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if you've been a viewer for long enough you may remember that one time that i

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had a little moment reminiscing about my old model m keyboard so far out of all

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the keyboards i've used in my life this is the best

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most solid overall feeling one other than i did have an ibm model m and uh

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nothing can compare and i'm not alone not only did someone else care enough to

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re-upload that clip as its very own video but there is a healthy second-hand

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market for these things and you can even buy near identical

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brand new recreations today

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but in the age of bluetooth RGB and

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macros should you care

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let's find out speaking of random a semicolon lsd

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our sponsor humble bundle you can save money on games and help support charity

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with humble bundle learn more through our partner links in the video

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description

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now udarn kids today might think that the model m looks like a basic old

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school keyboard but that is exactly why

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it's special the layout that nearly every keyboard

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uses today is standard because of this keyboard

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from over 30 years ago now to be clear the qwerty layout has

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been around since the 1800s but by the

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time ibm was releasing personal computers in the 1980s keyboards needed

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a lot more keys than just letters and

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numbers and prior to the model m these keys

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could be found in all sorts of stupid and seemingly arbitrary places the

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reason that this board is different is that ibm put a lot of effort even

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developing a 10 person task force into

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developing a friendlier keyboard letting focus groups rearrange enlarge or even

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duplicate commonly used keys

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the result was this board that looks totally normal except it's missing

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Windows keys and a couple of other things you see

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this isn't actually a model m per se

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this is the zeroth generation ibm

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enhanced keyboard that launched in 1985

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as part of the ibm 3161 terminal that's

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why it doesn't have any lights for caps num or scroll lock those settings would

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be displayed on the terminal screen instead you'll also notice that it has a 5 pin

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din connector instead of a ps2 connector

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like other model m's this is significant because the model m

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launched with ibm's personal system 2 or

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ps2 computer with the ibm ps2 that is

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where the connector gets its name this

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is a second generation model m the most popular it was manufactured back in 1987

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just one year after i was born and we know this because every model m has a

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little birth certificate on its back

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but why do people still like these things so much after all these years

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well it comes down to feel sound

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and build quality model m's use switches that are very

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different to the cherry mx's that keyboard enthusiasts today might be used

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to in the patent these switches are

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actually called catastrophically buckling compression column switch and

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actuator but most normal people just call them

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buckling spring switches and that's because under each keycap there really

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is a little tiny spring

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so in the starting position the spring puts pressure on a rocker

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preventing it from closing the circuit but when you press the key down

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the spring eventually buckles tilting the rocker to contact a layer of

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membrane and registering your stroke at the precise instant that you feel the

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tactile feedback wait hold up

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did that say membrane yes

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model m's are often erroneously called

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mechanical keyboards but they are in fact membrane boards which is why they

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only have two key rollover just remember that this does not mean

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that they use rubber domes that is

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different or well okay actually some model m's do

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use rubber domes but more on that later

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anyway the result is a very balanced

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feel with a nice tactile bump and a 70

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gram weighting for pure typists there's

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very little on the market even all these decades later that feels this good

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but while the buckling spring switches create auditory feedback that some

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people find very satisfying at least the

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ones doing the typing anyway they also take a long time to register

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repeated strokes making them unsuitable for competitive gaming though you could

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always just bludgeon your opponents over the head

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when you lose because the model m's are heavy boards

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the plastic shell and the key caps are made from hard pvc and pbt plastics that

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aren't painted and don't yellow with age and inside there's a heat treated metal

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back plate that's responsible for the m's negligible deck flex and it's five

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pound heft at least they were five pounds

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thing is not all model m's are created equal in

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1990 ibm sold part of its keyboard

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manufacturing division to what would become lexmark

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lexmark continued to make these keyboards for ibm but

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more cheaper this model m from 1995 demonstrates some

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of the changes including one good one drainage holes to protect it from its

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arch nemesis water along with several

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less good ones like a lighter back plate and plastic shell a fixed instead of

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removable cable a monochrome legend on the keycaps and

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rubber dome switches to be clear they're good rubber domes

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but still anyway the keyboard gods work in mysterious

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ways and the growing popularity of rubber domes led to the collapse of the

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mechanical keyboard business with lexmark dropping their keyboard division

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outright in 1996 and here is where our story gets

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interesting a group of former ibm and lexmark

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employees began slowly purchasing the

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model m's intellectual property rights except for the logo

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and the physical manufacturing equipment that was used to make it

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the company they formed is called unicomp and that's where this came from

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it's a unicomp classic and it was manufactured on january 15

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2018 because of this heritage unicomp model

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m's aren't really clones but they're more like

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descendants so how do they compare to the original

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well if you didn't spend the 80s and 90s typing on model m's when they were new

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it's kind of hard to judge the feel of a brand new unicom classic against an ibm

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board whose spring switches are 30 years older

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but even if you ask the people who have been using model m's for decades you

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will still get some who claim that the unicomps feel identical and others

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who claim that they feel very different and from a certain point of view they're

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both right the unicomp boards are modeled after the

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last model that lexmark made so while they have the exact same

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switches as the early boards they are lighter weight and interestingly they

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can have imperfections on the case and less sharp lettering due to the aging

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mold and tooling equipment so

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our final take the unicom boards are as close as you

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can get to brand new anyway to the original model m

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while also offering new color interface and key options all for less money than

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most keyboards of a similar quality so as a well-priced typing board i can

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see the appeal but my money would go to either a more

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versatile cherry mx or an older

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generation model m off ebay even though i know that i'd be paying a

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pretty penny and i would probably need an adapter

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speaking of adapting freshbooks is the small business accounting software built

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tech tips and enter Linus tech tips in the how did you hear about us section

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don't i seem super credible sitting here in this like jacket like this what do

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you think no all right well thanks for watching

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guys and a massive shout out to LTT forum user ultimate mythbuster for

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loaning us his three precious model m's for this video if this video sucked you

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guys know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to where to

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buy the stuff we featured in the video description also link down there is our

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merch store which has cool shirts like the one i'm oh i actually am still

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wearing it hold on

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like this one and our community forum which you should totally join how about

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now do i look credible now yeah yeah how about how about how about now

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yeah oh sorry not suitable for twitch