Jake! Wow, very cool to hear from you and catch up. We had theorized about you and I think someone hit up FB at one point noting that you had discovered motorcycles, cars and women. For the record I always enjoyed seeing you on the list. Mostly because I could identify with your situation. Back around the time the M100 was actively used (1987) I was 12 years old and discovered BBSes. There weren't many young people on them in those days and I annoyed the crap of out a lot of people but also made some good friends. (Tiny bit weirded out that guys my age hung out with 12-13yr old kid now.. But hey, different times.) Also, I never owned a M100 back then, couldn't afford it. I bought my first one off eBay when I was about the age you are now just because it was something I always wanted and never got. Now I carry it with me almost every day.
Speaking of, check out the list and what you missed over the last 7 years! It's incredible. I often wish that Rick Hanson was still around because we have finally realized all of the things he wanted out of his M100, where he could sit in his truck and punch out work orders, wirelessly transmit them to his home PC or the cloud. With the proliferation of hobby microcontrollers and some pretty awesome collaborative development environments, easy PCB manufacturing and sharing things have really taken off. In regards to your keyboard woes, I don't know of any physical difference in the switches used for the keys from 1983 to 1984. The boards did have different revisions, but I think they mechanical keys stayed the same. I do know they are subject to breaking down over time from either lack of use or from having things stacked on them and being compressed for a while. May want to look at the switches themselves for why it's mushy. Not much to the KB and the switches tend to be pretty robust so I'd def take a look at the traces on the one with the bad keys. Keep plugging on the job front, you aren't wrong that cars and computers are the same but the real value comes from having a troubleshooting mind. That's a rare talent and if you've got one it's easy to find jobs where people pay you for what you know instead of what you do. Brian On Fri, Nov 26, 2021 at 11:01 PM Jake Bickhard <jakebickh...@outlook.com> wrote: > Hi all. > > I think it's been about 7 years since I fell off the face of the earth > here and after recently digging my M100 out of my basement and giving it > some R&R in an attempt to shoehorn it into some aspect of my modern > workflow I felt a twinge of nostalgia and was amazed at how active this > community still is. > > But some thanks are in order. To Ken and Steve especially, but also to the > whole group here who put up with my 15 year old socially inept homeschooled > self making a general ass of myself 10 years ago. Your collective kindness > and patience (so much patience) is in no small part responsible for my > current life and career here in Wichita. > > I believe I fell off of the vintage computer hobby after my junior year of > highschool (the first year I'd gone to a public school after being raised > homeschooled) and my mental health took a nosedive. Graduated by the skin > of my teeth and floundered through a year of state university before > dropping out to drift aimlessly for a while working as a car mechanic. Cars > became my main hobby at that point, and I quickly realized the entire > industry was a septic tank of horrible people top-to-bottom and quickly got > out to get back to what I was good at: computer things. Ended up at a small > datacenter run by one dude with the task of keeping the lights turned on > while the company could sell off its assets (as many as possible) and cease > operations. It was a crash course in Linux server admin, IP telephony, > wireless multipoint networking, and managing multiple buildings entire IT > infrastructure here in downtown Wichita. Eventually it closed and I've > worked at a few MSPs here in Wichita honing my people-skills and developing > my knowledge of Microsoft-based infrastructure, cloud tech, etc. It's been > fun. > > In the interim I moved out, got married, lived barely paycheck-to-paycheck > in a trap house in the rough part of town, got a small fixer-upper in > the... less rough part of town? No kids; a few pets. Simple stuff. Kept the > automotive thing as a hobby and realized that a good mechanic and a good IT > guy have very similar skillsets, just different occupational hazards. A > couple years ago I started a vlog-style YouTube channel at the urging of > some friends given my hilariously poor luck with cars and the potential > entertainment value. That has since been monetized to an extent that > allowed my hobby (with an extreme amount of work; two 10-20 minute videos > per week for the last year and a half) to more or less pay for itself and > afforded me opportunities I could never do otherwise (there are some 4-6 > other automotive youtubers here in Wichita with substantial followings; I'm > the smallest). > > To keep this somewhat on topic: I tried searching the archive but couldn't > find keywords with the right amount of specificity; did the keyboard switch > on the M100 change at any point? The keyboard on my 1983 model is > significantly different than my 1984 model. The 1983s keyboard sadly has > multiple bad keys (I'm assuming the broken trace issue I've seen mentioned > in a few threads during my research) so I swapped over the keyboard from my > '84 model and it feels... mushy. I did notice they have different numbers > on the PCB and the newer model PCB is a completely different color than the > older model PCB is. My thought is perhaps someone put some damping o-rings > or rubber bands around the keys but I haven't been able to find my keycap > removal tool to verify. > > Thanks, > Jake >
