Hey, if it helps you write, I’m all for it. And I am always up for spending a little time now in order to save a lot later or just to make that later time more productive, more useful, more fun. I’m not sure this fits those, but what I lack in patience to do the work, I make up for in fancying the end result.

My goal with this project was to build a retro keyboard that was fully functional and of a sufficient quality that it could be used everyday by a touch typist. In order to achieve this I chose a high quality (though widely available) keyboard as my starting point. This is an IBM Model M “Clicky” keyboard. They were made starting in the mid 1980’s and a version is still manufactured today. This particular keyboard was made in 1989 and shipped with and IBM PowerStation 530, a UNIX box the size of a kegerator.

Besides its overall quality and heft, one of the things that makes this keyboard particularly good for such a mod is the fact that it has removable key caps and the under-cap has a flat surface ideal for affixing a new key top.

Steampunk Keyboard Mod – Jake von Slatt, The Steampunk Workshop (8 July 2009)

Even if you’re no more likely to build this yourself than I am, do go take a gawp at the full feature: it has detailed photos, many videos and so much love that you can’t resist.