Bought An HHKB

I am a very obsessive person and I nerd out on mechanical keyboards. During my first college C++ course, my brother in law bought me a cool 60% mechanical keyboard and ever since then I have had a downlow obsession with them.

I compulsively purchased an HHKB recently and was hoping that it would end the obsession. In the past I have owned and built quite a few keyboards and played with qutie a few switches, lubing them individually and the whole shebang.

Like most people with addictive personalities, I took this object out of its packaging and started typing on it, and felt absolutely nothing. Nothing except, perhaps, a violent feeling of shame and disgust for having spent so much money “on THIS!?” This keyboard is noisy, rattly, crappy, it felt and sounded like a toddler’s rattly plastic toy truck.

That was maybe a week ago. I’ve been typing on it. I ordered parts for a custom sleeved cable for it and soldered that all up. I’ve tentatively pecked at the HHKB keys, then pecked at my former keyboard’s keys, then back and forth, while frowning and eyebrow raising. It is sufficient to say that the HHKB is growing on me. Like anything else, and like all other addictive personalities, all I had to do was stick with it for a while and now I like it.

Like, I REALLY LIKE IT.

Since the placement of the Ctrl, Backspace, and some other keys are moved around, I have been playing different PC games to force my brain to get used to it faster, under more varied circumstances than just word forming. I scraped the internet and found that, even though this model’s key map cannot be remapped with official software, you can actually install the software, modify a json file, and then use the software to remap the keys. So, it’s nice that I work in a field where I know how to use github and google. I also ordered silencing rings and once they arrive, I will void the warranty on this sucker by opening it up and modding the hell out of it.

I am now constantly looking at pictures of other people’s HHKBs and dreaming of giving away all my other mechanical keyboards and buying older generations of HHKBs. I really want one with a case so old and Sun-damaged that it is yellowed like a cigarette smoker’s lungs.

I guess until then I will have to deal with this all black one. Hopefully this will at least curb my compulsive, “I don’t want to be doing this but I’m doing it anyway” mechanical keyboard switch force curve analysis.