Re: Inside the World's Greatest Keyboard

["Wally Bass" wbass@xxxxxxxx]

On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 09:16:33 -0700 (PDT), "J R FOX" said:
> --- On Mon, 6/22/09, Kari Eveli  wrote:

>> Buying an Avant Stellar was a leap of faith for me ...

>It should last for more than 10 years of hard use, easily.
>If you avoid spilled drinks, cookie crumbs, and excessive
>dust, that is likely a rather conservative number.
>(Like the Omni-102s, I think these take a year or two just
>to get broken in, to where the key-action does not feel
>"starched.")

I haven't tried the Avant Stellar, but I did have a an old
Northgate, which I'm told was basically the same thing, at least
as far as the feel and key switches are concerned. I had terrible
luck with mine -- I hooked it up once to try it and it worked okay,
but then it stayed on the shelf for a couple months and the next
time I tried it about 3 of the keyswitches had gone bad. As I
recall, Northgate was no help (but think I had lost the sales
receipt -- that was more than 20 years ago, and I don't remember
all that well). I loved the layout, but I don't think I liked the
key action as well as an IBM "M" or the old IBM 84 key keyboard.

Anyway, my experience with the poor reliability was such that
that I can't imagine making the "leap of faith" Kari made. I note
that there is a guy on ebay that will disassemble and clean the
Avant Stellars for about $60 (including return shipping), and he's
pretty up front in warning you that key switch replacements are
not included in his normal fee (I think it was about $8 per bad
keyswitch extra). I get the feeling from his add that keyswitch
replacements are often necessary.

I wish I could say that I had had the same good experiences
that you guys have had. But I didn't.

Wally Bass