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Scientology' s custom mechanical keyboard [1]

['Rob Beschizza']

Date: 2025-07-17  

A thread at r/MechanicalKeyboards marvels at the Incomm Scientology Keyboard, a custom-designed variant of the Cherry G80 made for the church to its requirements. The most obvious addition is an overlay card panel featuring 18 small protruding keys– "Quite possibly the most insane keyboard of all time," the poster remarks. I've seen similar oddities on other industrial and pedagogical custom boards, though Scientology certainly brings a unique magic to the spec sheet. Other features include a barcode-reading pen and a card reader–pricey upgrades in the 20th century.

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!

From the Scientology literature cited in the thread, you get a flavor of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's fascination with technology. Imagine being one of the church's actual IT people, trying to create systems that were functional while remaining compatible with all that managerial-religious stuffing. Reports suggest the Incomm system was ahead of its time at the outset, but antiquated soon enough and ultimately a liability.

None of the boards are currently turning up on my eBay saved search for scientology tech, an otherwise excellent source for disquieting gifts.

Here's that video about Scientology's computer setups:

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