According to their company history, Unicomp is classified as a small business in Lexington, Kentucky. Around 1996, Unicomp purchased the license, the tools and the machines to make buckling spring keyboards from IBM/Lexmark. From the sound of it, they got the assembly line and the rights to make these famous keyboards. I suppose they probably retained most of the people as well.
Since IBM no longer make Model Ms anymore, there is no USB version. The only way to get those to work on a PC without PS/2 ports is to use a PS/2 to USB adapter. Because buckling spring mechanism uses more electric current, thus a converter that only provide little bit of power will not work. Most rubber dome keyboards don't require the extra juice, so many converter makers didn't have a good business reason to provide more power than necessary. So, choose carefully! Anyhow, Unicomp does make them with USB interface for modern PCs and Macs. And, if someone wants to go old school, they do sell the PS/2 version. I don't know if they have boards with the good-ol' AT interface tho.... Ultra Classic line is Unicomp's best offering right now. I have heard that they are working on a ten-key-less (TKL) version, but I don't think it's on the market as of yet.
So, I am hoping to get one of those classics and test them out for the Mechanical KB tryout. I really want another chance to get to know this classic design and see how it compares to modern Cherry MX switches and Matias ones as well. Stay tuned!
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