This thread has got some of the best posts of all DT. What a fitting tribute to Blaise, who started it.pyrelink wrote: ↑07 Jun 2023, 21:05I have a lot of nostalgia for that same 2013-2016 period as well. Besides life just taking you in different directions with less time to put into hobbies, I think I got most of what I wanted to get out of keyboards. I like learning about and re-discovering old as dirt vintage stuff. Building and restoring old keyboards is super rewarding, but eventually you've exhausted it all.
During those golden years we kinda did it. We completed keyboards. We could convert almost all of the grail vintage stuff, we had a super fleshed out wiki, and with the graciousness of people like Cindy, if you wanted one of those grails you could have it at a super reasonable price. Outside of pursuing this hobby, how many keyboards does one really need?
Once the Model MF project burned out I felt like I could finally put the soldering iron down and move on to other things. I started collecting records and becoming more obsessed with music, fell in love with programming and became a software engineer. Still use a cool keyboard every single day, but now it's just part of the background. The 15lb F107 on my desk always makes for good conversation whenever I have guests over.
I will say though the direction of the scene has taken is disappointing to me. The explosion of the subreddit and keyboards into the mainstream really is not my cup of tea. It is such an expensive, consumerist, collection based thing now. Everyone trying to make a buck. Keyboard assembly has been dumbed down to Legos, and your measure of engagement in the community is showing off how much junk you've purchased. I realize I am just yelling at a cloud here, but I feel like hobbies should require more involvement than opening your wallet, and I see very little more than that anymore. Like imagine buying one of Ellipse's keyboards, or "building" your 5th gateron 65%. Absurd.
Anyway all that is to say that I think Deskthority was and still is in a lot of ways something special. Online communities and discourse these days is so terrible, and I don't think we (I?) realized how good we had it. Aside from like automotive communities, I feel like Deskthority and Geekhack were in the last generation of active discussion forums. Having communities siloed in synchronous Discord servers, or catering-to-the-lowest-common-denominator subreddits, with corporate overlords, just plain sucks. I have come back every now and again hoping to reignite the passion, but it has yet to take hold. I just bought a $50 SSK yesterday though so maybe there is hope for me yet...
A $50 SSK, man? There's still hope!
