Keyboard Builders' Digest / Editorial
Behind the Scenes of Issue 101
Anniversary giveaway, mini meetup, in the mailbox, new vendors and discounts.
Published November 4, 2022
Hey y'all,
Welcome back for another edition of Keyboard Builders' Digest (this time Issue #101), a weekly roundup of this DIY keyboard focused newsletter and blog from Tamas Dovenyi – that's me. If you are new to this, you can read how this started out and what this is all about nowadays. If you like what you see, you can subscribe to the newsletter (free) and donate some bucks to keep this otherwise free and ad-free project alive.
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Radio silence
I simply can't get back to all of you, sorry about that.
I know I should have reacted to all the reddit comments after issue #100, but I can't even answer all the inquiries arriving by email.
If I missed something important, feel free to resend your message in a week.
In the mailbox
I received a package from Seeed Studio as a pre-Thanksgiving surprise.
Ladies, you are the best! My cool XIAO pillow collection is growing. :D Thanks Amanda & Carmen!
In addition, I purchased a pretty rare keyboard/computer this week. Actually, a computer built into a keyboard. Honestly, I know nothing about it and couldn't dig up anything online either. Probably the lack of any usable info made me to buy it. It's from 1992 I guess, I hope it's at least mechanical. ;) I'll post some photos when I pick it up later today.
The fun thing was the payment part though. When the seller sent me the details of his bank account, it turned out his bank is called "KBD Bank". (OK, on the second read it was KDB but still weird…) I had no idea such a bank existed in my country. I had to look it up and it's a South Korean bank with a single brick and mortar branch in a single city in my home country – but they indeed exist. :D
Mini meetup
Wednesday. Meeting with David Kincses. David is a long-time supporter of kbd.news (say thanks to him and all the other recurring donors).
You can't see his name in the donor list though: As it turned out I've been using his old and long-forgotten BMC handle for more than a year…
Despite we both live in the same city, it took months to arrange this meeting. And no photo this time. I forgot about that but I'm looking like a caveman anyway. I haven't shaved in more than a month.
Anyway, we had a nice chat as always but had to leave the university at 8PM… The main result of the meeting: David convinced me that a giveaway to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of kbd.news is a MUST! :D
Giveaway
So kbd.news will turn 2 later this month, on Nov 20 to be exact.
Last year I decided that I'll never organize another giveaway again. It's stressful, takes a lot of time, and unless you are a manufacturer or vendor – which I'm not –, it doesn't really make much sense. Definitely not if you run a free blog and a free newsletter, where additional subscribers actually cost you extra money. :D
Obviously, the previous big giveaway closed on Nov 20 last year, but I had to sort things out even in January. So I told David that I'll think about this…
One day later, Thursday night. Holy moly. I exported the 400+ shop contacts from my vendor database, launched a spam attack at 10PM, and in an hour there were 28 prizes offered by shop owners. In 1.5 hours there were 38 prizes already. Then I went to sleep.
Today, by early in the morning: another 15 vendors have joined the giveaway (58 prizes…).
As of publishing this post, there are 66 prizes in the pool offered by 33 shops.
I'm crazy. How will I manage this while maintaining the site and working on two other long-time (keyboard related) side-projects? :D
Anyway, say thanks to these great vendors for sponsoring the event and offering cool stuff for you to win:
American Haptics, Ascend Keyboards, Ashkeebs, bespoke.keys, Candykeys, Centorek, Custom Keyboard Co., Dangkeebs, Deskpads.gallery, ergomech.store, Keeb.supply, KEEBD, KHOR, Kinetic Labs, Kirball's Keys, Kiwikeebs, Lumekeebs, Matias.ca, Mechbox, Mekibo, Milktooth, Mintlodica, Momokai, Onyx Cables, PantheonKeys, Pikatea.com, pkkeyboards, Strumace, Splitkb, Treasuretypes, Turtlekeebs, Unicorn Cables, Upgradekeyboards
The giveaway page is still WIP and it's mostly for sponsors at the moment. Participation rules may change in the next few days, but you can check it out anyway:
Vendor database
- A major update at Khor, and Marco offered you a 5% discount (coupon code: KBDNEWS).
- Keebhut offered you a 5% discount.
- KeebMaker added.
Meetup database
Some galleries added.
As always, this meetup database is both a calendar and an archive so feel free to send me upcoming events or even ones from the recent past to make this collection as comprehensive as possible.
Donors
- A new generous donation from Keebstuff Kabemanufactur. Thanks Oliver!
Maintaining kbd.news takes a lot of time. If you'd like and can afford to help, here is the donation form.
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That's all for today. Thanks for reading.
Feel free to comment in this issue's r/mk thread, and as always: keep learning and building.
Cheers, Tamás
Published on Fri 4th Nov 2022. Featured in KBD #101.
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