Admiral Shark's Keyboards FAQ

Contents

Can I use your images?

All my original work on this website is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 terms, so yes you can, but for non-commercial use only and with attribution.

Why do you do what you do?

Because no one else is really doing something quite like what I'm doing - a centralised hub for collecting, researching and describing IBM and family keyboards and related technologies. There are plenty of talented, helpful people in the vintage computing and keyboard hobbies who are contributing on forums, wikis and Discord servers, all efforts that very much matter. But often, you have to do digging to find obscure and nuanced information above all the surface-level common knowledge. Obscure and nuanced is my speciality! I also love helping people, something that helps keep me motivated and answers the whole "why?" thing for me.

Can I donate to you?

If you wish! As of November 2024, Admiral Shark's Keyboards is on Ko-fi for those wishing to make a monetary donation. If you want to donate to support this website, what I do and me, it will be welcomed and very much appreciated! However, please note I do not offer any special treatment or perks for donations, and you do not have to donate to use this website (now or ever) or if you seek my assistance.

Why "Admiral Shark"?

It combines references to my favourite franchise (Star Trek) and my favourite creatures (sharks), with the "Admiral" specifically being a reference to my social media avatar of a shark in a Starfleet uniform bearing Fleet Admiral pips. "Shark" is also a shortening of my usual social media handle of "SharktasticA". As this website is essentially my main online presence and I largely developed this on my own, I thought it was fitting to include my social media name in the site's title.

What content are you most proud of?

A lot, to be fair. I think the Keyboard Part Number Database and Revealed: The Story of the Model M4 family article take the top spots, though. The Database is the largest offering on this website, being one of the most detailed repositories of per part number keyboard data available on the internet. It took a lot of effort to get started and continues to take a lot of time to keep updated and fact-checked, so I'm proud of the impact it has made as a reward for the said effort.

By contrast, the Model M4 article is the editorial piece I'm most fond of. Whilst I believe my standards of writing and presentation have improved since then (July 2021), it put Admiral Shark's Keyboards on a direction of meaningful researching and presenting new information. It is also partially responsible for any modern interest in IBM buckling sleeve keyboards. Besides those two, the following are other pages I hold in very high regard for various reasons:

What's to come?

I'm not 100% sure, to be honest. I write based on my current interests, and as those are subject to change, I can't accurately say what is to come. Of course, whatever I do will still be IBM/keyboards based, but I always keep a main focus in mind when writing content and then shift it once I'm happy (or bored) with the topic. That said, the one overarching theme is developing the wiki. The database is pretty stable at the moment, articles are flowing, and several mature topics exist that I'm happy with. So maturing the wiki is the main thing I want to do now. With deskthority's future presently in doubt, it's the least I can do.

What was your first IBM and family keyboard?

Excluding my first laptop - an IBM ThinkPad T21 with its excellent keyboard - from my teenagehood, the first IBM keyboard I bought with the intention of enjoying keyboards specifically was a 2005 IBM PS/2 Travel Keyboard with UltraNav (SK-8840) in January 2019. However, my first vintage IBM keyboard was a 1987 IBM 3197 Display Station 122-key Typewriter Keyboard that I bought in August 2019. This was my first Model M and I consider it a personal flagship of sorts because my enjoyment of it solidified my interest in the hobby. Whilst Admiral Shark's Keyboards is now over five-years old, I am a relative newcomer to this hobby compared to some of my peers, but my interest and understanding of IBM and its keyboards predates these purchases by several years. 2019 was just the year I finally decided to buy into it all.

Below are my first purchases for the rest of IBM and family:

What are your favourite keyboards?

The 529X type Model F is my overall favourite keyboard. Whilst its 5250 typewriter/XT style layout is not my favourite, I love how much character and 'desk presence' the keyboard has. I love its awesome acoustics (especially its thunderous spacebar), its ridiculous three-setting riser feet, and its sheer bezels.

I think the Model M4 & M4-1 family is a close second. I have spent a lot of time researching IBM buckling sleeve keyboards throughout this website's existence, which has made me particularly fond of these keyboards. At the very least, they are very underrated keyboards. At the very best, they are excellent quiet-tactile keyboards with classic IBM styling.

What does "SNKB" mean?

SHARKNET Keyboard. SHARKNET was the original codename for this website (and many of my school days' projects), so I used SNxx as my inventory system. There are several designations I use that at one point were present on this website when it had ThinkPad content, including SN (computers), SNA (docking stations), SND (displays/monitors) and SNM (mice). Anyway, for SNKB specifically, there's a unique identifying system in the designation that allows me to find a keyboard in my storage from just reading the characters on the box.

Let's take SNKB-F1983-XTT-83 as an example: