Does your keyboard look like this?



If so, you might want to unplug it and throw it in…



If all goes well, you’ll end up with…

I’m not nuts, a colleague forwarded this story to me recently – and unlike a number of these situations, I actually have first-hand experience with it. In 1989 a Coca-Cola was inadvertently spilled into my AT-style keyboard. Since it was ruined anyway, I thought, “what the heck, I’ll toss it in the dishwasher to see what happens.” In my experience, if you split the keyboard open, insert into dishwasher (away from heating elements – if your model has them) with no soap, a quick 10 minute cycle was sufficient to get the gunk out and a couple of days of drying allowed the keyboard to be reassembled and then used. Good as new.

During my PC days, I would do this frequently. Now in my Mac days, I haven’t yet tried it. My desktop keyboard is NASTY so perhaps it’s time for an experiment…I’ll take pictures (and will get a replacement just in case…)