Monday, April 10, 2017

...And Now The Model M

     Decided to give the nice, big Unicomp keyboard (an IBM Model M in all but name -- and maybe that as well, since the bottom is still marked "MODEL M" from the mold) a try, after a disassembly and cleaning so thorough that I wasn't entirely sure it would still work after I got it back together.

     It does.  I'm using it.

     There's a little bit of desk-cleaning yet to do, and I don't have the computer back in the usual location, but when it's done (or sufficiently cleared -- an open workspace is a process, not an end-state), I'll take a picture to share.  I'm unlikely to ever achieve 5S levels of orderliness but it's better to make the attempt than to wallow in bad habits.

6 comments:

Comrade Misfit said...

I have a Unicomp Model M. I really like it. It was money well spent.

Ken said...

Interesting. If it were available as a wireless, I'd be even more interested.

Carteach said...

Ye Olde M.... a worthy beast. Worth every penny if you can find one.

Roberta X said...

Carteach: you can. Unicomp still makes 'em.

pigpen51 said...

I have worked using 5S programs before. They are perfectly sound management tools. However, the two places that I worked for both didn't really want to use 5S, they only did it to satisfy corporate. So it was mostly a joke to the workers. Instead of being a lean way of doing business, based upon continual improvement, for them, it was mostly a matter of making sure that you swept the floors, and only had the actual tool on hand that you were using at the time. I came up with many different slogans for the 5S words that were appropriate, but stupid supervisors securing senior status is always a good one. Most of them were not as polite, and included more off color words. Toyota was the originator of the idea, I believe, and by getting everyone to buy into it, from the top to the bottom, it works very well.

Roberta X said...

5S would be just about impossible in most of my workplace and extremely difficult in my department. Still, it's a nice goal even if you never get there.