I love a good re-skin or fresh coat of paint, and I can be a sucker for a little nostalgia bait just like anyone else. But let’s not mince words here: there’s no way 8BitDo’s upcoming $100 M Edition of its Retro Mechanical Keyboard will stand up to the legendary IBM Model M keyboards of yore — not in sound, typing feel, or relative chonkiness.
It’s even got the same big, customizable A and B macro buttons as the NES, Famicom, and Commodore 64 versions — the joyously oversized buttons my former colleague Jon Porter said “stole the show” from the keyboard when he featured them in our ongoing Button of the Month series. What made the original Model M keyboards so special was their unique buckling spring mechanism, which made a loud and chunky sound with every keypress that was oh-so-pleasing to the ear .