deskthority

So the unthinkable has happened. I HaaTa have finally stopped moving...

(7 years of constantly moving sorta takes its toll, especially when hauling around my keyboard collection)

Anyways, I'm now in the Bay Area, and hopefully will be around for a while

I'm thinking of starting a regular keyboard meetup in the Bay Area, but with a few different goals than of previous meetups.

Kiibohd Party - Bay Area

September 7th, 2013 at 1 PM, TechShop San Jose Conference Room
300 South 2nd Street
San Jose, CA 95113

After 4 hours, they'll probably want us gone (if another group is using the room), so we can proceed to drinks/foods somewhere.
DO NOT park in the TechShop parking lot. They are tow happy, so find pretty much anywhere else. It's a bit of a walk from the Caltrain station (not *that* far), but you can be lazy and take the VTA Lightrail which stops quite close to TechShop.

Goals

• Discuss keyboards
• Develop work on various mods, controllers, and full keyboards
• Look at cool keyboards (I have waaaaay too many, and constantly get more)
• Keyboard research and documentation
• Wiki page creation
• Eat food and drink beer (or whatever you like to consume )

I'm thinking about holding it Monthly, sometime on the weekend.

You won't have to bring any keyboards unless you want to (I'll have enough for everyone ). I have acquired A LOT of keyboards this year, but due to travelling, I haven't been able to take pictures of any so you'll get to see some previously undiscovered switches.

Comments? Suggestions? Recommendations?

I'm also on #deskthority and #geekhack on irc.freenode.net all the time

Lucky San Francisco! That sounds like the sweetest idea. Keyboard bash and workshop. Dang it, another reason to check that storied town out someday.

Good luck with the move. And, uh, the stay.

Muirium wrote:Lucky San Francisco! That sounds like the sweetest idea. Keyboard bash and workshop. Dang it, another reason to check that storied town out someday.

Good luck with the move. And, uh, the stay.

How on earth do you do that? You posted in almost every single thread since mid march or so
See here
And usually it's even within a few minutes after thread creation.

Quit blowing my cover!

(I just leave DT open in a window and check it out in the downtime between tasks that many people use Twitter for. But there's too much politics, celebrity and sports on Twitter and not enough keyboards…)

Also, it's not like Deskthority is that high traffic of a forum...

Unfortunately, I'm on the wrong side of the country for this.

Well, I'm hoping for it to be recurring. So if anyone happens to be in the area.

I've been getting good response from geekhack, so this will be a go.
Just have to decide when/where.

You really should come to Napa and do it, then I can stop by after school. No one likes San Francisco rush hour traffic.

I'm in the south bay area and might be able to attend.

[)amien

Date for the first meetup is confirmed for September 7th, 2013.
Will know time/place by Monday next week.

Place and time confirmed.
TechShop San Jose (Conference Room) at 1 PM till 5 PM.
Don't park in the TechShop parking lot...you'll get towed.

Added the address in case using Google Maps is too hard

You've only got four months left for your attendees to vie for the DT 2013 wiki award ;-)

Reminder.

First one is happening today!

Where's the live stream?

Sorry, I don't have the equipment for a live stream...

Next time I'll try to get a live stream (next month). I will upload my slide presentation though.

Unfortunately, less crazy photographers than usual. But some photos will make it up. Mostly of keyboards

Attendance
HaaTa (of course ;D)
Acantha
bluesmoke
DamienG
jwaz
sth
cgbuen

Pics of my rare keyboards that I showed off (dismantled 1, didn't have time for 2 of them) will show up over the next week or so.
Slides

Current target price of the keyboard project is around $300, but this may change. Mostly on the case chosen (ideas? expertise?).
Not sure on how many will be made, probably just over 100. The project hinges mostly on the case, everything else there is expertise to get it done quickly.
Proceeds go to Kiibohd activities (food? drinks? keyboards? keycaps? mods? or whatever the group decides to spend it on).
I have an EE friend who has volunteered to do the PCB, I'll coordinate stuff with him.

Consensus is the Alps Reed Switches have the best sliders ever, virtually no friction. And no you haven't seen one before. Pics sometime this week.

More consensus, unless we get a bunch more people, live casting didn't interest the group. If someone comes and has the equipment, we can do it. I was mostly talking/presenting for much of the time, but it was a pretty casual bunch of presentations )


Location of the next one is still undecided, but may be closer to SF. The TechShop conference room worked out awesomely. I'll have more rare keyboards to bring,
I'll start a new thread for the next one. All are welcome You don't even have to bring keyboards

Ah man...wish I could go to these
Great work HaaTa -- crazy how much the stand for the force gauge costs!

I suspect something similar, optimized for our requirement, could be done MUCH more cheaply.

Mod a set of digital vernier calipers, create a bracket for the force gauge, attach the bracket to the calipers and some linear rail, and use either threaded rod or a toothed belt or chain drive, with plenty of friction so it doesn't move without user input.

Yes, I believe a proper stand could be made much more cheaply.
Unfortunately I don't have enough confidence in my machining skills (yet) to endeavor on building one.

If I get some time I may sketch a design up for one however.

Regarding your jiku mention in the slides, rzwv pointed this out to me earlier:

http://kbd.rzw.jp/chata/slider_in_page/

A different collection of sliders. First time I've seen a green Alps clone with LED that isn't Xiang Min — normally the clone ones were yellow. Also, he's got a Futaba-mount Sejin with domes (row 7 col 4), which is what I think CeeSa has/had — first time we have confirmation of its switch construction (and proof that it's domes). That now has a mention on the wiki.

Also, I was thinking earlier — since Cherry MX followed M9, do you think "MX" simply means "M10"?

Next time on Kiibohd Party: everyone gets a deerstalker and pipe, and the hunt for Cherry catalogues other than 73/74/82 begins — and the answer to why M6x became M7x will get a micron closer …