I've always liked high quality keyboards. But I suppose it really started when I got a Das Keyboard II. That lasted for years, until it died as the victim of an unfortunate marinara sauce spill in college. I bounced around, being a snob about scissor-switches over simple rubber domes, but I didn't get back into proper mechanical keyboards until a few years back, when I finally went back to mechanical with a Logitech G710+ with MX Browns. And while you might laugh at damped MX Browns, for a while, that was enough.
Then I started reading topics on here, Deskthority, and /r/mechanicalkeyboards. I started thinking more about keyswitch design, and lusting after spherical keycaps and IBM Beam Springs and strange and mysterious Alps (and even picked up a Siig Minitouch, with its shabby knockoff whites, in a thrift store). And in the space of two months, I acquired an IBM 6112884 Pingmaster with SKCC Greens, learned how to solder to replace its controller with a Teensy, and configured it with Soarer's Converter, got a terminal Model M (sadly not a 122), converted that with Soarer's, and put the G710 in a box.
But I'm always going to want to try more things, and be fascinated with the technology of all of this. Between writing and gaming, I care a lot about my input devices (and someday that will lead to an L-Trac or a Microsoft Trackball Explorer), and between enjoying cyberpunk and computing history (The most recent documentary I've seen was about the history of BBSes), I've got a lot of non-usage interest in this stuff.
The current next step I'm pursuing is custom-making a switch through 3D printing and magnets, because, well, the power of a Teensy and a soldering iron really has gone to my head. And I desperately want to try something with this layout, with SA keycaps:
http://imgur.com/a/GwZEVSo yeah, that's my story
Happy clicks and clacks.
