Keyboard Builders' Digest / Editorial

Behind the Scenes of Issue 91

New shops, new meetups, new donors, keyboard art column is back, etc.

dovenyi
Published August 19, 2022

Hey y'all,

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Welcome back for another edition of Keyboard Builders' Digest (this time Issue #91), 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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First of all, many thanks to all those who heard my call for help and donated or reached out to me this week. Your support means a lot.

Honestly, reading some of your messages brought goosebumps to my skin.

If you'd like to help, here is a page for potential supporters.

Quick news:

• FKcaps launched the product page of the HEX keycaps
• Now you can see a real-life fghtr swtch even if, like for me, the insta video from last week isn't available in your country.

Vendor database

I'm constantly sniffing for new shops but some of the shop runners reach out to me, and the eminent ones do their homework and send me all the details without asking. Thank you for this, it saves a lot of my time:

• Lume Keebs added, and Emily offered you free shipping and a 5% discount code (KBDNEWS).
• Prestige Keys added.

New meetups

Some recent additions to the meetup database:

• MKD MeetUp Leipzig
• Tiny Little Tech Shop Meetup
• I'll add Bremen after sending out the newsletter...

I believe in this relatively new database and think that it could be useful for the community. However, combing together all the info from obscure Discord threads is very cumbersome and time consuming to say the least.

I know of two other German meetups, the Bremen one has been just finalized, but feel free to reach out to me with tips and details even if you are not the organizer. Together we can make this database much more comprehensive.

I simply can't keep an eye on all the Discord channels where most of the smaller meetups are discussed and organized.

Check the meetup database for all the upcoming (and archive) events.

Donors

After my cry last week lamenting the leaving of two recurring donors, Arto Olli, Miranda Fluharty, and Theo Lemay felt the kbd.news project is worth of some bucks and donated for the cause. Thanks everyone!

In addition, and I'm especially grateful for them, three readers set up a recurring donation on Paypal, namely: Daniel Nikolov, littlemer-the-second, and Christian Lo.

Thank you guys and gals! (Actually, ladies seem to be way overrepresented in the donor list compared to their proportion in the hobby. Hmm. What may this tell us?)

Keyboard art

Last week I skipped the keyboard art part and sent the newsletter without it.

Honestly, I had/have to cut some corners and spare some time here and there. But this week it's back, and with something special.

If you follow Phillip Torrone, managing director of Adafruit and "sword of @ladyada" on Twitter, then you know he makes awesome photos. One of his recent B&W shots was a strange thing and I couldn't decide if it was a sculpture, some mock-up or a real thing:

pic.twitter.com/mYyLwXmFcC

— pt (@ptorrone) August 9, 2022

Phillip got back to me with the solution: it's a "View-Master Interactive Vision 1988 VHS Sesame Street Cartoon Game System". Phew! Here's the wiki page with a color photo.

(In fact, I like the black and white shot much better.)

I wasn't aware of this gadget at all, probably because in that time I was still stuck behind the iron curtain. The point is, if my time allows, I'll try to continue the art column because it definitely has its use and merits by not merely pleasing the eye but also by driving our attention to a different part of the hobby... or a different hobby. :D

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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 19th Aug 2022. Featured in KBD #91.

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