When I have some more available time, I want to try to design new switches with interesting tactililty. I have some thoughts that I want to explore, but I have to finish some other projects first to free up some time. And of course save up some money for prototypes after yesterday's F77-ing money dematerialization event.
Good luck, it is a competitive market (although much less so for modern clickies). We need as much innovation as we can get the way things currently are.
I like the way you put that, money materialization event. It makes it almost sound like some kind of inexplicable paranormal occurrence, for which you can obviously feel no guilt.
I don't plan to commercialize anything (at least not yet), I'm only doing it for fun. But I do hope I can make a switch that can be produced in the future and have a distinct operation, feel and sound. But mostly I hope I can make something that I can be amused of myself. Maybe they can be a one-of-a-kind piece of art?
I do believe in karma, though. Since so much money just evaporated before my eyes, with hardly any interaction from me, I hope that the universe will give something nice back to me later...
Do you get karma points for buying a Model F though? lol. Maybe for designing a new clicky switch if it ends up turning the whole market on its head.
I seldom work with spreadsheets. I mostly program and write reports and articles, so it is other keys I frequently use. Sometimes I need to punch numbers, though, but for this I use either a separate layer on the Planck with all keys I need comfortably placed, or a standalone keypad. Right now I swap between the HHKB and the Planck, but I have three more keyboards soon: Kyria (waiting for switches), Lumberjack (waiting for the PCB) and F77. I'm not a fast typer, so I don't notice any loss in speed ir accuracy when I change between normal and staggered keyboards.
Yeah, everybody has different use cases. Even if I didn't have a specific need for dedicated arrow keys, I like not having any specialized mapping or muscle memory at all so that I can swap between weird/random old boards on a whim without missing a step. The F AT is a little bit of an exception, but most old boards have the 1u backspace and big ass enter.
Those are all pretty cool looking boards. I like it when a case tries to show off some of the guts.
I was lucky with the lumberjack. I saw the GB, and thought that the board looked quite nice and inexpensive. As the GB was going to last for a while, I thought I could wait before deciding to buy, but the following day I ordered one anyway, thinking that the price made it a no-brainer. I think the day after my order, the GB was closed due to the huge interest. They had planned for 100-150 boards, and suddenly they got that many orders in 2-3 days instead of a month.
I like that the functionality is a part of the visual characteristics of the things. I wish this was more common for other things also instead of hiding the functionality behind clean surfaces and straight lines.
Nice on that score then. I imagine it will have immense resell value as a result if you ever get bored of it. People seem obsessed with their limited production stuff in this community.
Yes, I agree. TechMoan has a
Youtube video on prison tech you may find interesting, if you haven't seen it.
I like to rest my palms on the table, so I did prefer low-profile keyboards. I changed my typing technique when I learnt proper touch typing, so now I'm not sure what I prefer any more. If I have a wrist rest, I'll use it, but I don't mind if I don't have it. I think the most important is variation, though. No matter how "right" a person types, it can always lead to pain if a position is held long enough.
Yeah, that makes sense. I guess that makes me wonder if people who have weird non-standard typing techniques for which they look down at the board have less problems with carpal tunnel than people who are touch typists. I know I haven't had any problems with it, for whatever reason.
That's a good point. I think many that are typing a lot and try to sit as "ergonomically" that they can, actually are creating more stress, and getting worse, they try even harder to maintain the same position as they believe it is "ergonomically correct". I don't have any data to support this, but the thought did cross my mind.
Yeah, that makes sense. I have read a bit about that myself. Maybe that's part of why nothing has ever bothered me. I don't care about what's supposedly ergonomic, and even end up typing around a bunch of Chromebook parts since I work in IT for a school district. I touch type however happens to be most comfortable given the situation.
Interesting, I know that these potentionmeters are still found in electronic parts stores. The question is whether the size and stem will fit the slider handle. Thinking about it, the sliding pot might be logarithmic, though, as audio pots often is that. A 90 mm driver is huge, it certainly need a strong magnet for moving all that mass.
You would probably know better than I about that. I just know it did look similar to pots I have seen in a video or two about cleaning vintage audio equipment. I think it was an old stereo. I have found 90mm drivers (since the question crossed my mind of an upgrade, of course), but the magnets do look way bigger on those than on mine. Not sure if modern ones would even fit in the cup.
I hope you can find some nice upgrades. I saw that a discussion on the K6/LC mentioned that they sounded "distant", which I think can be from a mismatch between the mass of the movable parts and the force generated by the electromagnetic field, damping the high range while overshooting the mid range. Modern neodynium magnets are much stronger than old magnets, so if you find a new element of good quality I believe it can improve the sound quality quite a lot.
Part of me doesn't like the idea of upgrading retro tech. I refuse to ANSI mod my Model F ATs. If it is something that needs repair anyway and can never be original again, I make exceptions. Those Pioneer headphones I mentioned are Pioneer SE-L40s. Something like this example:
https://cdn.head-fi.org/a/11330157.jpgI found them practically new in their original storage box at a Goodwill for almost nothing. The original cloth cable had a short though and I figured there was no way I was going to find it and repair it without damaging the cloth, so I desoldered it entirely. I drilled out the original hole for the cable just a little bit and dremeled some of the inside of the cup so I could mount a matching color 3.5mm jack in the cup for modern removable cables. I left the rest original, since the sound was great as it was. The bass isn't anything to write home about with drivers that small, but the treble and mids are great, and so is the overall balance. They sound pretty "warm" as they call it.
You're tempting me to try to retrofit modern drivers though, although I wonder if modern drivers that big will be worth it without amplification.
Thanks, I hope I will love it. It will certainly improve my passive-aggressive approach to open office spaces and online meetings. Jokes aside, most people at my work are working from their home office, so I can type as loudly as I want for now. I wonder about the delivery time, though. It seems that it might take some time.
One problem with this hobby, is that there is always something I want to try (and buy)...
I ordered my F77 from Ellipse with the "custom/low serial number option" close to a year and a half ago (when he announced boards would finally soon start shipping) with the hope of bumping in line. That board is still out in the ether somewhere, probably because I didn't ultimately choose any of the separate shipping options and have tacked on a lot of parts. That one's going to have the dark gray caps with black legends, which I'm reading haven't even started being produced yet.
The trying part wouldn't be so much of a problem if it made sense for people to finally be able to get out and do some meets again. Soon, I think.
I hope that there will be meetups soon. Even though Norway is a small country, there have been a couple of meetups before the plague. I just found out about it this year, but I plan to join one when society is opening up. Maybe I even have a Model F to show off.
I hope so as well. I have never been to a meetup. It would have saved me a lot of money if there were ever one near me. You may well be the only one at a given meet with a Model F ... especially if prices keep trending up the way they are. It will help spread the buckling spring religion.