I just dropped a blog post covering how I restored one of the original Model F keyboards: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25029571" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25029571</a>
I have one of these, ANSI F77.<p>It’s really solidly made, and delight to type on. It uses QMK firmware, making it pretty customizable, and you can take the whole thing apart with a screwdriver and pliers.<p>Caveat emptor, you should be willing to fix problems yourself if you get one of these. I don’t think that’s an issue for the crowd here, but it bears mention.<p>For example, mine got kind of beaten up out in shipping, and a some of the springs/feet needed reseating after it arrived. It’s not hard to do, and there’s tons of info on the site about how to do various bits of maintenance on the keyboards.
How does this compare with unicomp keyboards ( <a href="https://www.pckeyboard.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pckeyboard.com/</a> ) Both are marketed as buckling spring monsters but surely there are some competent actual reasons to spend the extra money on the model-F?
Surprised no comments so far. Can somebody give me the lowdown and how does this compare to the originals?<p>Can we get the same quality of electronics in 2020 as we did back in the 60s, 70s and 80s?
How come nobody ever even mentions that these so-called reproduction Model F keyboards have a totally different layout?<p>Where are my side-positioned function keys?