May 2024 Exeter, UK Mini Meet
- Published 2024-05-05
- Cover photo and thumbnail by snicket.kb
On 4th May 2024, I attended a fairly impromptu keyboard meetup in Exeter, United Kingdom to represent the sort of keyboards you would expect of Admiral Shark's Keyboards. It has been almost two years since the latest meetup I attended - MKUK Meetup 6 in London - so despite the journey, I was eager to get the opportunity to present some of my favourite keyboards again! I also plan to attend MKUK Meetup 7 next month, so this was also some convenient practice for what I will be doing there too.
There were 13 of us in total, so it was a fairly small meetup. I opted not to go "all out" on the keyboards I was bringing so I didn't need to take a suitcase with me and be bothered by it for the almost 7 total hours of train commuting from Wales to Exeter and back again (if it was a larger event, I would have considered an overnight stay and dealt with having a suitcase). I just took whatever I could fit into the largest and most robust backpack I had on hand.
I took the following keyboards:
- IBM 4704 Display Station Model 100 Function Keyboard (top-left in the above photo)
- IBM Wheelwriter 5 Keyboard Assembly (top-right)
- IBM Numeric Keypad for IBM PS/2 L40SX (middle-left)
- IBM PS/note 182-series Keyboard Assembly (middle-right)
- IBM ThinkPad 355-series/360-series Keyboard Assembly (bottom-left)
- IBM RANPOS Keyboard (bottom-right)
I also took several of my Modular Keyboard Converter series prototypes (centre) and a BLÅHAJ (having a shark is of course on-brand). The lack of suitcase meant no Model B keyboard unless a single keyboard was all that I wanted to bring. Because I expected less familiarity with buckling sleeve keyboards compared to buckling spring ones, I opted to give priority to buckling sleeve Model M keyboards and just take one example of a Model F and a Model M style buckling spring keyboard.
Reception to all the keyboards was very positive. Besides talking about surface-level key feel and sound, I tried to also explain the context and purposes behind each keyboard. Here are some photos I took of my table during the event. They are the best I could do with my phone's camera.
...and here are some of my photos of attendees' keyboards:
The meetup lasted just shy of 3 hours. Some of us went for some food and drinks afterwards before I made my way home. Overall, I really enjoyed the day and the company of these very cool people. I would like to give a shout-out to MKUK regulars Alvi and Shaoty for organising this!