Behind the Scenes of Issue 81

Keyboard Builders' Digest / Editorial

Behind the Scenes of Issue 81

Quick news and Issue #80 follow-up. Reuters family photo & another way to support Ukraine. New discounts, giveaway: winner and new prize.

dovenyi
Published June 6, 2022

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

Hey y'all,

Just like last week, make sure you scan this post all over because there are new discount codes available and you can also win a cool keyset this time.

But before that, my usual opening credit for new readers:

Welcome back for another edition of Keyboard Builders' Digest (this time Issue #81), 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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Quick news

Falba.tech turned 8 these days. Wow! That's really something. Congrats.
The exotic matrices keep having repercussions: here is bgkendall's experiment with the “Japanese” duplex matrix without a core code change in QMK using the same technique as the square matrix.
ai03, whose tutorial helped to spread the "duplex matrix" term for the folded Western one, got back to me. When writing my articles on this topic I reached out to him asking what in his opinion a more appropriate name for that matrix would be. His answer:

As for the old "duplex matrix", I would just call it "matrix bending" or "matrix deforming" in a modern context, for it is nothing more than placing the keys in a different manner in the electrical matrix than in the physical layout.

Issue #80 follow-up

Ugh. There were a lot of embarrassing typos in the last issue: "news(!) discounts", "world piece(!)" :D, etc. From now on, pointing out typos will be another way to enter upcoming raffles. :D

Reuters family photo & another way to support Ukrainians

Recently, there was a comment on keebtalk suggesting buying keyboards from Ukraine as a support.

Well, the same idea crossed my mind two months ago and my order placed on April 1 has arrived.

Pic:

I've had my ancient 1985 Reuters (top one) for quite some time and thought it would be cool to expand the collection along this line.

After spotting two other Reuters models I ordered them and made the payment in the last days of the siege of Kyiv. Why is it important? Because they came straight from a suburb of Kyiv.

Reuters ??? (1985) Alphameric foam & foil
Reuters DK-3000: (1995) Alphameric resistive (rubberdome + capacitive)
Thomson-Reuters D3D-KB: (1999) Devlin, Cherry Browns

It took almost two months for the parcel to leave Ukraine (into a neighboring country), and I received these finally on May 30.

Not cleaned yet so just one more photo:

Pic: Reuters DK-3000 vs. the dreaded Datalux Spacesaver ;)

Reuters DK-3000 vs. the dreaded Datalux Spacesaver ;)

If you'd want to support Vadim, he has some of these Reuters(es?) on ebay.

My experiences and suggestions:

Prices are negotiable but I thought of this purchase as a form of donation
Estimated delivery date makes no sense in this case, my shipment took almost two months just to leave Ukraine
The tracking number was absolutely useless too, tracking info wasn't updated at all.

And one more thing. It turns out refugees receiving parcels from home (Ukraine) don't have to pay VAT (27% here…) nor customs fee. That's a nice thing but I'm not sure it works EU-wide. (Btw, as I learned, phone calls (Ukraine-Hungary) are free too.)

New discount codes & shops

The awesome people at Dangkeebs offered you a 5% discount (code KBDNEWS).

Just like Jan from Qoda Studio. 5% off using the semi-standardized KBDNEWS code as well.

And Wizard Keyboards joined the party too: $5 off of orders $50 or more.

(Just realized that the Eloquentclick code is no longer working. It's under investigation. Feel free to report these issues.)

New shops added: Switch Oddities, Typeractive, Trailblazer Keyboards, Metal Keyboards, Mechfashion.

On the way

A sample from Cerakey is on the way to me. Actually, according to the tracking info, it's been resided in a warehouse in my home town for a few days now. It's a national holiday here so I hopefully get it tomorrow.

It's a pity I can't put my hands on these ceramic keycaps earlier (before their insanely successful kickstarter ends). It would have been useful to share my first impressions with you.

Giveaway

Last week's winner

Aaand the winner iiis: theonegreatx. Congrats! You won a Megalodon macropad offered by KeebMonkey.

New giveaway!!!

Another prize offered by KeebMonkey: a semitransparent Keytok Morse keycap set.

Pic: 121-key Keytok Morse set

121-key Keytok Morse set

Again, the only caveat is that shipping cannot be covered by the discount code "for technical reasons". That means you will have to pay the 8-12USD shipping fee (plus ofc VAT and customs if there's any in your country).

How to enter the raffle

Feel free to like, upvote, share, whatever. However, that's not how you join this raffle. :D Instead:

1.) Comment (top level) below this issue's post on Reddit or(/and!) Twitter (here and/or here) with one or more of these:

What did you like the most in this week's issue?
What did you learn from this week's posts?
Did you spot any typos/factual errors? (If you don't want to publicly embarrass me, you can send this to my email: info at golem.hu :D.

2.) And close your comment with something nice. Like "I love you", "world peace", whatever. :D Or simply your country.

Pro tip: Last week, some of you commented both on Reddit and Twitter, and that's totally fine.

Raffle method: Again, I'll randomize a number to decide between Reddit and Twitter, and then another one to select the winner from the top level commenters on that platform (ordered by old->new).

I will contact the winner and publish his/her nick in the next issue (next Monday).

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That's all for today folks.

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

Cheers, Tamás

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Published on Mon 6th Jun 2022. Featured in KBD #81.

Keyboard Builders' Digest / Editorial