The first person to spill a drink on one of these things will realize why that form factor disappeared over the years... replacing a $15 keyboard is a lot cheaper :)

It's not "inspired by" the Model M, it IS the Model M. Brief history: the M was cooked up by IBM's typewriter/printer division in Lexington, KY; that's why it feels like an old Selectric. IBM spun that division off to create Lexmark. Lexmark made some M's with both their name and IBM's name, then sold it all to Unicomp so they could concentrate on gouging people on inkjet cartridges. :) Unicomp is also in Lexington, KY, and they ended up with all the inventory, spare parts, injection molds, design copyrights, some of the people, etc. The current Unicomp stuff all has a (c) 1984 date on the back just like the originals, but a manufacture date of 2008. There are some minor differences in size, keycaps, drainage, non-detachable cable, etc but the mechanics are the same.