While I’m doing a bit of research about the mighty IBM Model M, perhaps the finest computer keyboard known to man, I noticed that a good deal of the sites I came across were in Japanese. Curious, I clicked on a link, and seemed to discover a Japanese fetish that is almost unknown in the West - computer keyboard collecting. Some sites have galleries of keyboards, detailed photos and drawings of key switches, and examination of minutae such as the shapes of letters on different versions of a keyboard. I also found quite a few Korean keyboard collecting sites, and even a few message boards.
Apparently a few Americans have taken advantage of the Asian keyboard collecting craze. Look on eBay, and you’ll see auctions for what seem like generic clicky mid-1990s-era keyboards, with details like “pink switches” or “blue sliders”, and outrageous price tags.
So, am I just imagining things, or are the Japanese and Koreans really avid collectors of American computer keyboards? Why? Could I pay for a trip to Japan with the backlit cop car keyboard I picked up on eBay for almost nothing a couple of years ago?