Keyboards

Poker II Keyboard - The one that started it all

Up until this point, I’d been using random keyboards from Amazon or I don’t know where. Somehow I ended up on /r/mechanicalkeyboards and decided I needed one. It dread to think how many hours I spent reading, researching and determining what I should buy. In the end I asked for this for my birthday in 2013 - The Poker 2. I liked the compact nature of it, and Cherry MX Browns sounded a good compromise between clicky and linears and “ideal for gaming”.

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kb45p - 45% Alps keyboard

This one is from 2016. Think I found it whilst browsing deskthority and the guy was selling PCBs for $30 or something cheap, so of course I bought it. I liked the idea of trying out alps switches, vs. the usual cherry mx ones I had been using. Alps were common on older Apple keyboards, and I’d found an ebay listing for a couple of Apple Extended Keyboards (AEK). One of which I was going to try and use as is and the other I dismantled to get the alps switches out.

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Apple Wireless Keyboard (A1314)

Let’s continue with the Apple keyboards for now. This one is most ubiquitous and there are probably absolutely thousands of them about. This is the one I bought to use with the mac mini, instead of the older A1048. It and the trackpad were pretty cheap off ebay. I actually really like this keyboard. It’s a good size, keeps your hands in a nice position and not too much reaching for the mouse or trackpad, and the butterfly switches are so light to use.

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Apple A1048 Keyboard

Over the years I’ve bought and sold Mac computers. I do enjoy using macOS and the Apple hardware is alway very nice. However, I struggle to justify new models, and so go with older ones, only to get annoyed with their performance or lack of latest OS. Plus I have too many computers already, so I really don’t need anymore! A common purchase (and later sell) is the Mac Mini. 2021 saw me buy a 2012 mac mini server, which I upgraded with SSDs and maxed out the ram.

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Keyboard collection: Iris

This one was circa February 2019. I do like the idea and style of split keyboards, this wasn’t my first split but maybe my first built split. I enjoyed building it, but with a split board that was also ortholinear, and thumbs keys, I didn’t really enjoy using it. Unless I’m using it all the time (which I wasn’t as I spent 8 hours a day at work on a regular keyboard) then I’d never get used to it.

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A new keyboard🧹🦀

It’s been a long time since I last built a new keyboard. I think it was Christmas time 2018 when I bought the Iris keyboard as the store had a sale on. Funnily enough that was a split keyboard. I keep meaning to write up a post about all my mechanical keyboards (there’s been quite a few over the past nine years) and I’d enjoy going back and remembering what I had.

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