deskthority

He just emailed me yesterday.

davkol wrote: ↑Soarer supposedly had some conflict with another member. I can't recall if it was over a technical issue, or because of releasing the converter source.

Hmm. I never heard about this. The code was reverse engineered (which technically isn't the source code, but works the same) about a year or two after he was gone when it was considered abandonware, so doubt that's the issue. He also had a few posts hinting that he eventually would have released his source when he thought it was ready.

I did ask him if it was ok to make a production Soarer's Converter and even offered him a commission on each one that sold for his work, but he declined the commission and said he had no issues with that. So argument definitely wasn't with me either

He didn't really seem like a quarrelsome guy, so I have a hard time picturing him having a conflict with another member, but even so, you'd think all the positive interactions with members and how well loved he was in the community would override any conflict that there may have been with a single member, but I guess we may never know what happened.

I believe there were efforts to mail him correspondence at one point to see if at least he's ok and if there's anything we can do to bring him back, but the mailing address was known a while back may be old and he may have since moved as well. Not sure if anyone actually did end up sending a letter though.

I don't know if he was ever on DT (before my time), but did litster ever reappear?

He'd probably be amused at how hapster derivatives are now unironic novelty keycaps

wobbled wrote: ↑What happened to Muirium?

Didn't he have some actually really quite serious RL stuff to deal with? I mean RL catches up with all of us occasionally but I seem to recall that this was particularly so.

Edit: I see ramnes already explained. That'll teach me to still be several months behind the times...

People have their reasons, I think everyone mentioned here is welcome back at any time. I know that some times people feel personally hurt by something someone said or did. Life is too short, just let things be.

wobbled wrote: ↑What happened to Muirium?

Yeah, I wonder too sometimes.

I like this thread. It’s nice to see people still remember. Not only about my old hyperactive self, but about people I miss too, like Soarer.

I’ll write up elsewhere about the shitty real life stuff that’s been keeping me good and warm under a pile of bullcrap all this while. Spoiler: it continues. But seeing as this thread’s touched on it, I might as well share some of the experience of what it’s like to be long term dark.

Some of it is a sense of debt. For me that’s partly physical—I owe a bunch of people NeXT keyboards, Topre damping rings, and Unicomp caps and other stuffs, I remember I swear!—but seeing as we’re soft and squishy human beings, a lot of it is irrational stuff on the inside. You sense you’ve missed so much you’ve become irrelevant. That’s not true—I strived to be perfectly irrelevant all along—but soft and squishy human insides, you know. You feel you’ve been self indulgent in some ever growing way—I must have been doing that indulgence thing all wrong as I’ve been feeling fairly terrible throughout!—but once again, irrationality is how we work. In your head, you get to dread ever coming back. Fear of return becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

Truth be told, yes keyboards are as low stakes, small potatoes, harmless little hobbies as it gets. Perhaps that’s what draws us in the first place! When something comes along in the other world beyond your desk, it’s easy indeed to get pulled away. I reckon that’s what happens for most people who became notable in the community only to fall silent. What was a step away from the keyboard became a mighty chasm, without as much as realising it, until they did, and felt awkward coming back. That’s the hopeful hypothesis, anyway. None of us is around forever, in any form, so yes there’s also that. But I’m still in the world of the world weary, for what it’s worth. Thank you for your thoughts. In my own altogether less helpful way, you’ve been in mine as well.

Good to hear from you again.

+1, you've been missed, Mu

Thanks for sharing, Mu
DT isn‘t the same without you

Great to see you again mate. As you so eloquently put it, keyboards are just a thing; even the most passionate amongst us must break every once in awhile. Glad to hear you are still warm and squishy and how to see you around again someday.

Hooray! Mu is back

Hey Mu! Nice to see you around!

MURIMIUM is BACK in the house!!!!!!!!

Welcome back!

Wasn't expecting that Good to hear from you Muirium!

Nice to hear from you, Mu. Insightful as ever even in not-so-good times -- all the best buddy.

What ever happened to zool?

That guy helped me work through a lot of different troubleshooting episodes and got me into learning more about microcontrollers.

Soarer might have just gotten bored with the converter. If he is anything like me once I solve the main problem I quickly lose interest and have to force myself to finish the project.
Just from looking at the amount of posts on his converters page that he did reply to I'm amazed he kept at it as long as he did. I don't know the guy at all ,but it seems he wanted to create something to benefit the community.
But after he had it up and going people kept asking for more wanting more.
"I know its AT/XT but could you make it work on my wy-75" or "Hey I'm too lazy to read your docs so could you answer these simple questions you've already answered . Since you wrote the code could you come over and compile it , and give me a reach around"
Releasing source code can be really stressful. Like letting people see you naked and depending on what kind of state it was in, it might have been an undertaking to get it ready to release. Also if he had released it how many people would have tried to turn a profit from it.
Even my silly little write up and conversion of a microswitch board resulted in several ebay listings(perhaps it was coincidence).
I know I never wanted to make money at this, it goes against my ethic. Maybe he had a similar mindset. Not that there is anything wrong with providing a service, like how some people build Soarer converters.
But a project can get taken away once you release it out into the wild. Look at linux, do you think Linus ever imagined he would have to leave his own project. But it stopped being his when he released the source and let others work on it. Who knows? But I do wish I could of talked to the guy I've written an XT converter myself and I wonder how he implemented his(I poll but interupts are probably cleaner, my converter flips out occasionally if it misses the keyup and I wonder how he solved that issue. He might still lurk from time to time or mayb even uses a different name who knows?

Looks like Ascaii hasn't been on in ages. He was a good dude. He was cutting down when he was still here so I'm not surprised he left entirely.

Real life and family is more important than keyboards after all.

I myself stopped coming around since I haven't had a computer for over 4 years now

Whatever happened to OP?

III wrote: ↑

01 Feb 2019, 16:50

Whatever happened to OP?

He's just been MIA for 1month, happens to the best of us!

I hope everybody is ok. It could always be that people have moved on to exciting new hobbies once they feel they have mastered this one, or have nothing new to catch their interest. I know I am that way - get into something intensely for a while including posting actively on the best forums and moving on when my interests change or curiosities satisfied fully.

Whatever happened to me? Well... Real life is as terrible as ever. Not much else to elaborate on. I'm sure other people can relate.

Blaise170 wrote: ↑

14 Feb 2019, 16:03

Whatever happened to me? Well... Real life is as terrible as ever. Not much else to elaborate on. I'm sure other people can relate.

Well welcome back!

Good to see you back in the saddle.
That spoiler is there on health grounds! Ugh, I gotta work on my puns.

What happened to misterinterface?

abrahamstechnology wrote: ↑

01 Apr 2019, 21:14

What happened to misterinterface?

Seconded. I would also like to know.

Where's (again) Mu?

Here:

Α α, Β β, Γ γ, Δ δ, Ε ε, Ζ ζ, Η η, Θ θ, Ι ι, Κ κ, Λ λ, Μ μ, Ν ν, Ξ ξ, Ο ο, Π π, Ρ ρ, Σ σ/ς, Τ τ, Υ υ, Φ φ, Χ χ, Ψ ψ, and Ω ω.


(sorry, couldn't resist)

Blaise is also gone again. I know he disappeared for a good year before but he always has a lot of great insights. Hope to see him again soon.

I'm alive. Indeed, 2019 is probably the worst year I've ever experienced. But I hope to start being active around here again. Anyone who has needed me in the meantime... Sorry for the delays.