XMIT

Still being captivated by the scope of the keyboard haul involved with the Keypocalypse sale, I pestered the man responsible for an interview.

While Cindy remains committed to keeping old keyboards from ending up in landfills and is still active in this regard, the keyboard-related contents of her warehouse have moved on to a 29-year old software engineer living in Cedar Park, Texas. A father of two young children and fortunate enough to be married to a spouse that is patient with his keyboard hobby, José Soltren took time out of his schedule to answer some questions regarding the keyboards acquired from Cindy.

Hello, José! Perhaps we could start with why you chose XMIT for a username on Deskthority and Geekhack?

Hi Mike – I’m delighted to answer your questions.

As my username hints, I have a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in EECS from MIT. Keyboards are a hobby for me.

Cindy has had loads of keyboards for a long time. What was her impetus for transferring the keyboards to you?

I met Cindy in February of this year through the forums. After reading, with some envy, about all of the amazing IBM keyboard hauls that other forum members had made, I wanted to see what I could get. It turns out that Kerrville is only a two hour drive from Austin.

Cindy’s preference is to keep items out of landfills. She was also looking to close the business after receiving an offer from a firm in Dallas. After several trips to the warehouse I offered to do what I could to keep keyboards in the community. I could not afford to pay for them, but I knew I could sell them. So, we agreed that I would store the keyboards at my home during the move, and that I would sell them on consignment.

How did you hear about her desire to get rid of the keyboards? Was it a general post on a forum, or did she contact you personally?

From numerous forum posts I gathered that Cindy had some really special items in her inventory, and a steady trickle of new items.

After several trips to the warehouse we realized that we work well together. We can communicate effectively and have similar interests. I was looking for a new hobby, and perhaps Cindy was looking for some assistance.

It’s funny, keyboards are human interface devices. Though we tend to think of them as computer peripherals, they are mechanical things and have more in common with say car parts than software! There really is no alternative to doing things in person.

A lot of things must have been going through your mind when you were considering going over to get the keyboards; travel time, the size of the load, where and how to store them, etc. How long did it take you decide that you were really going to do this?

This question is framed backwards. As I visited Cindy, I came to realize that I could offer to help. I noted that I could haul all of the keyboards in one load with my truck and a trailer, that I could store them all in my garage, and that I could make it profitable without up front cost by doing consignment sales. But this all takes quite a lot of trust and I’m honored that Cindy put that much faith in my abilities.

Once I saw that everything could come together, I made Cindy an offer – somewhat tongue in cheek – and a week or two later she decided to allow me to take the keyboards away.

How long did it take you to get your wife on board after you decided that you were going to do this? I can’t imagine it not raising an eyebrow or two!

MrsXMIT (that’s her handle on DT) is incredibly understanding and supportive of all of my stupid hobbies. As long as I’m happy, and not spending too much money or making life too unbearable, she lets me work on them. I do jump between hobbies periodically.

The original idea was to store all of the keyboards in a shipping container in our backyard. We’ve been looking for an excuse to get a shipping container for some time now.

It does help some that my wife and I are both in the tech industry. I work as a software engineer. She has done software engineering as well and is transitioning to project management.

Could Cindy actually give you an accurate estimate on cargo size requirements, or did you have to wing it when you got there and saw the extent of it?

I had already been to the warehouse several times so I had an idea of what was required. The truck in the Keypocalypse thread photo is a Ford F-150, with a large cab and short bed. I estimated that I could maybe fit everything in the truck, but a trailer might be necessary.

It turned out that I did need a trailer. I would have saved $25 by renting a trailer at home as opposed to doing a one way rental from Kerrville.

What actually was the cargo size requirement for hauling them back?

We filled the cab of the truck, most of the bed, and about half of a 12 foot trailer. There were about 600 keyboards in the haul.

How far away from you is Cindy’s warehouse?

I’m just over 100 miles away, two hours and a bit of driving on quiet country highways (more if I go through the city). There are merits to both routes.

Were you able to get all of the keyboards in one day, or did you have to make multiple trips?

Well, I made several earlier trips to get keyboards, maybe ten at a time, for my own personal collection. But the big run of hundreds of keyboards, well, that was all in a day’s work.

Did you take along someone to help?

Nope. But I did have a ton of help on site from forum member “joc”, who loaded probably two thirds of the keyboards into the truck and trailer. Fortunately I have some experience driving large vehicles. I made the trip home without incident.

What stands out to you as being memorable about the trip?

At the end of the day, I found a box – buried underneath all else – that had some real gems: an Apple M0110 and a Northgate Omnikey Ultra Inverted-T. I had been looking for both of those boards for some time. Finding them at the very end of the day was a special reward.

How long did it take you to come up with a method to inventory the keyboards?

Well, I had been thinking about it for several weeks to a month. Actually printing the labels and developing a workflow really only took a couple of afternoons.

How long did the picture-taking, ID “stamping,” and inventory process actually take?

It took many of my mornings, nights, and weekends for about a month. Phew! MrsXMIT was a huge help here.

More than just photos and inventory management, reconciliation took an extra few weeks. This is the process of hauling out all the keyboards of a particular type – say Space Invaders – and swapping parts between them to make as many complete working boards as possible.

Exactly how many keyboards did you inventory?

As of this writing, the keyboard spreadsheet lists 633 keyboards. Since then I’ve acquired, through various means, about 30 extremely interesting keyboards of all sorts that are not inventoried.

Where are you storing the keyboards? Did you have to rent a storage unit?

I have a roughly 800 square foot two car garage. The keyboards are stored on four sets of industrial wire shelving (five sets and a dresser if you count the keyboards inside the house).

Did you find any gems among them that you’ve decided to keep for yourself? If so, what were they if you don’t mind sharing?

There are no secrets here! Every single keyboard that came in, is listed at coronthica.com/by-uuid. Now since then there have been a few new items that I have not had the time to enter, but nothing earth shattering.

Some of the gems from the haul were:
– Apple M0110
– Northgate Omnikey Ultra Inverted-T
– Wang terminal board with Alps Salmon switches

The only thing I regret is that I decided to sell off both of the Alps SKCM Blue keyboards that I brought in. If anyone has one to sell me please let me know! twitchbot is very lucky that I decided to sell him that keyboard, I almost didn’t.

How long have you been a mechanical keyboard enthusiast?

I’m a child of the 90s so I got to play with the Model F, Model M, and AEK II growing up. I’ve always liked the Model F key switch and the Model M layout. So, let’s say about twenty years now.

What are your favorite mechanical keyboards?

They all have their merits!

At the moment I have a WASD v2 with lubed Cherry MX Clear switches and Vortex PBT doubleshot keys, and a Topre Realforce 87U 55g keyboard, on my desk. I really enjoy the Model F. Alps SKCM Salmon is my favorite Alps switch.

For years a Model M SSK was my daily driver at work. I stopped using it when I had to start taking more phone calls from my desk.

My best find of all time was a 1985 Industrial Model M at a municipal recycling heap. It was free! I don’t think I will ever beat that.

Layout is really important to me. I find I prefer 87 key tenkeyless boards the most. They are not too big, not too small, and don’t require me to remember per-keyboard tricks. I like 60% boards because they travel well.

The sale will likely be continuing for quite a long time due to the large number of keyboards involved. But even at this point, do you consider your efforts to be worthwhile? Would you do it again?

There is an old Japanese proverb that tells us that there are two types of fools: those who never climb Mount Fuji, and those that do so twice.

It’s been a fun adventure but at some point I would like to be down to a “sane” number of keyboards. That means that the ones I keep are fully restored and working over USB, and the rest are gone. It would be nice to have some more working space in the garage again.

It’s been really fun meeting folks here on the Deskthority forum and over on Geekhack as well. I have friends all over the world now! For me this has been the best part.

Indoor keyboard storage in the guest room. USPS flat rate boxes stack vertically on Costco wire shelves. I can fit 14 boxes on one shelf, and 1-2 keyboards per box. There is a little space above the boxes for large flat objects like wcass’s punch templates. The dresser visible to the lower left is also full of keyboards.

Primary keyboard storage in the garage.

Left aisle. Tandy and Honeywell keyboards are on the upper left. Space Invaders on the middle left shelf. On the right side are a number of Alps and foam-and-foil boards.