Round 4 / packing (99.8%) / shipping (99.7%)

[hsu]

What is the shape of the caps in the header today? Beautiful...

[7bit]

Sphericals. A bit more spherical than those from SP.

[matt3o]

I did not come so far.

Here are the 2 different line widths of text keys. Win is correct, the other 2 look too thin!

Round4_RETRO_001.jpg

Photographed with the Fuji X100, BTW.

when you win you are always bold.... okay this was lame...

[hsu]

And this one?

[7bit]

We still have to find the tools for these key caps. Or let someone make them for us.

[Ekaros]

I did not come so far.

Here are the 2 different line widths of text keys. Win is correct, the other 2 look too thin!

Round4_RETRO_001.jpg

Photographed with the Fuji X100, BTW.

Should they be centered or not?

[7bit]

Not centered in the middle of the key cap, but centered in the their quarter:

Code: Select all

+---+---+
| ( |   |
+---+---+
| 9 |   |
+---+---+

This way:
(
9

Not this way:
(
9

[Ekaros]

Not centered in the middle of the key cap, but centered in the their quarter:

Code: Select all

+---+---+
| ( |   |
+---+---+
| 9 |   |
+---+---+

This way:
(
9

Not this way:
(
9

I meant those Win and "Any Key" keys.

[7bit]

The problem is that Any Key is thin and Win is thick. They re-used old legends. It gives me hopes that they did the new legends thicker than the old ones, but they should have re-done the old legends as well.

On the other hand, they used thin lines for the symbol keys.

@hsu:
Before you ask:

Round 3 with Round 1 Enter and Backspace keys.

[rknize]

Wouldn't we have had then had to pay legend fees for all of those? You should have just had them made with the small cutter so they would at least be consistent.

This sort of nonsense is one of the reasons for the Cherry Replica Legend project. We'll have full control over each one, as they are all specified as SVGs by someone who knows how to deal with SP's bizzaro custom legend imports. Hopefully, the days of Wyse are numbered.

[Halvar]

http://tools.ietf.org/pdf/rfc20

Please keep in mind: There are only 128 entries in the 7bit ASCII table, so some of these have more than one meaning, depending on where they are used.

Oh, I see. You're right, on a "7bit" ANSI keybord layout you can probably be a little more ad lib about this...

Look at your link in HTML form:
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc20
Ascii 0x27 looks straight there, like here ('), because it's straight in Courier New.

On 8-bit character sets like Windows-1252, ANSI or Latin-1 and even more on Unicode you have other codes for the slanted variations, and 0x27 (') becomes clearly defined as (straight) prime. In Windows-1252, you have 0x27 for prime ('), 0x92 for the apostrophe (’) and 0xb4 for the accent (´), and that's only an 8-bit set. I don't know what else Unicode has ...

Looking at modern standard fonts in the character table tool in Windows, like Arial, Times New Roman, Courier New, Tahoma, Verdana, even Comic Sans ... pretty much in every font I have on my (Windows-)Computer ASCII 39 (') is never slanted, but always straight vertical (= prime). Same for Keyboard legends ... no matter if Cherry, IBM, SGI, Dell, Logitech - they all have a straight prime at this position. Except Apple, but that's not ANSI anyway...

Sorry for offtopic.

[7bit]

Wouldn't we have had then had to pay legend fees for all of those? You should have just had them made with the small cutter so they would at least be consistent.

This sort of nonsense is one of the reasons for the Cherry Replica Legend project. We'll have full control over each one, as they are all specified as SVGs by someone who knows how to deal with SP's bizzaro custom legend imports. Hopefully, the days of Wyse are numbered.

No, the thicker cutter, please!


Nice you know someone who could have helped with the symbols ...

[rknize]

I put you in touch with him and he had agreed to help you. You didn't pursue?

[7bit]

http://tools.ietf.org/pdf/rfc20

bla bla Windows-1252, ANSI or Latin-1 and even more on Unicode you have other codes for the slanted variations, and 0x27 (') becomes clearly defined as (straight) prime. In Windows-1252, you have 0x27 for prime ('), 0x92 for the apostrophe (’) and 0xb4 for the accent (´), and that's only an 8-bit set. I don't know what else Unicode has ...
...

Your windows and keyboard arguments do not interest me.

Here is one more example:

[7bit]

I put you in touch with him and he had agreed to help you. You didn't pursue?

Who is he?

[yeeeargh]

http://tools.ietf.org/pdf/rfc20
On 8-bit character sets like Windows-1252, ANSI or Latin-1 and even more on Unicode you have other codes for the slanted variations, and 0x27 (') becomes clearly defined as (straight) prime. In Windows-1252, you have 0x27 for prime ('), 0x92 for the apostrophe (’) and 0xb4 for the accent (´), and that's only an 8-bit set. I don't know what else Unicode has ...

sorry for bringing it up again, but this is wrong. the ansi layout does only make use of 7-bit ascii signs and has every non-whitespace sign of 7-bit ascii on it.

the button left of the enter which we are talking about has a (typewriter) apostroph U+0027 and a (typewriter) quotation mark U+0022 on it. they were created as a substitute for all the different likely looking symbols like primes, quotation marks, apostrophes and what not. still (and even more so with unicode) they are seperate signs.

depending on the font they can appear slanted or straight. or like the ones in 7-bits image which look like a 9 with a filled counter. They can even appear as a whole different symbol in dingbat fonts.

one line

Code: Select all

'    typewriter apostrophe       U+0027
’    typographic apostrophe      U+2019
‘    single opening quotation    U+2018
’    single closing quotation    U+2019
′    single prime                U+2032
´    single acute                U+02DD
`    grave                       U+0060

two lines

Code: Select all

"    typewriter quotation        U+0022
“    double opening quotation    U+201C
”    double closing quotation    U+201D
″    double prime                U+2033
˝    double acute                U+02DD

and many many more

nonetheless it doesn't change anything for now so we don't need to go at each others throats. it's just a thing to consider for future groupbuys...

[Halvar]

Your windows and keyboard arguments do not interest me.

Here is one more example:

Your grossly outdated XWindows fonts from the 80's do not ... emm ... well, ok it's called the "Retro" design ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe#ASCII_encoding

This is really a discussion for another thread. Sometime later. On another forum. In a parallel universe.

Nix für ungut.

[yeeeargh]

are we really three germans argueing in bad english about typographic details?

[Halvar]

... on ANSI keyboard layouts. Exactly.

[7bit]

are we really three germans argueing in bad english about typographic details?

It is easier for me to discuss this in English with you two!

[rknize]

I put you in touch with him and he had agreed to help you. You didn't pursue?

Who is he?

At the time it was hashbaz. That was a long time ago, though. You were struggling with the SVGs for this GB at the time and I mentioned this to you. Maybe it got lost in all the other "discussions" back then.

This is where they are at right now, FWIW:
http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=283 ... #msg866040

Progress:
http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=42659

Sorry to derail.

[7bit]

Right, but he did not help me. Don't know what the reason was. Nevertheless, no reason for SP to make the lines too thin, while they are obviously capable of making them thicker.

The arrow lines in Round 3 where too thick. Now, they made them extra thin. They definitively have zero feeling for aesthetics!

The downside of the thin lines is that the text apears darker and the contrast is lower, so the legends are not so visible as they should. When ypou receive the caps, just look at their undersides to see the colors are right, just the lines are too thin which means that the dark material shines through and makes the colors of the text dark.

[rknize]

The arrow lines in Round 3 where too thick. Now, they made them extra thin. They definitively have zero feeling for aesthetics!

Can't argue that.

The downside of the thin lines is that the text apears darker and the contrast is lower, so the legends are not so visible as they should. When ypou receive the caps, just look at their undersides to see the colors are right, just the lines are too thin which means that the dark material shines through and makes the colors of the text dark.

The red-on-black "Ragnarok" set from 2012 (descended from R4 "Blood") has this same issue. Anyone used to SP legends will not be surprised by that.

[hsu]

Bought an used Filco Brown for my keycaps. The MX Blues really bother the coworkers, they complain all the time.. I though it was a joke.

[domin8r]

7bit, just wondering. Sorting will take about 3 weeks you say. Do you have an idea how low sending everything will take? I imagine that's a lot of work too.

No pressure, just wondering.

[7bit]

The RETRO style almost kills me!

there is STANDARD, STANDARD125, TENKLESS and TKL with text, text with colored modifiers, symbols and symbols with colored modifiers. Some of these have lightblue on darkgrey alnum keys and some are with forign keyboard layouts.


I will never do that madness again!


Packing the boxes (or bubble mailers) for everybody should not be so problematic. Maybe I will not do this alone.

Originally I did not intent to do the sorting alone, but it turned out that setting everything up takes the major time and a few helpers would just stand around and had nothing to do most of the time. It would be different if there where large kits with more than 100 orders.

[Zehkul]

Thin legends on the symbols? That’s a shame, I was really looking forward to them because of the lacking contrast of thin text on black. :-/ Oh well, SP …

[7bit]

I really love the thin legends. Not such a thick rough crap we see frm Cherry (now GMK) or key caps from the bad old days when they made a single key caps from material good for a complete modern G80-3800!

[7bit]

Except for some fluff, like RETRO/GAMER and RETRO/WINDOWS125/YELLOW I've done all keys with GMQ as background color.

I think I will manage the rest of RETRO over the weekend. NOIR is plain sailing, because there is only one color and only one style of modifier legends.

So the first packages could ship within the next week (first week of May).

[Chongu]

7bit, newbie here.. but I'd like to know:-
a) if there will be extra ROUND3 sets (TKL) left for sale after sorting, or
b) I'd be better off constantly checking the classifieds

Have a nice day, busy busy sir!