Keyboard Builders' Digest / Keyboard Spotting
Cakeday inventory 2022
My annual photo shoot of my (mostly vintage) keyboard collection.
Published September 21, 2022
As a follow-up to a similar shot last year, I made it to my attic and arranged almost all my boards on the floor for a photo.
It was quite a workout because of the 20-30kg luggables and old CRTs, and also a real challenge because of the ceiling height.
Somewhat belated, but all this on the occasion of me being in the hobby for four years now. (My reddit cake day happens to be the exact day I heard of mechanical keyboards for the first time, in 2018.)
No idea how I'll be able to repeat this shoot next year…
As you can see, this is rather Deskthority stuff. It seems I'm immune to GBs and FOMO, try to consciously avoid hoarding contemporary keyboards, so I collect vintage ones instead which is like collecting art imo.
Except just a handful of devices, all of the boards were sourced locally, so this represents what I could find in Central Europe. (One of the Epsons came from Austria, the Datalux from France, and the two newer Reuters boards from Ukraine, right from a Kyiv-suburb during the partial enclosure of the city this spring.) Most of the other boards came from my home city.
As most of my readers may know, I've been daily driving the monoblock splits (middle of the photo) for the last 4 years. The only modern mechanical keyboard here is the Mojo 84 which was sent to me by MelGeek. (It's an incredibly good choice if you're into more conventional layouts.) And the Keebio Jawn macropad which was a prize I won in one of Don's competitions (TheBoard).
Here is a higher-res version of the top photo (click to enlarge or open in new tab):
Top row:
- Videoton VDN-52500 terminal
- Honeywell Bull terminal
- Tatung VT-4100 terminal (Groma Kolibri on top)
- Orion ADP 2052 terminal + TKI keyboard (1983)
- Kaypro 10
- DEC VT??? terminal + LK201
2nd row:
- Tatung keyboard (TVT6600A)
- IBM 5155 with model F keyboard (Olympia SM3 on top)
- Reuters DK-3000
- Epson PX-4
- Reuters (1985)
- Smith-Corona Ultrasonic
- DEC VT320 terminal
3rd row:
- Philips winkeyless
- Black Azimuth (daily driver)
- MelGeek Mojo 84 - my only contemporary MK - sent me by MelGeek + caps gallery
- Datalux Spacesaver
- Storm42 - my good old monoblock, for work
- Datacoop (optical, '80s')
- DEC LK201 clone
4th row:
- Noname XT/AT terminal keyboard
- Tatung
- Preh Commander (the ortho one)
- Epson HX-20 "first notebook"
- Kontron PSI 80
- Reuters D3D-KB
- LK201 clone
- Gepárd-8
- Microsoft natural gen1
- Datacoop (optical, slightly different layout)
- Datacoop (with yet another layout)
6th row:
- Datacoop (five Datacoops, five different layouts…)
- Noname AT keyboard (identical to my first ever keyboard)
- Keebio Jawn Founder's Edition macropad with Cerakey ceramic caps
- Noname XT/AT keyboard
Published on Wed 21st Sep 2022. Featured in KBD #96.
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