I know, I'm a tightwad... I also like old stuff :-) I have an old keyboard that I've used in the shack for years, on several computers. I keep using this old keyboard because I like it, it's small, and doesn't take up my space on the table. It's perfect for my application, and every other keyboard I have looks like a monster beside this thing. It's actually the removable keyboard from an old 1988 Compaq 286 portable computer. It uses some sort of goofy looking round connector that I found an adapter for many years ago, and the adapter uses a PS/2 style socket on the computer.
The lighting in this photo wasn't good but it's the only thing I had of it before cleaning... If you click the photo you will get the idea of the stains and such..it really looked bad under bright light. Over the years, this thing had become yellowed, dirtied from handling with dirty hands and fingers, etc. This is a non-smoking home, but it looked like it had been in one...yet it never had. I had tried Windex, a little bit of scrubbing bubbles, etc on it, but nothing seemed to work. I was afraid to get too serious on it with liquids. It just kept getting dirtier. My wife had one of those Mr. Clean magic erasers (you wet it, squeeze it out, and it does remarkable things!). I tested one corner of the keyboard and was amazed.
I grabbed a small screwdriver and popped all of the buttons off of the board, used a little handi-vac to clean behind those, dampened a magic eraser, and got busy. I did it while listening to a shortwave radio show and it took about 2 hours, off and on. Here's the finished keyboard. It looks and works like new. I use it on 2 dual core machines via free software called "Mouse Without Borders". You can see more about that HERE
Dave WB4IUY
