Editing IBM Selectric Touch Keyboard (section)

==Design==
Whereas most buckling spring variants were based on the design of the [[IBM Enhanced Keyboard]], the M2 was a completely new design of buckling spring keyboard with very little in common with other Model M derivatives. Whereas other buckling spring keyboards consisted of a barrel housing with attached metal backplate housed inside a plastic case, the M2 used a simple two-piece snap-together casing. It dispensed with the metal backplate, and instead had the membrane sitting on a layer of insulating foil on the bottom half of the casing. The upper half of the casing had the barrel housings built into it. The result was a lightweight and compact keyboard. The controller was located directly under the lock light area of the keyboard, and was pressed onto the membrane using plastic clips, and interfaced with the membrane with contacts on its underside. In some ways, the controller is not unlike the style used in the later [[IBM Enhanced Keyboard#42H1292|42H1292-style Enhanced Keyboard]].

The keycaps were of a different, incompatible type to the regular Model M ones. They were lower profile, and had a shorter and narrower stem. They were still made of PBT and still used dye sublimation printing. Somewhat unusually, the large keys had stabilizer bars made out of plastic. The keyboard was attached to the computer with a flat, straight, non-removable cable with a PS/2 connector, except for terminal versions which used an RJ-45 connector. The terminal version is fully PS/2 compatible, and merely needs a passive adapter to map the RJ-45 pins to the appropriate PS/2 ones.

In addition to buckling spring keyboards, a number of rubber dome variants were made. Most common was a version with a large detachable plastic border around it, which was most commonly associated with computers that IBM sold to the educational sector. There were also ones without the border, but these are far less common.