Nice Northgate!

As I've continued to learn about Minnesota's computer history and the history of the PC compatibles, I've learned that Minnesota seems to have had more than our fair share of successful PC clone builders.  Perhaps this was a lingering effect of Minnesota's strength in the early days of computing with Remington Rand and several of the the mainframe companies located in Minnesota (IBM and the Seven Dwarves).   I know of at least one individual who left an engineering job at a mainframe company in order to run a business building PC clones.

Many of these companies didn't have the market size to design their own boards, and so they would purchase and build systems using boards from many different vendors in Taiwan, but there were a few companies that either started early enough or had a large enough market share to do their own motherboard designs.  There were a couple of local companies that Minnesotans might recognize, ZEOS and Northgate Computer Systems.  Both advertised nationwide, and so had some broader recognition.  It seems that both struggled with financial trouble in the mid 90s, Northgate going through a bankruptcy and Zeos a buyout.

I've been interested in Northgate since I've had one of their keyboards for a while.  I was recently offered one by a collector in St. Paul who is looking to downsize.  The machine was untested, but I was able to look inside and ensure that there wasn't battery damage.

When I got the machine home I unplugged the mainboard and checked the Power Supply voltages.  Everything checked out, so I plugged it back in and it booted.  Of course the clock battery was dead, but I was able to set the BIOS parameters and boot off a floppy.  I was not able to figure out how to set the BIOS to recognize the hard drive but after some time I realized that the Specifications sticker on the back of the machine listed the Hard Drive's BIOS type on it.  When I entered that data in the BIOS the drive was recognized right away and the machine booted to DOS 6.22.  There was a Drive Overlay installed on the HDD to get it to recognize the additional space on the drive, it has a 450 MB drive that appears to be working just fine.

One of the next challenges with this machine was determining which Northgate system it was.  There is not a ton of information available online about these systems, but I found this list on Vogons.  By googling images, I was able to determine that this was a Northgate Slimline 320 (A 386 @ 20 MHz with a date of 1991 on it).  Knowing the model I was able to find these jumper settings and specifications.  It turns out that this unit has already been maxed out at 8MB RAM.

After this, I needed to decide what to do with the machine. It has a total of 3 16 Bit ISA expansion slots, and two 8 Bit slots on the back.  It had a modem which I removed, and replaced that with a generic sound card.  I have a not quite period correct, but significantly cheaper Sound Blaster Vibra 16 on order for this machine.  I also used the slightly newer 3COM 3C509B 10MB Ethernet card.

For storage, I tried directly connecting a Compact Flash card to the IDE Bus on this machine, but I was not able to get the BIOS to recognize the newer cards that I had (2GB and 4GB Sandisk and 1 other brand).  I wouldn't have minded if I could only get those cards working with 250 or 500 MB partition, but nothing was working so I installed a Lo-Tech XT-IDE card that I already had on hand from another build that I changed.  This boots the machine just fine.

Once I got DOS and some of my standard Games and Utilities moved over to the Compact Flash drive, I tried to install Windows 3.1 on this machine.  The machine has Integrated Graphics, and when that is enabled, a boot message indicates that the video card has 256K RAM onboard, which is enough RAM for 640x480 with 8 bit color.  However, I could not get this to work with Windows 3.1, either on the original Hard Drive or on the CF based storage.  Windows 3.1 locks up after the splash screen.  This makes me wonder if the reason this machine was taken out of service back in the day was because of a failing video controller on the motherboard.  Anyway using the board Jumpers I was able to disable the onboard VGA, and test several other 16-bit ISA Video Cards that I have.  I decided to use the most "period correct" VGA card I had.  This came from another 386 parts machine, and it also has only 256K RAM on it.  This works great in Windows 3.1, but of course has no acceleration, which is just fine for this machine.

So that about wraps it up for this machine.  I'm really happy to have a nice clean Northgate Computer in the collection that pairs nicely with the Northgate Keyboard that I've previously blogged about.

Please let me know if you have any memories of using Northgate Systems back in the day, or any tips about where to find additional technical information about the Slimline systems online?

Epson Equity LT - An XT Class Laptop - Flash Storage Solution

As readers of my blog will know, I have a bit of a soft spot for XT class machines with the Intel 8088 processor and similar processors.  One of my first retro computers was the Compaq Portable from 1983.  My friends at Free Geek know this about me, and so I'll occasionally get a machine from them that needs help.  I recently got a Toshiba 3100 machine from them that matched up well with some machines that I helped my friend John with, a couple of those Toshiba machines appeared in this video on his channel.

Anyway, the latest acquisition was an Epson Equity LT machine from 1988.  This make it a "later" XT machine, and instead of a gas plasma display, this has an early monochrome TFT display.

I tried quite hard to get a hard drive going in this machine.  After reading this article about the somewhat proprietary XT Laptop based Hard Drive interface, I even went as far as pulling the Hard Disk out of the Toshiba 3100 which has a bad screen and trying to transplant it into the Epson Equity LT, but I was not able to make this work.  The Epson does spin up the disk, so it worked better than the totally dead drive that I started with, but I was not able to get past a drive error.  I looked for information about a low-level formatting the drive, but that is either not possible or just not documented.

However, I have found what I think may be a better solution in the long run because it's a more generic solution that will apply to other XT class laptops or luggables as well.  I installed a GoTek floppy drive emulator with the Flash Floppy firmware into this machine.  Once the Hard Drive is removed, it's easy to move the original "A" drive over to the left side of the machine and use it as the "B" drive, installing the GoTek as the "A" drive.  Using another computer, I setup a new low-profile USB Flash Drive with 720K Disk Images on it.  One of these disk images has DOS 5.0 and another has DOS 3.3.  Most of the disk images on the floppy have games on them.  These are early DOS games that run in CGA graphics mode, like Alley Cat, Burger Time, Avoid the Noid, and titles like this.  I also created a boot message on the DOS 5 (default) boot drive that lists out which programs are stored on which floppy drive so you don't need a list of Floppy Numbers if you are using a basic GoTek like this one...

I'll include a link to the contents of the USB Flash Drive that I've uploaded to the Internet Archive.

A couple of other "longevity" upgrades included installing a new 3.6 Volt Lithium battery for the realtime clock and permanently removing the main battery that was installed in the machine.  This machine will just be used for demonstrations with power and it's one less thing to worry about.  As an added bonus with the battery, hard drive, and drive controller removed, the machine is alot lighter!

With the low profile USB drive installed, I plan to leave this machine setup and ready to go.  Now I just need to find an old laptop bag that will work for this monster!

A New Retro Computing Forum?

As readers of my bLog will know, I'm a big fan of the forums, and one of my favorite things about Retro Computing is the help that the members of the community offer to one another.

I was recently invited to join the "Tinker Different" forum which has just formed.  Several people I know and a couple of the YouTube personalities that I follow are on board with this project.  The first question in my mind when I heard about a new forum was, why another forum when there are already several to choose from.  The reasoning is explained in this video, which I found quite compelling.

I'm excited about the project and I look forward to contributing.  I hope to see you on Tinker Different!

SuperCard Pro - For Disk Imaging and Drive Repair

Disk Imaging

One of my interests in the Retro Computing hobby has been software preservation.  Trying to recover data off some of my wife's old floppy disks from her college days sent me down a path that's gotten me to the point where I own several different Macs and PCs from the 90s that I use as "Bridge Machines" to get data moved off old floppies onto modern hardware.

I'm also interested in a range of different systems and in having the ability to make and restore disks of any format.  I became aware of the Kryoflux disk imaging system when reading on Sonic Purity's blog on this article that I've referred to in several bLog articles before.  I didn't pursue the Kryoflux because this solution was expensive and because I didn't understand floppy disk technology well enough to be comfortable with flux imaging.   Thankfully this knowledge gap can be easily addressed by a great deal of information on the Web, and since then I have put more time into researching this topic.

One of the few benefits of the Pandemic has been that all the Vintage Computer Festivals have been online.  I learned about Jim Drew's SuperCard Pro from watching Craig Ernster's presentation. at VCF Midwest 2020.  This device is significantly less expensive than Kryoflux.  I didn't buy one right away, but when I got my first CP/M machine and didn't know how, or even if I'd be able to make floppy disk copies with the machine I put one on order.

I've paired the SuperCard Pro with the Asus laptop I use as my retro computer engineering PC and set up a couple of floppy drives, both a TEAC 5 1/4" DD drive as well as a newer 3 1/2" 1.44MB floppy drive.  I have stored these items together so it doesn't take long to have the disk imaging solution up and running on the bench...

So far, I have imaged and restored boot disks for my Compaq Portable (360K Floppy with DOS 3.3), and that worked well using a preset in the software.

Also I've imaged and restored boot disks for my Megatel Quark 100 CP/M computer, again, using a CP/M preset in the software.

Drive Repair

The Super Card Pro has also been helpful for drive diagnostics and repair.  It has a separate screen  for Drive / Disk Utilities.  This allows you to control the drive motor and also the track steppers that move the heads back and forth.  As you can see in some of Adrian Black's videos, having separate control over these two drive functions can help when lubricating and troubleshooting drives that haven't run for a long time.  Using these features of SCP, I've been able to troubleshoot these issues:

Drive Motor Speed Adjustment

Index Sensor Good / Bad

Track Stepper Motor Position

Track Zero Sensor Good / Bad (the Disk Media Test will fail if the Track Zero sensor is not working)

When comparing the functions of the Super Card Pro with IMD, I believe that IMD could also be used to diagnose all of these scenarios, but I find the SCP interface a bit easier to navigate.  One gap with SCP, I have not been able to adjust drive alignment with this tool.  I think the IMD program is the only (easy, non oscilloscope) way to do that.

My latest drive repair was getting a pair of Magnetic Peripherals Full Height DS/DD Drives back up and running for my IBM 5150.  Although these drives are now fully functional the alignment of these drives doesn't match up with the other 360K drives that I own.  Drive alignment is still outside of my comfort zone, but I'm hoping to learn more about that soon so I can get the various drives I own back lined up with one another.

My (Current) Favorite Retro Computers

It's been a while since I took a picture of my basement shelf where I store my most frequently used Retro / Vintage Computers.  The ones that are out and get used are my de facto "favorite" retro computers, and there's been a fair amount of change on the wire rack since my last update.  I thought I'd outline which computers are out, and why:

From Top to Bottom, Left to Right, on the file cabinet is the NeXTstation Mono Slab (1990).  This is one of my newer acquisitions from Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 2021.  I've still got alot to learn about this machine, and I also have some hardware on order for the machine so I'll be leaving it out for a while.

Next is an original Compaq Portable I (1983).  This was a "project" machine from Free Geek Twin Cities and my first XT class machine.  As one of my first Retro computer "rescues", I really enjoyed the process of getting it working again.  I also really like the design of it and I've used it for disk imaging and a few games that look really cool on the Green Screen. (it has a really long persistence phosphor.)

Next to that in the top right corner is the original non-backlit Macintosh Portable (1989).  Yes, the screen is on, this just shows how you need the lighting just right to see the screen.  I'm fortunate to have one of these that is working as many of them have problems.  Mine has a few dead lines on the screen, but I'll just keep enjoying this while I can. It's probably just a matter of time till the screen dies.  This computer is out on display because I enjoy the fact that it's so different than the laptops of today, a design idea that failed.

On the middle row at the left we have an un-enhanced Apple IIe computer (1983).  I was able to buy this computer monitor and disk drive as a set from a retired school teacher who had bought it new.  It needed quite a bit of repair but since completing those repairs it's been super reliable and super fun.  Total Replay anyone?

To the right of that I have a Power Macintosh 8600 / 200 (1997).  This is a "Bridge Machine" that I have blogged about before.  The main reason this machine is still on the wire rack is utility.  It's easy for me to move files off and on this machine from my modern machine and I have three SD cards setup for Mac OS 7.5.5, 8.6, and 9.1, so it can run the first version that is supported by the hardware all the way up to the last version.  The latest upgrades for this machine include a new Logic board and Processor Card (Still 200 MHz), additional RAM, (288 MB Total), and an ATI Rage 129 video card from 1999.  This machine is running better than it's ever run before.

On the bottom row at the left we have a Macintosh 512K (1984).  Like so many of these machines it started out life as an original Mac 128K but got upgraded fairly early in life.  It has been continuously upgraded to keep it going since then.  It's possible that the only original thing on it is the chassis but I feel very fortunate to have this machine and I enjoy playing some of the classic games and booting Mac OS 1.  It's an absolutely iconic design, and the only system in the display that boots and runs exclusively from floppies.

Last but not least on the wire rack in the bottom right corner is my latest PC Build.  This is a PCI based 486 DX2-80 (1995).  I built this with parts and pieces from a friend and other items I had around.  This is both a Retro Gaming rig with a Sound Blaster in it and a Disk Imaging machine with a 5 1/4" 360 K Floppy drive.  It works great so far, but I just built it, so I'll need to keep it out where I can power it up and keep using it to work out any kinks in the build.

Honorable mention, I also have a Tandy Model 102 (1983) slab top machine that I keep out on display in a different part of my office.  I really appreciate the unique design of this machine.  Another form factor that really didn't last into the modern computer era.  I've recently got a flash based storage solution for this machine, so I'm looking forward to digging in more on this machine, including loading some of the BASIC games onto the machine.

I have more machines but they are all stored in a much less convenient location.  Some of those machines are plugged in and can be run, too, but they get significantly less use than these ones that are out.

My Favorite Find at VCF Midwest 2021

My best find at VCF Midwest this year was a NeXTStation Mono Slab with matching Monitor, Keyboard and mouse.  I understand that out of the three different variations of the NeXT computers, this one is the least desirable, but that also makes it the most affordable, so I'm quite pleased with the purchase.  I've heard the claim that there may have only been about 50,000 NeXT computers made in total, so I feel fortunate to be the NeXT owner of this NeXT.

The previous owner has handed off some media to me, and he's also shipping manuals.  I'm pretty excited about having those original materials.  I've never been hands on with the NeXT before, but I remember reading about the company back in the day when Steve Jobs returned to Apple and Mac OS X was in its infancy, those were exciting times in computer history.

This particular computer was made in 1991 and has the base Motorola 68040 processor at 25 Mhz, maxed out at 128MB RAM, and has an upgraded HDD, a Connor 1 GB SCSI drive.  I'm a bit worried about the longevity of this SCSI drive, I think it's from 1995, but it isn't making bad sounds, and this systems has only a base install on it without much else, so I'm not in a big rush to get a SCSI2SD installed.

Macintosh IIsi Power Supply Woes

In the Fall of 2018 I was able to acquire a Macintosh IIsi machine from Facebook Marketplace.  This came out of a smokers home and I've been unable to get rid of its smell, so it's never been one of my favorites.  I've taken the machine completely apart, washed and retrobrighted the plastics and rinsed the circuit boards with Alcohol, this did help some with the smell.  Here's the current state of this machine...

When I purchased the machine, it wasn't running well so I recapped both the logic board and the power supply using the recapping guides from Recap-a-Mac.  I didn't do this well; I'll come back to some lessons learned about recapping.

What helped most with the smell was the tip I received that storing the machine with dryer sheets would help to absorb bad odors.  Since this was a machine that I didn't need to keep setup I bagged up the machine and monitor in a large garbage bag with a bunch of dryer sheets and stored it for 6 months.  This helped alot with the smell so I'll be doing this again as some odor remains.

I pulled this machine out a couple of weeks ago because it's the only machine in my collection that's capable of running Apple's Unix product,  A/UX.  I had been inspired by this video from Sean at Action Retro to try A/UX.  Unfortunately, my IIsi would not power on.  I started reading up about issues people were having with these machines and decided that it was most likely that I had not adequately cleaned the Power Supply circuit boards after the recap.  I tried alot more cleaning and I was able to get one cold start out of the old power supply.  After spending hours troubleshooting the old supply I decided to cut my losses and look for a replacement.  I'd been inspired by the idea of putting an off the shelf power supply inside of retro power supply enclosures by an attempted repair of my Tandy 1000 RL HD based on a post on Vogons.  I had saved information about a small, low cost Meanwell brand power supply that Jameco is reselling, this supply has the following specifications:

5 Volts at 5.5 Amps
+12 Volts at 2.5 Amps
-12 Volts at 0.5 Amps

The Sony Power supply inside the IIsi had the following ratings:

5 Volts at 6.8 Amps
+12 Volts at 0.8 Amps
-12 Volts at 0.3 Amps

So, the new supply is a bit short on current for 5 Volts, however if you look into the datasheet, if the other channels are running with less load, then the 5 Volt supply can peak at 7 Amps output.  I was hopeful that by taking the spinning Hard Disk out and replacing it with flash based storage I would lower the total power consumption of the computer to the point that this power supply would be adequate. (Spoiler alert, the power supply works just fine!)

Another important consideration is the physical size, I wanted the Power Supply to fit into the enclosure of the previous power supply so that the machine looks original from the outside.  Here's a picture of the finished product inside of the housing of the old supply...

One of the other challenges I faced with this project was the wiring on the old power supply.  I'd cut the old wiring harness off the power supply and tried re-soldering the old wires too the new power supply, but the old wiring is stranded wire that is very difficult to solder on.  Eventually I gave up and used Wago spring clamp type terminals to connect the old wiring harness to the new wires.

I connected the obvious wiring:

Red to 5 Volts
Black to Ground
Green to -12 Volts
Orange to +12 Volts

This left the Yellow and White wires unconnected.  Through trial and error, I discovered that the Yellow wire needs to be connected to +5 Volts in order for the IIsi logic board to power up.  I knew from reading ahead of time that I'd be sacrificing the soft power feature.  When this Mac is plugged into power, it is on all the time.  I modified the power pass through on the back so that the monitor can still be plugged in on the back, it is no longer switched, it is also on all the time.  I also modified a standard IEC power cord to put a switch inline on the cord (using a lamp cord switch), this allows me to power the computer off without unplugging it.

I know this is a bit of a hack, but it is one that is within my skill level.  I was willing to make the sacrifice in order to regain confidence in having this machine work when I turn it on.  Even with the compromise.  I have not modified the outside of the computer and so in my opinion this is an upgrade, although I realize that not everyone in the retro community will agree with me.

Another item that had failed since I last used this machine was the original Apple 40MB SCSI drive, so I've replaced that internal drive with a BlueSCSI.  This works well and speeds up the machine a fair bit.

So, after all this hassle, I was reminded that this machine has only 17 MB RAM.  Although Apple A/UX 2.0 might run just fine, 3.0 is probably not a good idea till I install a RAM upgrade.  The other challenge to getting A/UX on this machine is I'll need to find a way to simulate an Apple Brand SCSI CD-ROM drive.  I believe that I'll be able to use SCSI2SD to do this, but I have more research to do.  For now, I'm just glad to have the machine back in running order and I'll enjoy running Mac OS 7.0.1 on it.

Do you have any nostalgia around the Macintosh IIsi, or any experiences with Apple A/UX?  If so, send me an email, or drop a message in the comments below.  Thanks!

Cheap, Fast Bootable IDE Solutions for Retro PCs and Macintosh

I've been working on a series of articles about the things I love about Retro Computing.  The keyboards in general were good, and some were shockingly good.  CRTs appeal to me.  I really enjoy the entire Floppy Disk experience, as that's what we used when I first learned about computers in grade school.  The older Double Density floppies actually tend to be quite long-lived when stored properly, I have 20 and 30 year old disks that still work as expected!

For me, Hard Drives fall into the "not worth the worry" category.  Flash based storage solutions are faster and they make better sense from a preservation point of view because they will keep the machine operating for a longer period of time into the future.  So, one of my ongoing goals has been to figure out what the cheapest method of providing flash based storage to these old machines is.  I'll use this article to catalog a list of solutions that I've tried.  I'm going to cover, total cost per unit (regardless of capacity), cost per GB, Speed, and other considerations.

I've used a couple of different options for IDE machines.  First is using a CF card in place of an IDE drive inside of PCs. For tower and desktop machines, I like to keep the drive accessible from the back, so I prefer these simple passive circuit boards on a Slot cover bracket.  The circuit boards cost about $10, and the price of the CF card is based on the size, w/ 4GB cards costing about $15 each on FleaBay on April 2021 (for used, Industrial rated, name brand cards).  This give a total installed cost of $25.  Depending on the Compact Flash card itself, these can be capable of quite fast transfer rates, with the proper CF card, your computer should be limited by the speed of the IDE interface in the machine.  Here's a picture of my 486 build showing the CF card bracket on the back...

For IDE based Laptops, these CF to 2.5" 44 pin IDE drive adapters cost just a bit more on Amazon, these were about $18 delivered putting the total cost for a 4GB drive solution at about $33.  Again speed is dependent on the CF card itself,  I have one of these in a PowerBook 3400c and that's worked well.

Here's a cheaper solution that I will mention with a caveat.  There is an SD to IDE solution sold on Amazon, but I have tried this solution in several different computers and it's hit or miss.  Sometimes they work and in some computers they just don't work at all.  The price is $16 plus the cost of an SD card.  As you will see in the detail they are quite slow, limited to 25 MB/s transfer rates. The limited compatibility and speed is a disappointment because as CF cards become less available and more expensive this could become the cheapest option on the list.  It's already close to the least expensive at $26 in 2021.

I recently learned about another option from Sean at Action Retro.  He's been recommending and using some low-cost mSATA to IDE drive adapters and lost cost mSATA SSDs from China that work well, are brand new, and have significantly greater storage than the options I've mentioned here.  Here's a link to a drive enclosure, I can't vouch for this seller yet, but there are many like this on Fleabay.  Here's a link too the SSD drive itself.  Note that you have to be careful to match the keying, physical length, and the communication standards for the drive and enclosure, as the enclosure will not work with PCIe based cards.  After I figured this out I was able to upgrade my Pismo with this...

The drive is the white plastic enclosure on the right, not very visually interesting, but this solution cost about $31 for both parts of a 64 GB drive so this is far and away the lowest cost per Gigabyte of the storage options and still in the middle of the pack for overall cost and at the top in terms of speed.  This will be my go-to for "bridge" systems that will see use for disk imaging or backups.

In summary, the CF card solutions still seems like the best solution for now for the older machines given the relatively high speed and lower price but for newer machines the mSATA SSDs will be my go-to solution.  Thanks again to Sean at Action Retro for highlighting this option on his YouTube channel!

Do you have any experience with Flash based storage solutions for older Macintosh or PC based machines?  What low-cost solutions would you add to this list?  Comment below, or feel free to send me an email.

Things That I Love About Retro Computers - Keyboards

For me, one of the distinctively enjoyable aspects of Retro Computing is the Keyboards.  I know I'm not the only one, with everyone from Clint from LGR to Perifractic from Retro Recipes devoting entire YouTube episodes to the topic of vintage computer keyboards.

I've become a bit of a "keyboard snob" over the last few years, ever since I found out about Unicomp keyboards.  The story of Unicomp's spinoff from Lexmark / IBM has been covered well elsewhere so I will not retell it here, but I learned how to type on an IBM Selectric keyboard so the buckling spring type keyswitch feels both familiar and nostalgic to me.  I've been using these keyboards for years and I have several of them.  The main drawback I have with these is reliability,  Of the three boards I've had over the last 10 years only the most recent purchase is still working well.  I have used these as daily drivers, but I'm sure I'm nowhere near the cycle time limit on the keyswitches, the faults tend to be with the other electronics on the boards.

I've also made another keyboard discovery that was a bit of a surprise to me.  The Apple keyboards that I remember from the last 10-15 years have been pretty unremarkable, but if you go back far enough in time their keyboards were remarkable.  My "Daily Driver" keyboard is an Apple Keyboard model M0116 made between 1987-1990.  It has Alps Salmon switches, (which you can hear here) and it's really fantastic.   This keyboard is connected from ADB to USB using the Wombat from Big Mess O' Wires.

The downside too the M0116 keyboard is the keyboard layout.  The cursor keys are not in the inverted T layout we've come to expect and the Caps Lock and Control keys are swapped.  It's difficult to remap these swapped keys because this keyboard has the two-position Caps Lock key.  Also, there are no Function keys on the keyboard.

The Apple Extended Keyboard from the time, model M0115 is a more familiar layout with the same keyswitches, but prices on these boards have become quite high, so although I'm hoping to find one at some point, I'm not holding my breathe.  In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy the M0116 as my daily driver.

Another truly great retro computer keyboard is the Northgate Key Omni Key 101.  This is a keyboard that was made for a company here in Minnesota, Northgate Computer Systems.  I believe this example dates from 1991.  I bought one because I was looking for a keyboard that was AT / XT switchable. bit ot turns out this keyboard has absolutely fabulous key feel with Alps white switches.  I've written a bLog article about restoring this keyboard, and I've since put this keyboard into service with a simple PS/2 to USB adapter as my daily driver.  I'll be keeping a lookout for these keyboards now that I know there's a resource for parts, Northgate Keyboard Repair.

What are your favorite Retro Computer Keyboards, and why?  Do you use a retro keyboard as your daily driver?  Let me know in the comments below.