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Just spent 3 hours cleaning grime off a Model M I found at a thrift store last week
Pulled this IBM Model M from 1994 out of a bin for $8, but after soaking the keycaps and scrubbing the barrel plate with a toothbrush, I'm still finding crumbs that look like they're from the Clinton administration, has anyone else dealt with years of gunk under the keys?
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the_jason1mo ago
Oh man, the Clinton administration crumbs are the worst. I had a terminal board from 1992 that had what I'm pretty sure was a fossilized Cheeto dust pattern under the space bar. Here's something nobody brings up - check the plastic rivets on the backplate. All that soaking and scrubbing can actually make them brittle and snap off if you're not careful. Ask me how I found that out the hard way with a terminal Model M I was trying to restore. You might want to hit the whole assembly with compressed air BEFORE doing any wet cleaning, just to knock loose the really old stuff.
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norag551mo ago
Bolt, same thing happened to me with an old terminal board. I was scrubbing away at the keywell and heard that awful snap, one rivet just gave up the ghost. Now I always do a dry dusting pass first, even if it looks clean, because those little plastic bits are way more fragile than they seem.
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