Comments on: Product Review: Unicomp Customizer keyboard, or, the IBM Model M reborn

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Wed, 14 Dec 2011 18:45:31 +0000

[...] isn’t necessarily “refreshingly real,” mostly because I tend to use badass keyboards that are tactiley [...]

By: Jake Seliger

Jake Seliger — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 02:03:16 +0000

John—thanks for your comment. One interesting thing about the Unicomp keyboards is their durability: if you go through a keyboard every two years, buying one that’ll last effectively forever might not be that expensive.

These days I mostly use a Kinesis Advantage: http://jseliger.com/2009/07/20/kinesis-advantage/ , but I’m actually at my parents’ house at the moment and using a Customizer from 2004. It’s gotten a lot of use from various people and still functions well.

By: John C

John C — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:18:24 +0000

I’d been dreaming about getting a Model M since I was an intern at IBM in 1986. One of the sharpest engineers on the team had one, and listening to him bombing away suggested, “aha, so that’s what serious programming sounds like.” I finally found out about Unicomp (and got over my own cheapness) and bought a Spacesaver in August 2010. LOVE it. From what I read real Model Ms are sturdier and feel slightly different, but the Spacesaver is good enough for me. I learned to type on a manual typewriter, so I would prefer an even heavier feel than what the buckling springs give, but hey, you can’t have everything. I love hammering away like I’m playing a piano. It’s not as fast as touch typing but it’s a lot more fun!

By: Dave Schaller

Dave Schaller — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 16:34:32 +0000

I just got a new MBP and have Keyboard Prefs and KeyRemap4MacBook configured as they were on my old MBP, AFAIK, but the Unicomp’s Ctrl key doesn’t work–doesn’t seem to do anything now. I can’t recall what I did to get it to act like a Mac CTRL key. Can anyone advise me?

thanks
Dave

By: ijdod

ijdod — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 06:41:24 +0000

Back in 2004 I ordered a black-on-black customizer, to replace my original IBM. A year or so later the Customizer suffered death through Coca Cola… but I was able to transplant the inner bits from the old IBM into the 15 years newer unicomp body… they were that similar.

Seriously considering ordering a USB one, as I’m getting fed up with the crappy keyboards at work, and don’t want to go the PS/2-USB converter route. Really a shame they don’t do the custom key colors any more.

By: ijdod

ijdod — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 06:32:28 +0000

(late reaction, I know) Unicomp used to offer custom keyboards with black keys (or a variety of other colors), but they don’t seem to do so any more :(. They do offer blank black keys though.

By: Grishnakh

Grishnakh — Wed, 11 May 2011 22:21:15 +0000

Exactly right. I have one of the old ones too. The Model M has always had a heavy-duty plastic case, with a steel backplate inside. The Unicomps are no different, except the plastic case seems to be a little thinner and lighter (I had a Unicomp for a short time but returned it because it had serious electrical issues: ghost keypresses and such; a real M didn’t have the same problem).

The author’s memory is failing him, or he might be remembering the old IBM PC and PC-XT keyboards, which were indeed all metal. Those weren’t model Ms, though, those were Model F. The Model M came out with the IBM PC-AT.

Personally, I wish I could get a keyboard built like the old Model F, but with the Model M’s layout. The Model F had a buckling-spring mechanism too, but it was a little different, and beefier than the Model M. The all-metal case was nice too.

Unicomp as a company is a little disappointing. They have a lot of potential, as they have the designs and manufacturing capacity to make these buckling-spring keyboards, but they just keep basically copying the old Model M, without making any modern changes. There’s a lot of people who’d be willing to spend > $100 on a nice keyboard with the buckling-spring mechanism, but they need to be higher quality than the Unicomp I tried out, and they need more modern or upgraded features, such as: 1) USB interface, with USB ports for mouse etc. Computers don’t have PS/2 ports any more. 2) Black case and black keycaps (not the ugly gray ones they have now). There’s no reason they can’t do this, as IBM/Lexmark actually made a few black/black keyboards like this before exiting the Model M business. 3) An all-metal case, perhaps with more modern aesthetics.

By: Roger Wilco

Roger Wilco — Tue, 10 May 2011 21:30:38 +0000

Unicomp/PCKeyboards just came out with a space saver M (same layout and keys just less housing). I got the space saver M for Mac. Essentially the same layout as the Apple Extended Keyboard (has all the contols dual labeled
on top) plugged it in and worked great! Loving that clicky feel :-)

By: Frank Hamilton

Frank Hamilton — Tue, 03 May 2011 19:00:50 +0000

Just for clarification:

Lexmark did not “move into” the old IBM plant and buy the keyboard business.

IBM sold the printer division which was the site at 740 New Circle Road in 1991. This sale included the keyboard business. The keyboard technology was sold to Unicomp in 1996.

The sale of the printer division was by IBM to Clayton, Dublier and Rice, and New York investment firm.

In 1995, Lexmark became an independent publicly traded, Fortune 1000 corporation.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Tue, 03 May 2011 09:12:59 +0000

I ordered a customizer.
As I use it for different locales I e-mailed them and asked if you could get it with all blank keys. No problem. Just how many keyboard manufacturer would do that ;-)
Only minor thing I didn’t like was in comparison to true IBM keyboards the caps feels a bit ‘plastic’, where IBM’s feel more, almost ceramic.
But, without a doubt the best keyboard you can get today with USB and Windows/Command key.