It is with great pleasure and excitement to announce that Professor Eiiti Wada, creator of the HHKB, has agreed to an interview, much thanks to the hard work of Kunal over at Massdrop. Instead of simply asking him our own questions, Massdrop and Keychatter will be working closely together to facilitate a community interview, with questions chosen and voted on by the community.

To start simply head over to the Eiiti Wada Interview Questions Poll on Massdrop. Feel free to vote on existing questions or add your own to the poll. While voting please remember to vote for 3 questions, and keep in mind the poll isn’t about a “winner,” but finding the right questions, so vote accordingly. The poll with be open for 7 days, after which we will send over the best 10 questions for him to answer. While the poll is open please remain respectful and submit only relevant questions. This is a huge honor we have as a community and I want to make sure we that respect Professor Eiita Wada throughout this entire process.

After the poll is over, I will ask him the questions on behalf of the community and write up the interview. The interview will be co-published as a feature article over on Massdrop. I would also like to clarify that no sales of any kind are associated with this interview. This is just a collaborative effort of HHKB fans to provide the community with a chance to talk to one of the great innovators of the computer world, and the “Japan’s first hacker.”

After the interview is over I am going to start threads where people can post pictures of their HHKB’s (if applicable) and/or state why you enjoy the HHKB so much, as a “thank you” to send Mr. Eiiti for taking the time to talk to the community.

Because keyboards are accessories to PC makers, they focus on minimizing the manufacturing costs. But that’s incorrect. It’s in HHKB’s slogan, but when America’s cowboys were in the middle of a trip and their horse died, they would leave the horse there. But even if they were in the middle of a desert, they would take their saddle with them. The horse was a consumable good, but the saddle was an interface that their bodies had gotten used to. In the same vein, PCs are consumable goods, while keyboards are important interfaces. -Eiiti Wada

To continue with discussions here are links to the major keyboard forums about this interview:

Geekhack / Reddit / Massdrop

If you have any further questions please feel free to email me via the KeyChatter contact section or PM livingspeedbump on any of the forums!

Photo Source

Photo Source

Quote & Translation Source