Selling keyboards without the terminal

[Doc Shipley]

On 10/20/18 10:41 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
>      > From: Al Kossow
> 
>      > The quality of modern keycaps is poor.
>      > These guys are after mechanical boards with double-shot keytops.
> 
> There's something I'm still not quite grasping.
> 
> I can see two reasons for people liking the old keyboards:
> 
> - i) Higher quality construction
> - ii) Connection, through a historial artifact, to an earlier age
> 
> Am I missing any?
> 
> I can definitely see the first (I myself find many modern keyboards to be
> complete crap), but if that's _all_ it is, I'd think there'd be a market for
> modern production of quality keyboards - not a large market, true, but I'd
> think it would be large enough to be worth servicing? (Unless the cost to
> produce such would be so high that there wouldn't be any buyers - but that
> seems at odd with some of the prices being mentioned.)
> 
> So maybe people _only_ want keyboards that have both i) and ii)?


i)  There is certainly a very active market in good quality, 
current-production keyboards, keyboard kits and keyboard parts.  That 
market is not just being serviced, it's moving past the niche category. 
The level of ongoing development and the vendors' response to customer 
input are phenomenal.

   The level of "discernment" in the higher tiers of keyboard gear 
reminds me a lot of the high-end audiophile market....  I'm mostly deaf 
and my hands are scarred, arthritic, and desensitized and I don't play 
video games, so I have no useful opinion about either one.

ii)  My observation, by no means authoritative, is that the folk who 
used those '80s keyboards in the '80s aren't the ones paying top dollar 
for them.  My grandson dreams of owning a '67 Dodge Charger.  A 440cid 
'68 was my daily driver for a couple of years, and I don't want one at 
all.  Same-same.


	Doc