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A QUALITY Japanese Keyboard


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I'm looking for a high quality Japanese keyboard,. built to last 10 lifetimes.  Like back in the good old days of the Model M when keyboards were keyboards and went through the dishwasher (no, not your waifu) when they needed to be cleaned.  

Unicomp makes/used to make a Japanese Model M, but their quality has fallen so far from the real thing their descriptions border on fraud.  With Filco being a Japanese company you would think they of all people would make a quality Japanese keyboard that has some decent switches, but I can't seem to find one.  I'm looking to learn to type Japanese on a high quality JIS 109-key keyboard.  Filco, Ducky, I'm not too picky on the brand as long as it uses a high quality mechanical switch.  I'm open to paying for shipping from Japan too.  A detachable cord would be the tits.

I'm not interested in one of those Happy Hacking keyboards.  Despite having the JIS layout, their halfway rubber dome switches just don't do it for me.  If there is a JIS keyboard with Alps switches out there, I could live with that.

Any ideas?  

 

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If you don't mind paying a tooooooooon, IBM made a reasonably high quality Japanese keyboard in the 80s that wasn't up to the standard of the Model M, but still used some kind of mechanical switch.  I'm pretty sure it started with an 88, maybe 8808?  Something like that.  I saw a used one sell for over 40,000 JPY on YJA a few years ago and that's way too rich for my blood without a Windows key, plus shipping and proxy fees.    I have one made by Sun Micromicrosystems that is considerably higher quality than most keyboards today, semi-tactile like the Happy Hacking keyboards, although it's a standard US keyboard with hiragana on the keys and not a real JIS layout.  When Oracle bought Sun they stopped making them so they're pretty hard to find too.

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For the hell of it I decided to see if Amazon JP changed their minds on shipping these out of Japan, and to my utter shock and amazement it appears they will ship Filco's keyboards to the US for ~3300 yen!  The only thing I don't quite understand is that all of Filco's keyboards with high quality switches are 108 keys. I thought modern Japanese keyboards were supposed to be 109?  Filco's lower quality keyboards all have 109.  Can anyone tell which key is missing from the pictures?  (edit: Upon zooming in on some pictures there is no Windows key on the right side of the keyboard.  No functionality is lost.) Here are the keyboards on Amazon:

Brown Cherry switches:

http://www.amazon.co.jp/FILCO-108%E3%83%95%E3%83%AB%E3%82%AD%E3%83%BC%E8%8C%B6%E8%BB%B8%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E%E9%85%8D%E5%88%97-%E7%8B%ACCherry%E8%8C%B6%E8%BB%B8%E6%8E%A1%E7%94%A8%E3%83%A1%E3%82%AB%E3%83%8B%E3%82%AB%E3%83%AB%E3%82%AD%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9C%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89-FKBN108M-JB2/dp/B0053U3YX2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462366272&sr=8-1

Blue Cherry switches:

http://www.amazon.co.jp/FILCO-108%E3%83%95%E3%83%AB%E3%82%AD%E3%83%BC%E9%9D%92%E8%BB%B8%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E%E9%85%8D%E5%88%97-%E7%8B%ACCherry%E9%9D%92%E8%BB%B8%E6%8E%A1%E7%94%A8%E3%83%A1%E3%82%AB%E3%83%8B%E3%82%AB%E3%83%AB%E3%82%AD%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9C%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89-FKBN108MC-JB2/dp/B005AM8ZBE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1462366272&sr=8-2

Black Cherry switches:

http://www.amazon.co.jp/FILCO-108%E3%83%95%E3%83%AB%E3%82%AD%E3%83%BC%E9%BB%92%E8%BB%B8%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E%E9%85%8D%E5%88%97-%E7%8B%ACCherry%E9%BB%92%E8%BB%B8%E6%8E%A1%E7%94%A8%E3%83%A1%E3%82%AB%E3%83%8B%E3%82%AB%E3%83%AB%E3%82%AD%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9C%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89-FKBN108ML-JB2/dp/B0053U3YQE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1462367039&sr=8-2

Red Cherry Switches:

http://www.amazon.co.jp/FILCO-N%E3%82%AD%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AD%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%82%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%90%E3%83%BC%E5%AF%BE%E5%BF%9C-%E7%8B%ACCherryMX%E8%B5%A4%E8%BB%B8%E3%82%B9%E3%82%A4%E3%83%83%E3%83%81-FKBN108MRL-JB2/dp/B007VAFXL8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462367108&sr=8-1

If the different color switches are greek to you, this will give you a brief explanation of the difference between the switches. 

http://www.keyboardco.com/blog/index.php/2012/12/an-introduction-to-cherry-mx-mechanical-switches/

 

Edited by EcchiOujisama
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yep the old good ibm M, I call them the "clickity" keyboards xD and those filco keyboard look pretty ok though there is no way to tell if a keyboard is actually good or not without typing on it.

btw it seems to be a real pain to get used to of typing in a japenese keyboard, I mean for example you need to type PYPE to write せんせい... it is really confusing, is it actually worth the trouble? and how much faster can you type?
The only downside I've experienced so far with a normal keyboard is with the switching between hiragana, katakana and normal alphabet.

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As 90% of what determines the quality of a keyboard is the switch used for they keys, you actually can say with relative certainty how good a keyboard is by knowing what switch is used for the keys.  It's like saying you can't know how good the Sanwa OBSF-30 buttons are in a Mad Catz joystick if you've only used them on a candy cabinet or a Hori Real Arcade Pro.  Cherry switches are likewise the same no matter who makes he final keyboard.  I admit the blue switches aren't up to the standard of the 1980s IBM buckling spring switches, but nothing is and they're still better than Unicomp's pathetic imitation.  Any decent computer store will stock keyboards with various Cherry switches and let you play with them to see how much better they are than the cheap rubber dome POS you got with your computer.

I think trying to type in Japanese with a US keyboard is more of a pain than learning where the keys are supposed to be.  That's why the Japanese made typing games like those Eva games on Dreamcast and Typing of the Dead.  My main concern is whether I'm better off learning to type in Japanese properly with a Dvorak or QWERTY layout.     

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