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?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jason4d 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.

norag554d 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.