KBK update for Monday, 31st May

zrrion sent me photographs of an Alps Low-Profile Keyboard Switches sample pack that had been archived from eBay over a year ago in April 2020. With over a year having passed, the new owner of this extraordinary find (has never knowingly come forward, and the archived images have languished all this time. I did not feel particularly inclined to act on this information, frustrated by how poorly such discoveries continue to be treated: the keyboard community as a whole has to realise the need to take research and documentation seriously. zrrion himself has posted the archived photos to a forum topic, Mechanical Keyboard Switch assortment/samples [misc Alps], and unsurprisingly the significance of the discovery is lost on everyone. (What’s more sad is that this sample pack appears to be the same one that alps.tw photographed SKCMAF and SKCMAG from: he seems to have ignored everything else in it at the time.)

Left as it stands, the information in the photographs in the forum topic would remain largely inaccessible. While it’s true that search engines could conceivably archive the text within the images, that data still needs to be extracted into textual form and presented in usable manner so that it can be indexed using search engines and readily identified in search results. In general, information gathered during research needs to be presented in a variety of ways, to make it as accessible as possible. Photographs should be captioned, with a mention of anything in particular that the reader should be looking out for; without captions, it can be difficult to determine the purpose of some photographs, as the reader will not know which details to observe. Data should be tabulated where applicable; if nothing else, this helps people who cannot understand the written material to pick out useful data. I cannot read Japanese, but I can recognise and understand various switch characteristics when placed in table form. Always bear in mind that the people perusing the material may not speak the language, and may need every clue possible to help interpret the data. Anything that helps make the information easier to search for, or pick out in search results, goes a long way to help others track down the information when they need it.

As the community appears intent to nod, smile and then forget about this discovery, I was left with little choice but to go through and document it myself, which I have now done. In summary, we have:

• A newly-discovered KKC Series capacitive keyboards, seemingly rubber dome based in some form (possibly covered by one of the Japanese patents I turned up, but difficult to say at this stage, with no access to the sample switch to inspect its structure)
• KCP Series confirmed for the plate mount types, with four model numbers; curiously, KCP alternate action is just KCL alternate action (SKCLJB) with a replacement model number (SKCPJB)
• Three more switch model numbers for KCL Series
• KEW Series confirmed, with the model number just for the white plunger type
• KEU Series confirmed, with the model number just for the white plunger type
• KNB Series is one of the spring-over-membrane types; due to the terribly low level of documentation of these keyboards and the poor quality of the photographs of the sample pack, it’s not possible to be sure what KNB is (in relation to three different styles of these switches known thus far)

The force curve is given for each type, which at some point I may decide to recreate.

Now if only I could get my hands on more of the pre-1986 model numbers!

View within the updates for 2021

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