**A Nostalgic Keyboard Experience: The Model F 104**

I'm just not crazy about that look. The keycaps come in a number of colors and languages, but I think that they're all the same profile. So if you don't like something super sculpted like this, if you want something really flat, um you're probably not going to find that here. And this probably isn't the keyboard for you at that point. But yeah, just stuff like the numpad, like I love the zero and I just don't like how close the seven and the four are to the rest of the case. It's a really minor thing. Same with the delete, home, insert - all those guys. I really wish that they were just a bit more pronounced. But it's really not the end of the world. Just kind of weird.

One kind of neat piece of history is the original Model F-122 key layout. Cost $295 dollars back in 1984. Adjusted for inflation, that's like over $800 bucks almost $900 today. So this is a bit more uh premium and it comes at a higher price tag. It's still nowhere close to if you had bought one of these and then adjusted for inflation. Which is actually pretty nice. If you head to Model F keyboards.com and want to pick one of these up for yourself, whether it's this guy the f-104 or one of the different layouts - this one specifically is going to run you a bit of a higher price tag of four hundred dollars. The other guys come in a little lower, more like $350 I think.

The Model F is an incredibly unique product and on top of that, it's not plastic. You're paying for die-cast aluminum. You're paying for a neat little LED screen. You're paying for these unique buckling spring switches that you can't find all that easily. You're paying for these unique keycaps that feel like you're typing on a keyboard from 25, 30 years ago. Man, it's really like rose tinted glasses. Like I don't know if everyone just remembers these fondly and if they were to type on it today, they wouldn't actually like it all that much. Um, I know that for myself. To make this a lot more enjoyable, I'd have to open it up, go in and mod it a little bit. Just to become a little bit more modern, I guess.

But overall, it's pretty sick if you want to kind of break the bank a little bit and go extra. You can get yours custom serialized - it'll cost you though. Single digit is upwards of $200 and below that, you're looking at a hundred. And then for just thirty dollars, you get something standard. I don't know what exactly they mean. I'm guessing that by single digit all you're paying for is a lower number. So you're paying $200 bucks for basically bragging rights if that's worth it to you. Hey, feel free, get number three or four whatever one you want. There's one other really cool add-on though that I actually highly recommend everyone and it's their repair kit.

One of my problems with a lot of Boutique keyboards these days is they Don't Really ever come with extras or at least not anything in terms of like screws or hardware. You might get extra feet, you might get some extra gaskets - um but that's typically about it. So I would be totally okay with paying an extra twenty to fifty bucks if it just comes with an extra set of screws this is a statement piece if you buy one of these. You know if you want to daily drive it good for you. I'm glad you like it however personally, I would probably get this try to mod it a little bit. There are a bunch of screws on the bottom here that you can take out and open it up and do whatever you want to it. But I think I'd just leave it. And I would put it on a wall somewhere so that people could walk up and try typing on a Model F because it's an experience that kind of sticks with you.

I remember as soon as I came here one of the first things I did was seek out the model Amber Model F that we have in stock and I tried typing on it. Because I needed to see what all the fuss was about. I wasn't crazy about it then, I'm still not crazy about it now. Four hundred dollars just for like materials and uniqueness alone, I think that's a fair price if you want to take a look at another modern very unique but similarly priced keyboard. You can check out the cyberboard video, I did a couple years ago - that thing is also sick.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwe got a little piece of History here we got the model f keyboard uh they used to make these back in the 80s and oh my God they've got a bit of a reputation uh along with the model M IBM made these keyboards for quite a while and they've been out of production for I think over 25 years now and one company oh so heavy one company is now recreating them it's using die cast aluminum so there's no CNC going on and frankly I believe it look at how big and thick this thing is I gotta weigh it I want to weigh it first thing it's over five pounds for sure this thing's awesome have you ever seen one this large before right like we've done a bunch of full-size boards this is nothing new in terms of that um oh yeah it's like 3.2 kilos that's what that's that's like 10 pounds no no no it's like eight pounds seven six it's over six yeah seven pounds so not quite 10 but oh man this thing is chunky can I have a tape measure yeah that'd be good uh let's measure this bad boy it's almost 19 18 and a half inches long it's pretty long and then we got just over seven like seven and a quarters wide and then how thick is it I need to know the thickness so up near the front here at the max height it's about an inch and a quarter thick it comes in a lot of colors we've got the red but it also comes in gray beige black silver gray light blue and dark blue I love what we've got the old school numblock caps lock scroll lock LEDs it's this really takes me back I don't know if I was old enough to actually type on one of the OG Model F or model M's in school I am old enough where we had like ibms and model twos or apple twos in school and they must use something similar that's right there's something incredibly distinct and interesting about buckling spring switches and you know what I'll be frank I don't like them there's something comforting about this sound but there's also something terrible about it you know like it's is this like high-pitched shrill kind of pingy noise sounds super rattly everywhere however I'm an uncultured Heathen um a lot of people absolutely love these things they grew up typing on them and they have got such crazy fond memories for me that's really not the case but there is something really satisfying about the feel at least up until now I'd only typed on really old model M's we've got a couple floating around the office from the model M video that we did years back if you want some more information definitely go check that out and I haven't enjoyed them too much and I think that's just because they're old while I don't like the way this sounds all that much I really actually do like the way it feels and I didn't on the older switches they just felt bad they just felt kind of gunked up and old I don't really know how to explain it but I wasn't a fan these though they feel nice and crisp the big difference between a traditional switch that we know of today and uh buckling spring that we've got here is that instead of the spring being on a Center Post it's kind of just hanging out and when you press down the spring buckles and then connects on the side of the switch it's a super cool design and you know it's got a really unique both feel and sound but I'm a bigger fan of kind of where we've come to rather than where we come from while the typing experience is great I can't get over the sound and how pingy it is it might be a little better if you were to open this thing and mod it a little bit maybe add some foam maybe add a couple layers of tape but alas we've got the classic Model M Model F experience right now I can't say if it's perfectly replicating the original but it does feel very similar and sound very similar to model M's that I've personally typed on uh we're gonna give it you know a classic typing test plug it in but not before a word from our sponsor dream arcades our recent LTX 2023 Expo was bananas like literally we had a claw machine filled with our banana for scale plushies LTT store or.com we partnered with dream arcades to design the perfect custom skinned LED lit machine that Drew the eyes of everyone in the building dream arcades focuses on providing Machines of all shapes and sizes that only include officially licensed games at reasonable prices customize the arcade machine of your dreams at the link below we got a really long cable actually unless I'm mistaken it's all coiled up here so I don't know the exact length oh yeah this is longer than six feet I'll tell you that much so this has got to be like an eight or nine foot cable which is great uh nice and sleeved most I don't think I've ever gotten a keyboard that's got a cable this long I know that I keep repeating that but it's like I don't know what to tell you every keyboard usually comes with like a six foot cable anyway this is cool we've got this like huge socket here for the USBC and it's actually way deep inside there but luckily it should be easy enough to plug in sure a wrist rest I think is going to have to be necessary for just about anyone else who wants to buy this keyboard all right we're going to try a buckling spring see if I'm any less accurate you know less speedy 106 96 you know it's not great it's not awful though it's okay for me man I get it I I hate it and love it at the same time uh I think that if you are in an office or if you have people around you this is like the worst thing to have and they're gonna hate you I I would like be more annoyed by this than I think like a set of actual clicky switches there's something about the high-pitched spring ping okay that kind of just Trails after every single key switch I think that honestly if you want to use this anywhere other than your own desk or your own office with no one around you really should try to figure out a way to foam it or tape it or something however that might really detract from just the uniqueness of this keyboard there's something incredibly special about this I still am not super crazy about the feeling it doesn't feel like a linear it doesn't feel like a tactile and that's because they're just it's so different actually let me put some feed on real quick and see if that makes me like this anymore you know I'll get just a little stick on feet these are great these are fine oh yeah with this you're definitely gonna need a wrist rest oh that's not going anywhere those are some nice stable feet let me do another man oh thanks Glenn uh that being said they actually come with a number of different options or at least hours did it's got these little smaller uh flat guys here and then it's got these little four square um guys right here oh this is actually really cool they've given you replacement switches as well so what we've got they're just Springs sitting on these platforms here this something you know we're both kind of learning today this is something I don't know a ton about because I as much as I kind of grew up with these I also didn't really yeah so it's just kind of hanging out in there that's so wild and then this guy goes down and as you push down it Kinks the spring and then it makes contact really cool design I don't like it all that much but I think it's a really cool design at the very least and anyone you know there's one thing that's got to be said is anyone who rocks one of these it's definitely a conversation starter one thing I forgot to mention is the color I personally wouldn't have chosen red but that being said I do like it it's a really nice metallic kind of red um they're calling it true red I believe which is a little weird uh what is a true red I don't know all of those other colors I mentioned before come in a paint or powder coat finish and at least on the website they all look pretty good as they look as good as this red does right here then they're probably all beautiful honestly this looks a lot like it does on the website so I don't think you have to worry about ordering A Certain Shade and getting something completely different that's that's probably not going to happen here as for the keycaps what they've done is they've tried to replicate old school keycaps as well they feel really bumpy and gritty on top on the sides it's actually nice and smooth but as soon as you get to the top there's that textured feeling and I actually kind of like it honestly I would really like to buy a set of keycaps that are basically like this except you know they fit across or box stem so that you're not stuck trying to jam them onto a buckling spring that you don't own the other really great thing about the keycaps is I just love this colorway it's really simple you've got like a beige and then a slightly less beige or gray kind of style and then you've got just a little hint of blue and it's a really nice blue that I think goes really well with this uh true red that they're calling my only other issue I guess with the kind of fit and finish of everything is I don't like how recessed all of the keycaps are um into the keyboard the row up here like the like row zero or Row one is actually pretty high up compared to everything else and this might feel a bit better if I had a wrist rest and I changed the typing angle a bit but I don't know there's something visually about it as well that I don't find as appealing as like this afro I just love how high all of these sculpted almost sa if not actually sa profile keycaps are they look great but then as soon as you've got them almost like level with the edge of the the case I'm just not crazy about that look the keycaps do come in a number of colors and languages but I think that they're all the same profile so if you don't like something super sculpted like this if you want something really flat um you're probably not going to find that here and this probably isn't the keyboard for you at that point but yeah just stuff like the numpad like I love the zero and I just don't like how close the seven and the 4 are to the rest of the case it's a really minor thing same with the delete home insert all those guys I really wish that they were just a bit more pronounced but it's really not the end of the world just kind of weird and you may or may not be a fan of it one kind of neat piece of history is the original model f-122 key layout cost 295 dollars back in 1984. uh adjusted for inflation that's like over 800 bucks almost 900 today so this is a bit more uh premium and it comes at a higher price tag it's still nowhere close to if you had bought one of these and then adjusted for inflation which is actually pretty nice if you head to Model F keyboards.com and want to pick one of these up for yourself whether it's this guy the f-104 or one of the different layouts this one specifically is going to run you a bit of a higher price tag of four hundred dollars the other guys come in a little lower more like 350 I think the least expensive one is about 300 or 330 which is still a decent chunk of change for any one and I gotta say you are getting what you pay for this is an incredibly unique product and on top of that it's not plastic uh you're paying for die cast aluminum you're paying for a neat little LED screen you're paying for these unique buckling spring switches that you can't find all that easily you're paying for these unique keycaps that feel like you're typing on a keyboard from 25 30 years ago man it's really like rose tinted glasses like I don't know if everyone just remembers these fondly and if they were to type on it today they wouldn't actually like it all that much um I know that for myself to make this a lot more enjoyable I'd have to open it up go in and mod it a little bit just to become a little bit more modern I guess but overall it's pretty sick if you want to kind of break the bank a little bit and go extra you can get yours custom serialized it'll cost you though single digit is upwards of 200 and below that you're looking at a hundred and and then for just thirty dollars you get something standard I don't know what exactly they mean I'm guessing that by single digit all you're paying for is a lower number so that you could say oh I've got I've got number eight I've got number nine I've got number one you know so you're paying 200 bucks for basically bragging rights if that's worth it to you hey you know feel free get number three or four whatever one you want there's one other really cool add-on though that I actually highly recommend everyone and it's their repair kit one of my problems with a lot of Boutique keyboards these days is They Don't Really ever come with extras or at least not anything in terms of like screws or Hardware you might get extra feet you might get some extra gaskets um but that's typically about it so I would be totally okay with paying an extra these are like 20 to 50 bucks if it just comes with an extra set of screws this is a statement piece if you buy one of these you know if you want to daily drive it good for you I'm glad you like it however personally I would probably get this try to mod it a little bit there are a bunch of screws on the bottom here that you can take out and open it up and do whatever you want to it but I think I'd just leave it and I would put it on a wall somewhere so that people could walk up and try typing on a Model F because it's an experience that kind of sticks with you I remember as soon as I came here one of the first things I did was seek out the model Amber Model F that we have in stock and I tried typing on it because I needed to see what all the fuss was about I wasn't crazy about it then I'm still not crazy about it now four hundred dollars just for like materials and uniqueness alone I think that's a fair price if you want to take a look at another modern very unique but similarly priced keyboard you can check out the cyberboard video I did a couple years ago that thing is also sick and it sounds a little better but you know that's always subjectivewe got a little piece of History here we got the model f keyboard uh they used to make these back in the 80s and oh my God they've got a bit of a reputation uh along with the model M IBM made these keyboards for quite a while and they've been out of production for I think over 25 years now and one company oh so heavy one company is now recreating them it's using die cast aluminum so there's no CNC going on and frankly I believe it look at how big and thick this thing is I gotta weigh it I want to weigh it first thing it's over five pounds for sure this thing's awesome have you ever seen one this large before right like we've done a bunch of full-size boards this is nothing new in terms of that um oh yeah it's like 3.2 kilos that's what that's that's like 10 pounds no no no it's like eight pounds seven six it's over six yeah seven pounds so not quite 10 but oh man this thing is chunky can I have a tape measure yeah that'd be good uh let's measure this bad boy it's almost 19 18 and a half inches long it's pretty long and then we got just over seven like seven and a quarters wide and then how thick is it I need to know the thickness so up near the front here at the max height it's about an inch and a quarter thick it comes in a lot of colors we've got the red but it also comes in gray beige black silver gray light blue and dark blue I love what we've got the old school numblock caps lock scroll lock LEDs it's this really takes me back I don't know if I was old enough to actually type on one of the OG Model F or model M's in school I am old enough where we had like ibms and model twos or apple twos in school and they must use something similar that's right there's something incredibly distinct and interesting about buckling spring switches and you know what I'll be frank I don't like them there's something comforting about this sound but there's also something terrible about it you know like it's is this like high-pitched shrill kind of pingy noise sounds super rattly everywhere however I'm an uncultured Heathen um a lot of people absolutely love these things they grew up typing on them and they have got such crazy fond memories for me that's really not the case but there is something really satisfying about the feel at least up until now I'd only typed on really old model M's we've got a couple floating around the office from the model M video that we did years back if you want some more information definitely go check that out and I haven't enjoyed them too much and I think that's just because they're old while I don't like the way this sounds all that much I really actually do like the way it feels and I didn't on the older switches they just felt bad they just felt kind of gunked up and old I don't really know how to explain it but I wasn't a fan these though they feel nice and crisp the big difference between a traditional switch that we know of today and uh buckling spring that we've got here is that instead of the spring being on a Center Post it's kind of just hanging out and when you press down the spring buckles and then connects on the side of the switch it's a super cool design and you know it's got a really unique both feel and sound but I'm a bigger fan of kind of where we've come to rather than where we come from while the typing experience is great I can't get over the sound and how pingy it is it might be a little better if you were to open this thing and mod it a little bit maybe add some foam maybe add a couple layers of tape but alas we've got the classic Model M Model F experience right now I can't say if it's perfectly replicating the original but it does feel very similar and sound very similar to model M's that I've personally typed on uh we're gonna give it you know a classic typing test plug it in but not before a word from our sponsor dream arcades our recent LTX 2023 Expo was bananas like literally we had a claw machine filled with our banana for scale plushies LTT store or.com we partnered with dream arcades to design the perfect custom skinned LED lit machine that Drew the eyes of everyone in the building dream arcades focuses on providing Machines of all shapes and sizes that only include officially licensed games at reasonable prices customize the arcade machine of your dreams at the link below we got a really long cable actually unless I'm mistaken it's all coiled up here so I don't know the exact length oh yeah this is longer than six feet I'll tell you that much so this has got to be like an eight or nine foot cable which is great uh nice and sleeved most I don't think I've ever gotten a keyboard that's got a cable this long I know that I keep repeating that but it's like I don't know what to tell you every keyboard usually comes with like a six foot cable anyway this is cool we've got this like huge socket here for the USBC and it's actually way deep inside there but luckily it should be easy enough to plug in sure a wrist rest I think is going to have to be necessary for just about anyone else who wants to buy this keyboard all right we're going to try a buckling spring see if I'm any less accurate you know less speedy 106 96 you know it's not great it's not awful though it's okay for me man I get it I I hate it and love it at the same time uh I think that if you are in an office or if you have people around you this is like the worst thing to have and they're gonna hate you I I would like be more annoyed by this than I think like a set of actual clicky switches there's something about the high-pitched spring ping okay that kind of just Trails after every single key switch I think that honestly if you want to use this anywhere other than your own desk or your own office with no one around you really should try to figure out a way to foam it or tape it or something however that might really detract from just the uniqueness of this keyboard there's something incredibly special about this I still am not super crazy about the feeling it doesn't feel like a linear it doesn't feel like a tactile and that's because they're just it's so different actually let me put some feed on real quick and see if that makes me like this anymore you know I'll get just a little stick on feet these are great these are fine oh yeah with this you're definitely gonna need a wrist rest oh that's not going anywhere those are some nice stable feet let me do another man oh thanks Glenn uh that being said they actually come with a number of different options or at least hours did it's got these little smaller uh flat guys here and then it's got these little four square um guys right here oh this is actually really cool they've given you replacement switches as well so what we've got they're just Springs sitting on these platforms here this something you know we're both kind of learning today this is something I don't know a ton about because I as much as I kind of grew up with these I also didn't really yeah so it's just kind of hanging out in there that's so wild and then this guy goes down and as you push down it Kinks the spring and then it makes contact really cool design I don't like it all that much but I think it's a really cool design at the very least and anyone you know there's one thing that's got to be said is anyone who rocks one of these it's definitely a conversation starter one thing I forgot to mention is the color I personally wouldn't have chosen red but that being said I do like it it's a really nice metallic kind of red um they're calling it true red I believe which is a little weird uh what is a true red I don't know all of those other colors I mentioned before come in a paint or powder coat finish and at least on the website they all look pretty good as they look as good as this red does right here then they're probably all beautiful honestly this looks a lot like it does on the website so I don't think you have to worry about ordering A Certain Shade and getting something completely different that's that's probably not going to happen here as for the keycaps what they've done is they've tried to replicate old school keycaps as well they feel really bumpy and gritty on top on the sides it's actually nice and smooth but as soon as you get to the top there's that textured feeling and I actually kind of like it honestly I would really like to buy a set of keycaps that are basically like this except you know they fit across or box stem so that you're not stuck trying to jam them onto a buckling spring that you don't own the other really great thing about the keycaps is I just love this colorway it's really simple you've got like a beige and then a slightly less beige or gray kind of style and then you've got just a little hint of blue and it's a really nice blue that I think goes really well with this uh true red that they're calling my only other issue I guess with the kind of fit and finish of everything is I don't like how recessed all of the keycaps are um into the keyboard the row up here like the like row zero or Row one is actually pretty high up compared to everything else and this might feel a bit better if I had a wrist rest and I changed the typing angle a bit but I don't know there's something visually about it as well that I don't find as appealing as like this afro I just love how high all of these sculpted almost sa if not actually sa profile keycaps are they look great but then as soon as you've got them almost like level with the edge of the the case I'm just not crazy about that look the keycaps do come in a number of colors and languages but I think that they're all the same profile so if you don't like something super sculpted like this if you want something really flat um you're probably not going to find that here and this probably isn't the keyboard for you at that point but yeah just stuff like the numpad like I love the zero and I just don't like how close the seven and the 4 are to the rest of the case it's a really minor thing same with the delete home insert all those guys I really wish that they were just a bit more pronounced but it's really not the end of the world just kind of weird and you may or may not be a fan of it one kind of neat piece of history is the original model f-122 key layout cost 295 dollars back in 1984. uh adjusted for inflation that's like over 800 bucks almost 900 today so this is a bit more uh premium and it comes at a higher price tag it's still nowhere close to if you had bought one of these and then adjusted for inflation which is actually pretty nice if you head to Model F keyboards.com and want to pick one of these up for yourself whether it's this guy the f-104 or one of the different layouts this one specifically is going to run you a bit of a higher price tag of four hundred dollars the other guys come in a little lower more like 350 I think the least expensive one is about 300 or 330 which is still a decent chunk of change for any one and I gotta say you are getting what you pay for this is an incredibly unique product and on top of that it's not plastic uh you're paying for die cast aluminum you're paying for a neat little LED screen you're paying for these unique buckling spring switches that you can't find all that easily you're paying for these unique keycaps that feel like you're typing on a keyboard from 25 30 years ago man it's really like rose tinted glasses like I don't know if everyone just remembers these fondly and if they were to type on it today they wouldn't actually like it all that much um I know that for myself to make this a lot more enjoyable I'd have to open it up go in and mod it a little bit just to become a little bit more modern I guess but overall it's pretty sick if you want to kind of break the bank a little bit and go extra you can get yours custom serialized it'll cost you though single digit is upwards of 200 and below that you're looking at a hundred and and then for just thirty dollars you get something standard I don't know what exactly they mean I'm guessing that by single digit all you're paying for is a lower number so that you could say oh I've got I've got number eight I've got number nine I've got number one you know so you're paying 200 bucks for basically bragging rights if that's worth it to you hey you know feel free get number three or four whatever one you want there's one other really cool add-on though that I actually highly recommend everyone and it's their repair kit one of my problems with a lot of Boutique keyboards these days is They Don't Really ever come with extras or at least not anything in terms of like screws or Hardware you might get extra feet you might get some extra gaskets um but that's typically about it so I would be totally okay with paying an extra these are like 20 to 50 bucks if it just comes with an extra set of screws this is a statement piece if you buy one of these you know if you want to daily drive it good for you I'm glad you like it however personally I would probably get this try to mod it a little bit there are a bunch of screws on the bottom here that you can take out and open it up and do whatever you want to it but I think I'd just leave it and I would put it on a wall somewhere so that people could walk up and try typing on a Model F because it's an experience that kind of sticks with you I remember as soon as I came here one of the first things I did was seek out the model Amber Model F that we have in stock and I tried typing on it because I needed to see what all the fuss was about I wasn't crazy about it then I'm still not crazy about it now four hundred dollars just for like materials and uniqueness alone I think that's a fair price if you want to take a look at another modern very unique but similarly priced keyboard you can check out the cyberboard video I did a couple years ago that thing is also sick and it sounds a little better but you know that's always subjective\n"