Get it? It’s a joke. There are springs under the keys… and I cleaned the keyboard. It’s supposed to be funny.

Anyway, after I transferred this image to my PC and looked at it, I thought, “Why did I bother cleaning it? It looks pretty good as it is!” Certainly, at a glance, it doesn’t look bad at all. But if you look closely, especially between keys, you will notice a considerable amount of grime.

I find cleaning vintage computers gives them a breath of new life. To me, it is one of the most satisfying things about this hobby. To get started, I unscrewed the case and popped off the keys, and let them soak a bit in a warm water plus orange solvent solution.

After about five minutes, I rubbed each one clean with a rag. Then I took a pretentiously artsy photograph of the keys drying, because I am so clever. Well, at least the keys are nice and clean.

While the keys were drying, I did the thankless job of cleaning the keyboard’s board itself. It’s much less noticeable and much greater a pain to clean than the keys, but I had it open and accessible to get clean, so I went ahead and cleaned it. Snap the dried keys back on and then put the case back together.

And finally, set the keyboard back up on the desk, now ready for use! Very satisfying.