The Deskthority Award 2013

[webwit]

Please vote for your winner of The Deskthority Award 2013. This is the "super category". What was extra special in 2013?

By voting in this category you can win a Minila from The Keyboard Company.

This is the final round. See the first round and second round for reference.

The official nominees are:

7bit for organizing Round 4 + 5
The winner of the Deskthority Award 2011 and 2012 and named in the Guiness World Records book as organizer of the world's biggest community keycap group buys. Round 4 and Round 5 ruled the Internet space. Can he be beaten?


Filco Majestouch keyboards equipped with Signature Plastics keycaps from the Round 4 mass group buy.

Daniel Beardsmore for his continuous work on the wiki
He is a mean lean wiki machine! Beardsmore is the driving power and main author of the deskthority wiki and conquerer of the Alps vortex, turning the wiki into the world's best keyboard reference.


Daniel Beardsmore enjoying one of his rare moments of leisure.

Douglas Engelbart, pioneer and inventor of the mouse (RIP)
Douglas Engelbart, engineer, inventor, and early computer and Internet pioneer, passed away this year. He is best known for the invention of the computer mouse and the development of hypertext, networked computers and graphical user interfaces.

The Mother of All Demos, presented by Douglas Engelbart (1968).

matt3o for his groupbuys and keyboard builds
Matt3o crashed into the scene with all kinds of builds and tutorials, such as the Brownfox, a guide to how to build a custom keyboard and his laser cut prototyping project.


A custom keyboard being constucted by a happy matt3o laser cut group buyer.

tinnie formerly known as Tinlong for the SSKs
Tinnie helped a lot of people get rare vintage keyboards such as the IBM Space Saving keyboard, "Kishsaver" and even the industrial Space Saver. Never before did we see such amounts of these wanted but rare keyboards emerge and being distributed!


Is it a HHKB? Is it a Poker? No, it's an IBM "Kishsaver" with capacitive buckling springs! And a whole bunch more of them.

[Muirium]

Man, this one's tough to pick. Not a single candidate who I don't want to see win!

[kint]

true.
But without a mouse our computing experience would be a different one...So Douglas Engelbart gets my vote for enabling moms, dads, granny and granpa the joy of computing and the www. beardsmore will get the wiki award hopefully then. All others are covered with different awards too, except tinnie, but I guess he's not doing it for the awards anyway

[bhtooefr]

Tinnie got nominated for the relics award, FWIW.

[Muirium]

True, but that belongs to HaaTa!

[bhtooefr]

True, but that belongs to HaaTa!

I didn't say he'd win, just that he got nominated.

[webwit]

The vote closes on Monday 9 December at 20:00 UTC. Vote now!

The two nominees with currently the most votes are (in alphabetical order):

Spoiler:

Douglas Engelbart, pioneer and inventor of the mouse (RIP)
matt3o for his groupbuys and keyboard builds

[snoopy]

tinnie for president

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Evidently the voters realised that the Alps vortex isn't conquered. Every reply back from Sandy reminds me how much there is left to learn just about Alps's own switches, simply due to the lack of knowledge available, mostly a lack of photos. A year ago I posted a request for Alps switch photos, and nobody could be arsed to help. The only tip I got was from 002 who pointed me to alps.tw's mega collection, which was the breakthrough. (Though getting photos of lots of Alps keyboards is still important — but Sandy is a great help with Alps knowledge, and he's also able to help in understanding MouseFan's website.)

That said, I think we've reached the point that Alps is no longer (depending on how you view it) frightening or hopelessly bewildering. We're down to the fine details instead of being totally clueless — the big picture is a lot clearer. I still remember asking whether the switches in my Beeb were vintage Cherry, as they had cruciform sliders, and no-one really knew if they were or not — now three switches in that family are documented with full disassembly photos. A lot of confusion has evaporated in the last year.

[webwit]

If the Alps vortex was like mapping the Amazon, there are some confluents still unmapped, but the broad main river flow and landscape has been mapped.

[7bit]

Vortex sells Alps keyboards at Amazon?

[Muirium]

I guess they're more like the Amazon than the Alps because you can never get a good view, and everyone's talking indecipherable languages before throwing spears at you.

[webwit]

I like buckling springs. This is the best decision I ever made regarding this hobby.

EDIT: Although vintage IBM product numbers are also infinite.

[Kurk]

I still feel like a stranger in the Alps.

[webwit]

I voted for a member! Doug is out of our league.