Keyboard Builders' Digest / Editorial

Behind the scenes #137

Quick news, donation issues, in the mailbox, meetups, updates, RSS issues etc.

dovenyi
Published September 29, 2023

Hey y'all,

Welcome back for another weekly recap and behind-the-scenes write-up.

If you are new to kbd.news, you can read how this started out and what this is all about nowadays. If you like what you see, subscribe to the weekly newsletter (free) and donate some bucks to keep this otherwise free and ad-free project alive.

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Reading for the weekend

• It's been a while since I posted anything in the history/vintage column. My latest acquisition, this fancy Intergraph AQ6 is just a rubberdome keyboard, but definitely not your usual membrane one. As the model used by John Carmack it's part of gamedev history.
• This wireless split ortho keyboard by tdilshod supports X switches – a pretty rarely seen feature except mostly Jason Hazel's projects.

• The files of the KORA, fmash16's previous board are available on github (reddit post), along with SHO, his new XIAO based 36-key Choc split keyboard.
• Yakamoz is a 50-key ortholinear keyboard by Özkan Çelik – it comes with an OLED display, buzzer, optional trackball and RGB underglow.

• The Super 16 V3 is the latest version of this cute 4x4 macropad by 1Up Keyboards – now with open-source PCB.
• The Svlinky is a new open-source RP2040 controller that natively supports Sadek Baroudi's VIK standard proposal.

• Slightly related: Ariamelon's Honeydew with the Kiwano VIK module (ring encoder).
• Sans – a splayed split by ThePsychedelicSeal. No plans for sharing the source for now, may be sold later.
• This bent metal sheet ortho by barbara_fries_hens will be open sourced in the future, just like wayduh's Orthofly – after fixing an issue with the PCB.

• Controllers: Other than the Svlinky, the Supermini nRF52840 was also discussed in the community this week: it's a cheaper alternative to the nice!nano 2.0, available on AliExpress. And the proXiao by aroum (referenced in the Enki42 post) belongs here too.
• Handwiring: Rasmus got back to me with his Laser Prosthetic, built based on my age-old posts over at golem.hu (cardboard prototyping and Storm). I really have to give these write-ups a read to see how outdated they are. Apparently, they are good enough to help someone to get started with building.

• An interesting group buy: Mün2 by rgbkb.net (general GB warning applies).
• Tool: Daraku-Neko's KLE Chrome extension makes the Keyboard Layout Editor a little easier to use – with video demo.
• Fun: A look at the Kanji Kitchen in-game keyboard system.
• Finally, Akruvia playground is a 12x4 ortholinear DIY soldering kit for learning, experimentation and tinkering – by Ike T. Sanglay Jr..

Donation issues

• No new donors. What's more, we have some difficulties with PayPal so even some recurring donations fail regularly. It seems you can't support me from some parts of the world anymore – regions which worked fine until recently. ("automatic payment failed") I ran into the second such case already.
• Anyway, just test it. ;)
• As always, many thanks to everyone who helped this project thus far, especially to regular donors.

In the mailbox

The Intergraph I'm writing about in this issue arrived on Tuesday in one piece. (In general, people don't recommend to ship typewriters and I somehow expect to get a broken keyboard/typewriter one day.) It was one of those purchases when patience can bear good fruit: I was sitting on my hands for a month while observing the price being decreased in multiple steps.

Just like with a typewriter I bought yesterday (photos hopefully next week) – I posted about Hammonds earlier. Now one of these weirdos is on its way to me. I waited for months, literally, to be able to put my hands on this one until I got an acceptable offer: exactly half of the initial price.

RSS issues & issues

So one of the RSS feeds is broken, to be precise, it hasn't been updated since I ditched the issue structure. (Thanks for reporting it Matthias!) With this current issue I try to get back to the old publishing method and numbering, in addition, I will try to turn the recent posts and editorials into past issues for consistency.

I don't use RSS so I'm not sure what to expect if I start publishing issues dated back to June and August. If you are subscribed to the weekly feed and get a dozen of updates with old stuff, sorry in advance.

Meetup database

Upcoming:

• ClackyCon 2023, Sept 30, Den Haag, NL
• FMKC Helsinki Meetup, Sept 30, FI

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.

Vendor database

I reached out to some new vendors but without success. No update this time except archiving KeyPlus, a French laser cutting service – but it's probably closed, even the domain is expired (reported by Matthias).

Developments

• Ouch. Fixing this took me some time: While typing, I simply use "--" for ndashes (–), replacing them automatically when displaying a post. And this worked out just fine for almost three years – until the embedded youtube video in the Intergraph post had an url containing "--". I hope I haven't broken anything in the previous 2,000 posts while updating the regexp…

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Still with me?

How do you get a squirrel's attention? Act like a nut.

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That's all for today. Thanks for checking by. As always: Keep learning and building!

Until next time,
Tamás

Published on Fri 29th Sep 2023. Featured in KBD #137.

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