Hello there!
I'm Kali, a guy in his mid-20s from Wales! I typically go by "Admiral Shark" or "sharktastica" online. Being from Wales, I of course live in a millennia-old castle surrounded by sheep and sipping tea but I have one or two power sockets retrofitted into here I can plug things into... hence, I'm here! I was told of this place by good mate @Drake (we work together over at /r/ModelM). Whilst I'm mostly into IBM and compatibles, I like to believe I'm open-minded and I want to explore vintage Apple stuff in particular as well!
My main contributions and interests to vintage computing centers around IBM keyboards. I know that's a pretty popular fad at the moment, but my interest is in knowledge rather than profit. For anyone who may be interested, my site Admiral Shark's Keyboards (https://sharktastica.co.uk) is an IBM (and family) keyboard database and wiki, including research & review articles, guides and documentation. Basically, a passion project to research, review and preserve information on such keyboards, ultimately serving as a technical and factual resource collection for those interested. The "and family" part includes IBM's former divisions or companies that bought IBM's IP and tooling such as Lexmark, Unicomp, Lenovo and Toshiba TEC. The project has been going for two years now with no sign of stopping! At the moment, the focus is IBM's Model F, Model M and ThinkPad keyboards, but I'm slowly working on content for earlier beam spring (Model Bs), Selectric printer-keyboards and electronic card punch keyboards. Funny enough, something I'm working on at the moment even includes an Apple product born from IBM/Lexmark collaboration/IP which I hope to share here once it's done!
Being a late '90s kid, my entry into computers is probably relatively modern all things considered. My first PC and laptop were Pentium III based (a Dell OptiPlex GX110 and ThinkPad T21), but due to living in a relatively low-income household most of the tech I used growing up and until I started university/working remained within the older variety that you used to be able to get for pennies at a car-boot sale 12+ years ago. On that note, I find it surreal how much stuff that used to be pennies is worth today. I remember when you could easily find an original GameBoy or a Sega Master System for a fiver...
Outside of vintage computers and keyboards, I'm a huge Star Trek and Stargate fan, interested in naval history, a listener of heavy and thrash metal, and I'm a computer science research student and full-stack web developer by occupation! My field is employing extended reality (AR and VR) in healthcare, but I also have a background in game development/programming as well (what I studied for my undergrad).
Anywho, I hope to stick around and read observantly. I probably don't have a lot to contribute at the moment, but I hope to change that in time.
Cheers!
I'm Kali, a guy in his mid-20s from Wales! I typically go by "Admiral Shark" or "sharktastica" online. Being from Wales, I of course live in a millennia-old castle surrounded by sheep and sipping tea but I have one or two power sockets retrofitted into here I can plug things into... hence, I'm here! I was told of this place by good mate @Drake (we work together over at /r/ModelM). Whilst I'm mostly into IBM and compatibles, I like to believe I'm open-minded and I want to explore vintage Apple stuff in particular as well!
My main contributions and interests to vintage computing centers around IBM keyboards. I know that's a pretty popular fad at the moment, but my interest is in knowledge rather than profit. For anyone who may be interested, my site Admiral Shark's Keyboards (https://sharktastica.co.uk) is an IBM (and family) keyboard database and wiki, including research & review articles, guides and documentation. Basically, a passion project to research, review and preserve information on such keyboards, ultimately serving as a technical and factual resource collection for those interested. The "and family" part includes IBM's former divisions or companies that bought IBM's IP and tooling such as Lexmark, Unicomp, Lenovo and Toshiba TEC. The project has been going for two years now with no sign of stopping! At the moment, the focus is IBM's Model F, Model M and ThinkPad keyboards, but I'm slowly working on content for earlier beam spring (Model Bs), Selectric printer-keyboards and electronic card punch keyboards. Funny enough, something I'm working on at the moment even includes an Apple product born from IBM/Lexmark collaboration/IP which I hope to share here once it's done!
Being a late '90s kid, my entry into computers is probably relatively modern all things considered. My first PC and laptop were Pentium III based (a Dell OptiPlex GX110 and ThinkPad T21), but due to living in a relatively low-income household most of the tech I used growing up and until I started university/working remained within the older variety that you used to be able to get for pennies at a car-boot sale 12+ years ago. On that note, I find it surreal how much stuff that used to be pennies is worth today. I remember when you could easily find an original GameBoy or a Sega Master System for a fiver...
Outside of vintage computers and keyboards, I'm a huge Star Trek and Stargate fan, interested in naval history, a listener of heavy and thrash metal, and I'm a computer science research student and full-stack web developer by occupation! My field is employing extended reality (AR and VR) in healthcare, but I also have a background in game development/programming as well (what I studied for my undergrad).
Anywho, I hope to stick around and read observantly. I probably don't have a lot to contribute at the moment, but I hope to change that in time.
Cheers!
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