i am an unabashed clicky keyswitch lover. my favorites so far have been kailh box navy, but im enamored with the clicky sound of ALPS keyboards from the late 80s. ever since I heard a typing demo of the apple ii keyboard way back when, i fell in love right away. so i've been chasing that high ever since. so every now and then i rummage through ebay for something similar at a price that isn't approximately $asteroid.
today's dice roll is the ALPS GlidePoint Keyboard. it was brand new in box from ebay for about 40 bucks after shipping. its absolutely pristine, with only the most minor bits of yellowing on the keyboard and mouse PS/2 port connectors. with a monoprice PS/2 to USB adapter, it Just Works. the touchpad is nothing special, kinda neat in a way to have on a keyboard from this era but there's (naturally) nothing like multitouch or gestures. also the button layout, from left to right, is right mouse button, left mouse button, middle mouse button? fucking bizarre. why
unfortunately, despite deskthority describing the switches in this keyboard (or at least the mac equivalent) as "clicky", they are in reality something more like "clunky", or maybe tactile. they feel a little bit like the akko lavender tactiles i'm fond of, but a touch stiffer. theyre not utterly horrible to type on like a lot of membrane keyboards of the time could be, but they ain't clicky, that's for sure.
unfortunately, this guy is going back in its box, and then into the closet. maybe if i ever get a retro PC setup again, this'll be the keyboard that lives in front of it.
as an aside, i bought a batch of matias clicky switches, but i never found a prebuilt board that could hold them; i bought a keychron c2 for that purpose but the matias switches are too wide for the openings in the metal plate on that keyboard. reading on deskthority that the matias clickies are intended to be a clone of the very same alps SKBM white switches that are in the alps glidepoint... makes me just a little bit more disappointed. feels like clicky perfection has slipped even further out of my grasp...
its a long shot, but if anyone knows of a nice cheap keyboard with those alps clickies (i think theyre called SKCM Blue?) in em, or a prebuilt keyboard that can take matias clickies and is hotswap, let me know in the ol comments