (print screen, num lock, etc)
• do something about that cable, it doesn't quite match the look of the rest of the project. Maybe some flexible shielded conduit?

This project reminds me of a case mod featured here a long while back, where the entire inside of the case was covered in chromed panels, and all the wiring was redone with chromed flexible shielding and headphone-style connectors. I can't find that article any more, and all I remember was that it was named after some fictional AI computer.

Re:but

[Anonymous Coward]

"any suggestions?"

Yeah, eat a steak.