.png)
6 hours ago
2
Meet The INCOMM Scientology Keyboard made by Cherry for the Church of Scientology. Quite possibly the most insane keyboard of all time.
A little while ago, this keyboard popped up for sale in Germany and I knew immediately that I had to get it. It hit all the boxes that I look for in Cherry keyboards, undocumented, and had some crazy features that I love such as a built in calculator, ID card reader, prism case, etc… but I wasn’t able to find much on the name INCOMM. Luckily, I was able to secure it but didn’t look into it again until it came in and I came across a post titled “What ever happened to INCOMM?” On the r/Scientology subreddit. Little did I know the rabbit hole of information this would lead to.
INCOMM was a high ranking organization within the cult responsible for computerizing it and storing all of its information. As you could imagine, this was one of the most protected and secret organizations within the cult due to the risk of sensitive information being leaked out. If you want to learn more about INCOMM, check out this video which explains the origins and history of it. The cult poured money into it since it was so important, and they used some of the money towards a completely custom keyboard from Cherry. Thanks to a friend, they were able to verify that this is the origin story of the keyboard based on public Trademark application paperwork which ended up being a trove of documents and images of the people using the keyboard. See the full document here.
Some information about the board: It’s fully compatible with modern computers and actually still works! The calculator is built into the keyboard and is done through the numpad. The “Peg Keys” to the left of the numpad were used for application specific tasks that would be printed on a paper overlay that would go between the pegs. That’s the reason for the big divot, it’s not for a trackball, it’s for you to more easily swap those paper templates. Sadly, I don’t have any of those paper overlays but would love to see what it says and find one!! The keycaps are all Cherry doubleshots and the peg caps were specifically designed for this board and were only used on this. Inside, it uses Cherry MX Blacks for all the keys including the peg caps. This is the first and only known example of this board and I assume the rest have most likely been destroyed due to the sensitive nature of the cult and especially this organization. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask! Hope you enjoy!
