Thread by @mwichary

This book is SO GOOD. It’s like traveling to Japan again, except now with a time machine.

(cc @craigmod)

PS in my latest newsletter, another amazing keyboard-related trip that I was lucky to have accidentally instigated: getrevue.co/profile/shift-…

(In the middle of reading a book about Japanese word processors and their keyboards, a Japanese word processor and its keyboard materialized themselves on my desk.)

I suspect when you dig deep enough, you will always find something at even the most unusual intersection of a bunch of your interests.

Here it is for me: a 1990 ad I just discovered that’s ⅓ keyboards, ⅓ typography, and ⅓ education.

This moment of research is always very fun.

1483.00 ELECTRONIC DESIGN
V. 30, 1-12
Jan. 7-June 10, 1982
(May Career Extra, Index)
Reel 1 of 3
University Microfilms International
Duplicate Negative

(If you’re curious what I’m researching, it’s the early days of mechanical keyboards. If this looks interesting, DM me and I’ll send you ~200 of these.)

I learned today there’s a difference between microfiche and microfilm.

Took a 90-year-old thesis that spent last 60 years on a shelf somewhere in Cincinnati for a ferry ride in California – and it rewarded me with gorgeous vulgar fractions that used to be on every keyboard, but disappeared long ago.

We are now on a vintage Italian trolley for a final ride back to the library.

PLOT TWIST: Even the trolley has a keyboard.

Returned the thesis to be sent back to its home and likely never ever again leave its shelf, except PLOT TWIST I also scanned it so you can all read it now:

archive.org/details/TheRem…

Walking past library stacks, on a lark I randomly picked up a volume of Time and then let it open wherever it wanted.

Of course it was something related to keyboards.

Uploading scanned papers to @internetarchive while waiting to board my plane like a goddamn *pro.*

…and I immediately spent whatever karma I gained by finding an accessible keyboard with a nice 16-segment display.

My interurban bus got pulled over by German police earlier today (routine Schengen Area passport control, it turned out) and I’m immediately like “oooh, what is that keyboard?”

Some great news on the book front, and momentum – after many months of feeling stuck. (Still a bit overwhelmed with the amount of work needing to be done, but I feel I understand what that will be, at least.)

One interesting thing about collating a lot of information about a single subject over time is that you see fun patterns, e.g.

Here’s another one (and this is all just tweets that appeared in my timeline or were shared with me without searching):

Or, in a very different realm…

(And this, in turn, connected to…)

😍

(I have gotten some great comments on my book from a few people who read the current draft. Not just positive, of course. :·) Will credit them and give more of an update when the smoke clears!)

When a librarian makes your day.

That time of year where you have to split a book tower into two smaller book towers to prevent a collapse.

Oh, lord. Remember the fictional character of Jessie K. Board (which was my iPhone AI misidentifying many keyboard photos as an actual person)?

https://twitter.com/mwichary/status/1033975439734132736

Now iPhone suggests sharing new keyboard photos with that person.

Is this god telling me “you’ve gone too far with this keyboard stuff.”

These are also photos iOS thinks are of keyboards. It’s actually pretty hilarious!

I suspected the day would come where in my research I’d stumble upon a thing Google knows nothing about.

Major surgery on a few troubled chapters. This is a bit scary; as much writing as rampant copying and pasting, and the feeling I won’t fully know how it all worked out until I re-read it with fresh eyes in a few weeks.

Just wrote the opening chapter from scratch again for the third time. I’m genuinely curious how many times it’s going to take, in the end.

Dig deep enough and you will find a (pretty weird) keyboard even in an office espresso machine.

Guess who I interviewed today! All the clues are in the photo. ^_^

Felt very accomplished with rewriting today. Combined two chapters into one chapter with half the words; it feels leaner *and* I embedded it more into the chronology *and* I centered it all around a cool new person.

Ten most cursed folders in my keyboard research database.

True story: my iPhone just autocorrected “was” to WASD.

I didn’t expect there to be secret documents in the area of keyboard research.

All these is what Artificial Intelligence thinks are keyboards. (The last one is both hilarious and inspired.)

These kinds of small moments of preservation make me really happy. Here is a booklet from late 19th century you can all read with me:

archive.org/details/Reming…