For a few hours on Saturday, a beer hall in Queens was the nerdiest place in New York City. And considering that you can buy Gundam sets in Times Square and see a musical version of Back to the Future on Broadway, that’s saying something.
I spent about three hours on various buses and subways to get from my home in Pennsylvania to the 2024 NYC Mechanical Keyboard Meetup. More than 150 people squeezed into a creaky old meeting place next to the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden, most bringing at least one keyboard with them, eager to show off and share their mutual love of the bustling hobby.
Michael Crider/IDG
Michael Crider/IDG
<div class="scrim" style="background-color: #fff" aria-hidden="true"></div>
</div></figure><p class="imageCredit">Michael Crider/IDG</p></div>This isn’t my first keyboard meetup — I’d been to several in Texas before moving, and this event had a lot of commonalities. Long rows of folding tables showed off everyone’s collections and a few wares from small indie creators there to drum up some business. Every keyboard was accompanied by an information card, letting the curious know what parts and techniques were used in its construction.
Michael Crider/Foundry
<div class="lightbox-image-container foundry-lightbox"><div class="extendedBlock-wrapper block-coreImage undefined"><figure class="wp-block-image size-large enlarged-image"><img decoding="async" data-wp-bind--src="selectors.core.image.enlargedImgSrc" data-wp-style--object-fit="selectors.core.image.lightboxObjectFit" src="" alt="Keyboard meetup split" class="wp-image-2303237" width="1200" height="676" loading="lazy" /></figure><p class="imageCredit">Michael Crider/Foundry</p></div> </div></figure><p class="imageCredit">Michael Crider/Foundry</p></div>These events are the best way to see the widest varieties of keyboards possible, from relatively tame builds with standard layouts to vintage decades-old keyboards (the IBM Model M is a perennial favorite) to absolutely wild 100 percent custom hand-built designs. My own entry, a 60 percent Star Trek-themed board with an engraved bamboo case, barely stood out among such variety.
Michael Crider/Foundry
<div class="lightbox-image-container foundry-lightbox"><div class="extendedBlock-wrapper block-coreImage undefined"><figure class="wp-block-image size-large enlarged-image"><img decoding="async" data-wp-bind--src="selectors.core.image.enlargedImgSrc" data-wp-style--object-fit="selectors.core.image.lightboxObjectFit" src="" alt="star trek keyboard" class="wp-image-2303224" width="1200" height="676" loading="lazy" /></figure><p class="imageCredit">Michael Crider/Foundry</p></div> </div></figure><p class="imageCredit">Michael Crider/Foundry</p></div>There were themed keyboards like mine, going for cute or artsy looks. There were keyboards that were simply as heavy and as elaborate as possible to give the “thocky” typing feel so coveted by fans. There were “Alice” and split layouts to cater to ergonomic tastes, some based on pre-existing designs, some completely customized with 3D-printed cases. And there were novelty boards of every description — impossibly small ones that would take weeks to even learn how to use, and boards designed just to show off the elaborate “artisan” keycap collections.
One of my favorite boards was a relatively innocuous design from a Discord user who goes by The CaptainTim. It uses an ortholiniar Planck layout (meaning that all the columns and rows are straight, instead of staggered like a QWERTY layout). But he’d designed and printed a custom sloping case for his board that included a wrist rest, completely made out of spongy thermoplastic polyurethane, the same light, spongy material that goes into many phone cases. This gave the wrist rest a squishy quality that was super comfy.
This keyboard has a custom 3D-printed case made out of TPU, with a delightfully squishy wrist rest built into the body.
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