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Good morning guys and welcome back to the ValorosoIT channel, the channel dedicated to vintage computers and electronics! Today I want to disassemble this keyboard here. It's a keyboard from an IBM PS/2 model 60 that I've had since I was little. Now I've attached it to this IBM PS/2 model 30. The reason I want to take it apart is to clean it because, actually, when you look at it, it's pretty disgusting. So it will definitely need to be cleaned! To clean it, the first thing I did was buy this socket wrench. It is a 5.5mm wrench but, compared to those that can be found with interchangeable sockets, it is a little thinner. In fact, as we will see later, behind the keyboard there are through holes, through which the socket wrench must be able to pass, which are quite narrow, about 10 mm. So a wrench with interchangeable sockets won't fit. I had to get this one here which, as you can see, has a slightly thinner profile. Once I open the keyboard, I will clean the top shell and bottom shell. However, as far as the keys are concerned, I intend to clean only the keycaps. I don't want to disassemble the entire keyboard assembly inside, because I had already done it with the IBM PS/1 keyboard: it was truly a disaster. With all these clothespins going back and forth. There was a reason why the keyboard didn't work, but this one works very well and so you just need to clean it. I'll clean the keycaps, top shell, bottom shell. As for the rest, maybe we'll give it a tip and see, well, what we find when we open it.
Unfortunately, the keyboard is in quite pitiful condition: it is really very dirty. Hear the sound the keys make.
Now this sounds because the TAB, but these here don't sound on the computer. It's a really beautiful sound, which is also why I like this keyboard a lot. The original computer on which it was installed was this one back here (IBM PS/2 model 60) which I have not yet put back into operation. Instead, the IBM PS/2 model 30 on which this keyboard is currently installed is this one with an Intel 80286 processor.
So let's start by turning off the computer in the correct order, then the monitor first... NO!
We therefore turn off the computer, in order to work safely, in the correct order: first turn off the computer and then turn off the monitor. As for the keyboard, now we'll turn it over, first of all I'll see if I can remove this label, because I'd really like to soak two plastic shells. The keyboard cable is initially disconnected via this connector. Then we should also clean the cable because it is also in a pitiful condition. The 5.5 mm key was used precisely for these four screws located behind the keyboard. Even a compass could easily fit into this one, because it doesn't have any kind of impediment. Instead, for these here, you really need a key with a thin profile to fit into these holes.
So I had already watched some videos on YouTube to understand what I would expect when unscrewing these keyboard screws. But as we know, it's always an unknown, right? When you see things done by others it always seems easier. However, when you do them yourself, you always find it difficult! And the first was precisely that of the key, because I had several sets with interchangeable sockets and instead not even one of them worked.
I was saying: damn, I'm lucky that I already have the 5.5mm wrench, but it wasn't good because I need this one with the thinner profile. Here they are, we unscrewed all four. Yes the two shells seem to be separating. Maybe the first screw... The first still needs to be unscrewed for a moment. Ok, the two shells have separated. So let's try turning the keyboard trying not to lose the screws. Everything is already starting to come out... eh... meant as dust, confetti! This is a coriander! It must be a confetti from when I was little, what a stuff! This? This one is alive, huh! Let's go and recover the four rear screws: 1, 2, 3 and 4, which we will obviously keep carefully. This is the internal keyboard assembly that appears to be held together by this other screw here.
Here it is, we removed this one too. Okay. So the internal assembly can now be detached.
As I was saying, I don't want to disassemble this piece into 1000 pieces, I just want to remove the caps of all the keys. Obviously, I took a photo of the keyboard first, so I can put them back in the correct positions.
This keyboard is from 1987. From August 10, 1987. Here we'll just give it a quick tip, on all these parts. We wash the keys and instead I would really like to soak two shells, this one here and the upper one. Ok, so I'll start by detaching all the various buttons. It's useless to even keep them in order, because then when I soak them they'll all get mixed up, so...
Ah, this one came out in full. Well, at least you can see what the mechanism looks like. Here there is this clip that is basically bent by pressing the button and therefore releases another small piece of lower plastic which then presses a membrane when you press the button. It's a mechanism that I think is called buckling spring.
I finally finished removing all the keycaps. It was a thankless job, but in the end I succeeded. Of these keys here I only removed the keycaps, as I mentioned before, instead of the slightly more lame keys, these ones here: space, plus others, enter, I actually had to remove the entire mechanism, like this one here for example, because it's not just a keycap, but rather it's the entire key. Highlights the lower spring.
Now let's take a bath. Ah, this is missing too. This is still missing here. This one is a little stiff. We try to fit it into the key lifter and pull so that the key comes out. Ok, without bending it, so as not to damage the clothespin.
Well, bath the keys, come on!
So, I use warm water, not hot. You probably hear me in the cave, but whatever. It's just a drop of degreaser, because otherwise we run the risk of erasing the writing. Now, to make sure I clean them all, I took another container in which I will put the keycaps, as I go through all of them, the clean ones. I really expected to take less time, but this is a very long thing. If for each key you have to stand behind and clean all the sides.
It was boring and repetitive work, but in the end I did it. These are all keys, passed individually. Now I throw away the old water, which you can see doesn't have a clear color at all, and reuse this basin to rinse all the keys.
So, the keys that come out, fortunately, cannot go down the drain because, prudently, I closed it. I've already made my mistakes in the past, now I don't make them anymore.
Here they are. We can go dry them.
Here they are, all the beautiful little keys that we are slowly going to dry individually. Then, if I see that they are still too wet, maybe you can also give them a blow out with compressed air, but in short, I don't think there's any need. We will only find out later, when we see whether they are dry or not. So, in this phase, you can also check that all the keys are clean, mainly these ones with slightly particular shapes and obviously they must also be nice and dry, otherwise, give them a nice blow and make them dry.
When I start cleaning the keyboards I'm always very happy because, in short, having a computer with a dirty keyboard is never the best, in fact it's quite disgusting to me, but when I finish I really want to never do this job again. It's really thankless, really thankless.
Oh, finished. Here they are, all keycaps clean and dry. Now let's deal with the plastic container of the keyboard. Then the top and bottom.
Before soaking it, I wanted to try to detach this label, because I see that it is already coming off, so the idea would be to detach it without breaking it. This is exactly what I hope for. So, after I've washed the bottom of the keyboard case, I'll reattach it at this point, as is. But now I don't have to cover it, I can soak everything, both this and the upper part.
Ok, these parts are also ready for bathing: the bottom and the top. This time I put them inside the shower, not in the sink because there is actually more space to work with. Here there are a couple of printed words: 14 July 1987, so evidently the keyboard case was made before the internal assembly.
I stick a bit of insulating tape on it, hoping that when we go to apply the degreaser it won't erase these writings. Here it says: 18 NI.
At this point, warm water, degreaser…
As if there were no tomorrow!
The parts that have small depressions, like these, I generally clean, even the crevices, with the toothbrush. Obviously, it's not the toothbrush I use...
Instead, I wipe the larger parts with the sponge. There's really a lot here... a lot of grease, a lot of dirt. In fact you can see under the sponge that it is starting to take on a very nice colour. This crack is cleaned well with the toothbrush.
So, I put a little degreaser on the keys because I'm afraid of discoloring the writing. Instead, here where there are no writings or in any case they are incorporated into logos, things like that, and they are well protected, I'm not afraid to put a little more degreaser.
Look, even this dirt here comes away. I thought they were the pieces of cables soldered on, loosened by age, but instead many are coming off. Even if I use the scratching part of the sponge, I obviously do it delicately so as not to ruin the keyboard. Here, it certainly works well with a toothbrush, because there are so many crevices and we're going to clean them well internally.
I'm not saying I want a new keyboard. However, the closer we get to that result, the better.
And now, after I have scrubbed well with the sponge, with the toothbrush, I can proceed, with a little warm water, to remove all the dirt that we removed before. If we see that there are parts that remain dirty, obviously we can always insist a little.
Generally I try to close the work quickly, also because if I let things dry naturally, maybe they take two days, then other commitments take over and you end up leaving this thing open for months or years. So, apart from passing it with the rag to dry it on both sides, I also use a little compressed air, in order to speed up the drying process.
In my opinion, this keyboard wasn't this clean even when it was new. Eh! Look at this stuff. Let's go and see if the writing remains under these stickers, this sticker of ours that I had put before.
Yes, this one has faded a little, but this one has remained good. The adhesive tape was probably too small and therefore failed to protect it 100%. Anyway, if I hadn't put it on, they would both have come off. For the inside of the keyboard, I dust it a little with this brush and then blow it with compressed air. I'm in the dirtiest place I have available anyway. So even if a little dust goes around, absolutely nothing happens.
The important thing is that dust does not get inside the keyboard, obviously. There will be 36 years of dust here, at least. At least 36 years of dust. If we saw assembly here in '87... So 1987 - 2024, we're at almost 37 years of dust. In some places, the dust is too stubborn. So, I have to help myself with a damp cloth. Then, of course, I'm going to blow the moisture away. I was hoping to do everything dry, however, there is a need, at least in these more visible points, to remove the dust in a slightly more intense manner.
I'd say it looks more than acceptable.
As for cleaning the cable, it's very simple: I'll use warm water, degreaser and a sponge. Then, however, for the connectors, even if in theory they could get wet, you just need to dry them and put a little flux in them, however, there is also this paper label, I would like to avoid ruining it even though it can't even be read anymore. So I'll keep the connectors away from water.
Warm water, degreaser and definitely a lot of elbow grease to clean this blessed cable. By the way, it's not just dirty. You can see that it is also a little shabby, not so much as plastic because the plastic itself is still good, but more due to the fact that it is a little stretched. That is, this spiral should be a little tighter, in my opinion.
So let's proceed with this cleaning too. You can already see the color of the water changing. Eventually it will be completely yellow, probably.
So I know, eh, I should use gloves to do these jobs, I realize that. So, honestly, if I did days and days, one after the other, using degreasers, I would use them. Also because your skin will dry out afterwards, so it is better to use gloves. But oh well, basically I don't have to do these jobs every day. As you well know, it's a hobby for me. Even though it happens once in a while that I touch the degreaser, I don't think I'll die from it.
Before downloading it, I wanted to show you the color of the water. I mean, really disgusting. Now let's give it a nice rinse.
As for the connector, if I dry the previous part here of the cable, I slide the label so that now I can focus on it a little bit as well. And clean it well with the toothbrush too. After that, we can also dry it.
And the same goes for the other side. Let's give it a nice wipe, because it was already clean enough, because this part was hidden inside the keyboard anyway.
Let's dry with the rag and a little compressed air and, if I haven't forgotten anything, just as I believe I haven't forgotten anything, then we can also proceed to reassemble everything.
All ok, time to put the keys back in their place. This will also be quite a thankless job, however, if you like doing puzzles, you probably wouldn't be bored. Rightly so, the keys are all turned backwards, probably due to bad luck, or because the heaviest part is the upper one, but I always tend to think that it's Murphy's law, so it's a bit of bad luck that you can see very well.
They are all really turned the other way. I sent myself the photo with the keyboard on the tablet, as it should look, so what I did before dismantling it. And so we hope to put all the buttons back in the right place. Ah, if you haven't done it yet, I already asked you before, subscribe to the channel and activate the notification bell. It really doesn't cost you anything, but for me it's very important and I'm very pleased. I remind you that I also have a blog, www.valoroso.it, where I publish articles, videos, everything you see on this channel and also on other channels, because you can find me on TikTok, on Instagram @ValorosoIT, on Facebook...
Ok, we did it, we shot them all. Let's start with the biggest keys, so: space bar. There is this piece of iron that fits under these two white guides. Then, the spring slides into the designated space on the button. Without bending it, eh, because sometimes you bend it, at that point you no longer hear the click and it doesn't work. Let's crush... and in fact it didn't go down well. Okay.
After that, the capital letters: this one, we put it here. Here too we must be careful not to bend the clip which must go in here. Okay.
Will the other capitalization be this one here? Capital letters over here.
Sending it. Here too there is this metal piece that must be inserted before putting the button in place. OK perfect.
This doesn't come back up, what could have happened? So, in my opinion the position is not wrong, as much as there must be something to lubricate. So, since the button is having a hard time returning up, I try to lubricate a little all the parts that may be involved, so here, here, which slide over each other and also the metal rod. Yes, he's gone. Well!
So, the first one should be the ESC key, here it is.
Then we have F1… this is still backwards.
No... as a method I think going and looking for a single button becomes a bit complicated. For the other keyboard I had tried to do the opposite: that is, to take the 3 and say, where does it go? As long as the three is fine, because you have: slash 1, 2 and 3. Then after a while the keys end and then it's comfortable.
The 2. The 6… Etc., etc. The further you get towards the end the fewer keys there are, so it's easier.
G, H, J. So here is the H, this is the L, the V, the B, the K... and this is the last one here.
Oh, we finished them all, I didn't miss a single one! Let's put the card back here at the bottom, it fits. The connector must come out in the appropriate window.
After that, the keyboard fits together from top to bottom. We also lower it inside these hooks, perfect, and screw it on.
The hooks fit underneath. Let's tighten the four screws again. Of course, centering the screw is always fun when you have to drop it into a hole, but the bottom of the hole is even smaller.
Oh, she came in. I'll start by pointing them, then later we'll try to tighten them better at the end. Ok, this one is in too.
Last final tightening of the four screws, without exaggerating, because otherwise we'll ruin everything and that's absolutely not the case. With all the effort we've put in! Or rather, I made the effort, you looked, right? I hope you're at least enjoying it.
This one had more to do.
Here we are, we have arrived. Okay, narrow one. Let's close everything well. Oh! What do you think? Does it look or not look new?
We can reattach the adhesive that already sucked before, so it definitely doesn't get any worse. In the meantime, we'll leave it like this, then if I can think of something to glue it better, but without ruining the plastic, without using superattak, I'll let you know. Every now and then I use glue, the one for paper, but come on, it's fine now. Also because we have seen that from time to time it may need to be disconnected for maintenance.
Here it is. What is certain is that making all this mess only to then discover that the keyboard is perhaps even broken is not the best, so now let's try it. We attach the connector back here and the other part of the connector behind the computer. Let's turn it on using the correct sequence, so first the monitor and then the computer, and I'll also let you hear the sound of the computer turning on which is beautiful.
So let's put the microphone here.
[ASMR]
Let's see if the enter key works... Yes! test the system…
Now, before we get into the actual keyboard test, it takes a while. So now I'll make you skip the previous steps and take you directly to the keyboard test.
Ok, here we go. It's the big moment, let's see. For now they are all going!
Even space.
Ok, and what are they? This one, this one... Here it is, everyone goes.
Unfortunately, there was a problem with the other cell phone I was recording with and so the battery died, right at the best moment. Okay, now with another cell phone you will see and hear differently, but there were only two or three little things left to see. Let's see if the three LEDs work.
This works. This works. And this goes!
So we tried all the keys on the keyboard and they work, we tried the three LEDs on the keyboard, they work. As you can see it came out very clean, almost looking like new. I would say I'm happy with the result. Well guys, come on, see you in the next video, take care and see you soon. Bye bye!