Daskin Keyboard Co. is for sale.

I’m sorry to reach this point; but my life has changed in many ways since I started down this road almost 40 years ago.

Where things stand:

The mechanical hardware design has been completed for a long time.  The keys are very robust.  They can handle a lot of downward and sideways force.  The action feels good, considering the challenges imposed by having so many keys, with only a small amount of available horizontal space for each key.  The keyboard is vertically compact.  I’m very proud of the design.

The challenge has been engineering the embedded software for the key-scanning microcontrollers.  Firmware engineers are (or used to be) hard to find.  Working on my own, I was able to write a program which scans the keys very effectively.  The sampling time is fast -- ~ 40uSecs.  Velocity and poly-aftertouch resolution are both excellent.  I was having some frustration with programming SPI communication between the individual scanning microcontrollers (twelve total) and two additional identical microcontrollers which aggregate the key-event data.  A year ago, I hired a firmware engineer in Seattle who (long story short) ended up performing no useful work, and stole a fully-loaded Daskin key rail and other electronic hardware.  A deeply demoralizing episode, to say the least.

There is reason to hope that AI has finally reached the point where it can write good ARM firmware.  In fact, I sent the latest flawed code to Chat-GPT, and it returned what appear to be excellent suggestions for repair.  So, in theory, I could finish writing the code myself.  But I have other demands on my time.  And I’m 70.  I feel like I no longer have the mental acuity or focus to be a firmware engineer.

The items for sale include:

• All the injection molds
• Most of the mechanical/electronic parts needed to make five keyboards, plus extra parts
• All supporting documentation, including lab notes, and the master Parts List document
• All software
• All schematic and Gerber files for the custom circuit boards
• Commitment to answer any questions and provide any needed consultation or guidance to move forward

The daskin.com domain is a little more complicated.  I have had the same email address: for a very long time.  So I would want a guarantee that I could continue to use it.

There are some mechanical fabricating tasks still to be done for most of the keyboards. These are straightforward, and I can help with these.  The key-event-processing software (written in C code) needs to be finished.  At least three control panel PCBs need to be procured.  These boards are large and not cheap.  Most of the PCBs need to be populated.  And one more very small PCB needs to be designed, which I am happy to do, since my mind is well-suited to this kind of work.  Also, some additional small custom-turned parts need to be fabricated for the fifth keyboard.  Some of these parts need to be nickel-plated.

Years ago, I promised two people that I would give them each a keyboard when I started production.  If Daskin is sold, I will commit to assembling these two keyboards to satisfy the commitment.  I don’t need a Daskin keyboard for myself.

The minimum price I will accept for the company is $2,000. There is a lot of hardware, so shipping a long distance will be expensive. One of the injection molds is too heavy to be lifted by one person.

If you are interested and have questions, please send me an email or call me at 775-843-8646.

Paul Vandervoort