Free to first taker. — Normally I’m not interested in helping people move their leftover junk. I’d just like someone to tell me EXACTLY what is a non-Y2K-compliant keyboard? Makes no sense to me.
Indiana warehouse is in need of repair and must be emptied. 2700+ palettes of non Y2K compliant PC keyboards remain.Free to interested party. Interested party must take whole lot as part of the agreement. Please leave contact information if seriously interested.
this is in or around greater indianapolis
found by Tom Henderson
how are they none y2k compliant?
Wish I had a couple big trucks…..if they work, you could sell them as historical artifacts for 10.00 bucks each and be on easy street.
Hey Mr. Fusion, is this in your neighborhood?? Wanna go partners??? 🙂
Maybe they use the full size din port, the old style. In which case, GOOD LUCK!
We just did an inventory and discovered a cache of 25 yr old factory automation devices. Companies will pay a huge dividend to buy an old Westinghouse circuit breaker rather than having to replace an entire panel to put a newer design part in.
I suspect there are huge numbers of these warehouses either forgotton or stored away for future collectors. Imagine pallets of VCRs “discovered” in 2012.
Might find the Ark of the Covenant in this warehouse.
Tempting… too bad I don’t have the trucks and storage… 🙁
#4 – Imagine pallets of VCRs “discovered” in 2012.
They’ll be hot… no DRM… 😉
Imagine the waste this country produces if there are this many keyboards sitting around in one place.
Recycling the cardboard, plastic and copper should be worth something. Now if only we could hire some cheap labor, ala illegal aliens, to do the work. Oh right, we can’t do that either.
Maybe we could give them to the poor to eat? Nope, I guess the resources used to make keyboards wasn’t used to grow food. Oh right, even the extra food we grow is left to rot because our government needs to control pricing.
Somehow I wonder if this was a government purchase order in the form of a business bailout due to lack of buying keyboards by the pre-2k paranoid?
The madness continues.
It would be interesting to find out how many homes in the U.S. don’t have at least a half dozen keyboards lying around the house somewhere….
(My favorite is still an old Packard Bell keyboard… I know this is frightening, and not normal, but I’ve timed myself on various keyboards, and this one’s the fastest for me.)
Okay. That was my cue. And curiosity has now gotten the best of me. John… Whatever happened to your “Dvorak keyboard” you invented that rearranged the keyboard letters into a more efficient pattern? Do you still use one and is anyone else? I still seem to have one little active synapse of memory of all this located in the darkest corner of my mind.
Ohhhhhhh.
RBG
Melt the junk down and make new ones.
The biggest waste is our dependence on oil!
old keyboards are great.. they weigh more than some present day loptops.. but they are almost indestructable..
#11 – That dark corner of your mind should have rememberd Dr. August Dvorak invented the Dvorak Keyboard.
2700 pallets??? WOW.
NON-y2k??
What, no Windows key?? Even then they had a PS2 connection..
If they are from a decent manufactour, they could make AT LEAST $10 per KB…
14. Holy crap. You got me good.
Do I push my foot in deeper if I ask if John ever promoted it?
RBG
This doesn’t help me. I am looking for a Y2K compliant keyboard on the cheap. Anyone know of any good deals?
Brian
October 21, 1906
Do I push my foot in deeper if I ask if John ever promoted it?–RBG
On the contrary, he has been known to use the phrase “Dvorak keyboard nutball.” 🙂
http://www.dvorak-keyboard.com
And when I gave it a whirl a couple of years ago, he suggested I stop before it affected my brain….
Who knows how this particular batch of keyboards were orphaned. But around projects where a dozen installations with say, 10,000 (or more, even lots more) machines are happening simultaneously, 2700 pallets of surplus, discontinued, obsolete or just plain old screwed up order parts aren’t all that surprising. Most of the time, it’s sloppy work, but not always. On large accounts it isn’t rare that maintenance agreements call for replacement parts to be available for several years. If you have say, 50 of these accounts, and you know you will replace parts on 5% of the machines sold and each account has say 50,000 machines, that’s 125,000 keyboards. You aren’t going to be able to cost effectively have more of the same keyboards made in small quantities half way through the contract period, so you make or buy more according to projected demands. At the end of the contracted period you find your keyboards performed better than expected. You have only used 75,000 of them. So now, what do you do with 50,000 keyboards? You destroy them if enough time has passed since the machine was made or sell them off at 50 cents each, or less, to the first buyer you can find.
I’m not sure this is still the case, but the UCC in the past, required making parts available on some classes of items for 10 years. This made warehousing warranty replacement computer parts a good business. As an individual consumer I wouldn’t hold your breath on this actually happening, but in theory it was suppose to work this way.
And, there’s the end of model scenario. These get warehoused along with the above junk. In no time at all, only having to deal with only 2700 pallets of parts would be a dream come true.
Obviously a non-Y2K-complient keyboard lacks a “2” or a “0” key. That way, every time you need to type the date you have to use a “1” and a “9” instead.
“My favorite is still an old Packard Bell keyboard….”
Oh god, I use a Packard Bell 5130 keyboard. I like it because the keys feel like real keys. You’re really pushing springs.
Joshua, Indy is about 180 miles south of us. First the wife won’t let me use the Caravan and second I had to make room in the garage for the lawn tractor. I don’t know where else I could put them.
I’ve grown quite attached to my Micro$oft Internet keyboard. I do agree that in a previous life my (mid ’90s) Packard Bell was an awesome keyboard; the computer it was attached to was crap. Before that, I really liked my (late ’80s) IBM. At the time I didn’t appreciate either as much as I should have.
Who needs a windows key, control escape does the same thing.
For the last time John didn’t invent the Dvorak keyboard. He was the one the wrote the symphonies. I’m particular found of #9. 😉
Yes, but did he ever test one? or even did he know someone who did? or maybe read about one? or ever own a key on a board? or eat a kiwi while bored?
RBG
I’ve tried dozens of keyboards but have yet to find one that has come close to the perfect one I found at Bestbuy for $12. I’ve been looking for this keyboard all over so that I could buy one for work, and at my second home. The company, Nexxtech doesn’t even make the same quality feel that this one uses. If anybody can find this model keyboard, I’ll buy it from you: KD-2201. This keyboard is perfection. Amazing for its price which goes to show you that being priced higher doesn’t make it better.
Maybe woot.com will snag this 😉
Yes, but did he ever test one?–RBG
John doesn’t have to test. When he is in the presence of a bad product or idea, its badness osmoses to the core of his being, at which time he knows that it is time to write a review.
Some speculate that this is a gift that he picked up whilst training with a master in China, but no one is sure. All we know is that at such times he becomes cranky.
My favorite is still an old Packard Bell keyboard….”??
Anyone remeber the PB laptops with the “J” key.
Pointng device at it’s oddest.
~chewy
Whats a wonder in my mind is the quality of KB and mice.
They are PROVEN products, that should give at Least 5 years of service, if NOT alot more.
Corps get some of the best, as the seller dont want to replace Anything.
I have a friend that has a 12+ year old IBM KB and it still works.
There is a site on the net, as they dont make the IBM KB anymore, that sells them upto $300 EACH(last I looked).