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Comment by timschmidt | Hacker News Reader

Unicomp bought the original molds from IBM via Lexmark and has been manufacturing them since: https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/category/UKBD

First I've heard of these folks.

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I had to throw away my first Unicomp because several springs "deformed" — this led to constant phantom typing and volume changes.

Interestingly, the keyboard arrived new with a "soft" F5 key — never using this key, I didn't think to return it (but should have, immediately... it was predictor of what would happen to other keys over the next year). As phantom keystrikes became more common, I slowly had to rip out keys/springs until the alphabet became inaccessible. The 2018 Unicomp (for Mac) is the ONLY keyboard I've ever thrown away before a decade of daily use =(

I have now settled on cherry-brown DasKeyboards, which don't have the ideal "feel" of Unicomp buckling springs... but also don't fail as quickly.

I still have a working Unicomp which I enjoy, but also have found that I like Gateron blues which are nearly as clicky.

My experience of gateron blue switches is that they lose their click within months, which is very disappointing.

Kailh box white switches on the other hand seem to click indefinitely and have a much more positive action.

Would never even consider the gaterons again. Really don't know how more people don't mention this issue. It's not even subtle.

I own a couple of unicomps not just because they are buckling spring, but also because they (at least used to) have the option of swapping the location of control and caps-lock like old Sun keyboards had, which I personally prefer.

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