There has been much historical discussion of this subject on the list, particularly regarding the celebrated (now long gone ?) Northgate Omnikey-102 and its successor, the Avant Stellar keyboard. I'm prompted to write this because the Maxiswitch keyboard in our satellite office just had what seems to be a complete failure of its comma key. So, I took my long in service Omni-102 over there as a replacement, putting my very little used -- and not at all broken-in -- Avant in its place for my home office. This leaves me with another, even older Omni-102 that went into the closet some years back, when *it* developed some flakey key problems. And down the line I expect to set up an additional computer station at home, which will be needing a good keyboard. The thing is, once you've gotten accustomed to an Omni or Avant, nothing else could really measure up. Having the left-side F-keys was never the whole deal. The key response, adjustable keycaps / positioning for certain critical key locations, along with the overall quality and durability figured in here prominently as well. The Maxiswitch probably came about as close as you could get, which wasn't all that close, though it was acceptable.
You can see what some people seem to think these are worth today here:
Is that just some of the typical, ridiculous asking prices one sees for various items on eBay, or is it something more ? (Like a real gauge of worth these days, due to scarcity ?)
Anyway, the reason I'm writing this goes back to some of those past discussion threads. Specifically, as to possible keyboard resuscitation methods. I vaguely recall that there used to be places that repaired these keyboards -- though that must have receded into history by now. If any still existed, the cost might be worth at least considering. And then there were the do-it-yourself nostrums, which I thing mainly came down to dipping the keyboard into isopropyl, then drying it out / blowing it out with compressed air, maybe lightly scrubbing somewhere -- or something along those lines. Anyone able to jog my memory on this ?
Jordan