3rd Century BCE: The Ancient Greeks invent the Hydraulis, the first keyboard

14th Century CE: The clavichord and harpsichord are invented

15th Century CE: Händel and Bach write many compositions including the harpsichord

18th Century CE: The piano was created, allowing musicians to vary the volume of their music

1876: The “Musical Telegraph” was invented, one of the first electronic musical instruments

1940s: The first monophonic electronic keyboards start making waves

1960s: The the first prototype of the Moog modular synthesizer is built

1967: The Datapoint 3300 is announced, one of the earliest computer terminals with an electronic keyboard

1970s: IBM ships terminal machines with beamspring keyboards

1980: The Moog Liberation released, one of the most popular keytars

1983: First MIDI specification published

1985: IBM launches the Model M keyboard

1990s: Electronic music grows in popularity

Oct 24, 2015: Jack forks TMK into his own project, and names it QMK

Winter 2015: Jack adds midi support and music mode to qmk for use on the Planck

2017: Skullydazed adds a full dac and stereo speakers to the arm chip in the Clueboard 60

July 22, 2017: cKeys hosts their first Seattle Mechanical Keyboard Summer Meetu

2018: Jack pulls those audio improvements into the Planck Rev6

July 28, 2018: Seattle Mechanical Keyboard Summer Meetup 2018



As Jack and Skullydazed continue to blur the lines between computer keyboards and musical keyboards, we thought it would be fun to host a little musical contest for the meetup! We understand that not everyone can cover The Final Countdown on their Planck, so we are opening this up to any sounds made by a keyboard!

Have some switches that click just perfectly? Let’s hear em!

Finally got the thocc just right on your lubed hypersphered HHKB? Bring it out!

Have an original composition to play via MIDI? Works for us!

Managed to rig up your Clueboard 60 to act as a USB audio device to play music from your computer? You’d be the winner in our eyes, but we aren't the ones judging!

Who is judging, you ask? None other than Jack and Skullydazed themselves! They’ve been really supportive of our meetups over the last two years, so we really wanted to make this contest about them. Skullydazed will be around in person to listen in, and Jack will be telepresence’d in somehow, much like the January meetup. Come wow them and take home something cool!

Contest Registration

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