Behind the Scenes of Issue 72

Keyboard Builders' Digest / Editorial

Behind the Scenes of Issue 72

April 1st keyboard projects, new wave of supporters, a new acquisition from the besieged Kyiv, March stats, etc.

dovenyi
Published April 4, 2022

Creators! Feel free to tip me off about your keyboard related projects to bring them to 100K readers.

Hello friends,

I'm still Tamas Dovenyi, this time with Issue #72 of my DIY keyboard focused newsletter and blog dubbed the Keyboard Builders' Digest. 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.

---

First and foremost, thank you all who supported this project in the recent days. The Mailchimp fee I wrote about last week is covered for this month. More on this later.

Quick news

Holidays and annual customs are probably cool and funny for most people but they are quite stressful when you edit a magazine. :D E.g. I had a hard time to keep track of all the posts on 40s day in February and April Fools' Day wasn't any better either…

This time I desperately tried not to fall prey to the otherwise great April 1st jokes, "keyboard projects" like the toaster keyboard with the removable crumb tray, the Fluke multimeter keyboard, the 0% keyboard, switches from Cherry and caps from GMK with bar stem, the grassy caps by HyperX or ThereminGoat's Ultraclearine switch review.

I don't feature meme boards so at least I don't have to care if the Base Kit keyboard and the SKL (skill) Shiftkeyless layout or the RAMA planter – "the perfect keyboard companion" – are real projects or not… :D

Support

Last week, I asked for your help to cover a newly introduced cost due to hitting the 2,000 subscriber cap of Mailchimp's free plan.

There were enough readers (11) who kindly supported the cause and the fee for the first paid month is now covered. Thank you!

Unfortunately, most donations were one-time payments so next month I'll have to beg for money again. :)

New supporters who set up regular donations: Richard Sutherland, Fabian Suceveanu and Alexey Alekhin. Thank you guys!

And here are all the new one-time donors: Jay Kreibich, Christian Lo, Matthew Brennan, Richard Dawe, Robert Reiser, Nicolas Tremblay, Simon Tjemsland, Simon Brélivet.

New acquisitions

To my wife's great delight [sarcasm] I kept adding new boards to my vintage collection.

Bought another Videoton terminal, the next model after the one I introduced earlier. Just got a call from the carrier that it arrives in half an hour. I hope it will survive shipping. Honestly, I'd have no idea how to pack it up properly if I was the seller.

And I also purchased two less interesting boards but from a way more interesting place: straight from the besieged Kyiv. The seller told me shipping works and shipping fees are even cheaper than pre-war. I'll try to write more on this operation once the boards arrive. Or if they arrive at all.

Anyways, I see this purchase as part of my support for the Ukrainian cause so no problem if the boards never arrive or if I get scammed. :D

March stats

As usual, I summarized last month's visitor statistics and updated the about page for those interested.

60,000 unique visitors means a 20% month/month increase. (Partially, that's the result of 28 vs 31 days in February/March which should result in a 10% increase alone.)

---

That's all folks. Feel free to ask and comment in this issue's r/mk thread, and as always: keep learning and building.

Cheers, Tamás

Do you like this post? Share, donate, subscribe, tip me off!

Published on Mon 4th Apr 2022. Featured in KBD #72.

Keyboard Builders' Digest / Editorial