GMK Triumph Adler - now live on Massdrop!

[intelli78]

https://www.massdrop.com/buy/triumph-ad ... guest_open

[Ascaii]

Are there plans to offer an ISO kit?

[photekq]

Are there plans to offer an ISO kit?

There will be ISO keys included, yes. But, to keep costs low it'll be limited to just US ISO. So, you can populate an ISO board, just no language keys for DE, UK, etc. Here is what it'll look like :

[Ascaii]

Ugh, that is a real shame. Don't think I will be taking part then.

[Halvar]

Yes, the first GB from GMK that has international legends will need a genius to organize it -- I have no idea how that could ever work with a MOQ of 250 or more. The 2013 Ping Award for GMK still stands.

I'm fine with the fact that it's not happening this time, because I don't like the idea of using the yellowed teal color too much anyway. They even plan to make the lettering on the grey keys in teal, which doesn't make much sense to me.

[guk]

They even plan to make the lettering on the grey keys in teal, which doesn't make much sense to me.

That's confusing me, too. Especially since some of the TA keyboards don't show that much of yellowing at all.

[photekq]

Ugh, that is a real shame. Don't think I will be taking part then.

While it's a shame, proper language support just isn't viable with GMKs MOQ. Doesn't matter which colour scheme, doesn't matter how popular it is, it just won't work. 250 will never be reached for a language pack so long as the community stays the size it is. The only way it would happen is if lots more EU members buy the language kit, even if they're not personally interested in it, or if everyone buys multiples, or if a single person buys lots of them.

Also, this GB has a MOQ of 500 due to the custom colours. This makes it even more impossible.

[Ascaii]

Or a european vendor is contacted and is interested. Has anyone tried to reach out to Ducky, Caseking, or any other european communities?

[photekq]

Or a european vendor is contacted and is interested. Has anyone tried to reach out to Ducky, Caseking, or any other european communities?

If there were a European vendor who'd be interested in buying a few hundred sets that'd be great, and would definitely make a language kit worth considering (I'm not speaking about this particular GB, just in general). But.. I'm not so sure a large vendor would be interested in such an enthusiast-oriented thing.

[kbdfr]

I'm quite sure if TA keyboards were not that rare,
nobody would be interested in copying their, let's be honest,
rather ugly colour

I wonder, though, that our US friends expect us Europeans (and others) to help them reach the MOQ
even without offering the different caps needed for our national layouts.
If I were to start a GB for caps in Goupil design, which I hold to be one of the nicest ever,
and restrict that (as Goupil was a French company) to a French layout and ask everyone to help it happen
despite not being able to use it on their national keyboards,
I doubt there would be much interest

[Halvar]

While this is a really old discussion, the sad truth of the matter is of course that US and Asian ANSI users hardly need the help of Europeans to reach MOQ at all, while any single European language set would be hard pressed to reach even SP's MOQ of 25...

[photekq]

I'm quite sure if TA keyboards were not that rare,
nobody would be interested in copying their, let's be honest,
rather ugly colour

I quite like it

Nobody is saying 'Hey EU guys buy our keycaps even if you don't like them!'. If it were viable, the various EU layouts would be properly supported, but at the moment I don't think it is (I'll happily be proven wrong). So, instead, the most popular layout, ANSI (because of Asian and US markets), is fully supported and ISO is given support, just without language packs to keep the price down.

The choices come down to :

-Full EU layouts support. MOQ probably not reached. Everyone is sad.
-Minimal, but functional, EU layouts support. MOQ much more likely to be reached. Most people are happy.

It's worth noting that (assuming this GB hits MOQ) probably under 100 people of the 500 will use the ISO keys, and the addition of them raises the price by $5-10 for everyone else. I think it's quite kind to include them at all.

[kbdfr]

While this is a really old discussion, the sad truth of the matter is of course that US and Asian ANSI users hardly need the help of Europeans to reach MOQ at all, while any single European language set would be hard pressed to reach even SP's MOQ of 25...

I'm not sure it is that easy to reach high MOQs given the rapid succession of all those different group buys.
Not everybody wants a copy of Dolch and Olivetti and Triumph-Adler and whatnot.
Or at least not everybody is willing to pay something like 100$ for each set.
They're just replicas, after all.

[…] the most popular layout, ANSI (because of Asian and US markets), is fully supported and ISO is given support, just without language packs to keep the price down.

The choices come down to :

-Full EU layouts support. MOQ probably not reached. Everyone is sad.
-Minimal, but functional, EU layouts support. MOQ much more likely to be reached. Most people are happy.

What you call "minimal, but functional, EU layouts support" means not more than ISO Enter and short left Shift.
All other extra caps have strictly nothing to do with "EU layouts":

TA GB extras.png (119.33 KiB) Viewed 8086 times

Of course that might be OK for someone using a UK layout

[photekq]

Yeah, that's what I meant by 'minimal, but functional support'. Maybe I should have put the minimal in bold.. and in red, and with a huge font size

You can properly populate an ISO board, but you'd better be able to touchtype

Also, there is the R3 \| and R4 blank too for ISO

[Muirium]

If I were to start a GB for caps in Goupil design, which I hold to be one of the nicest ever,
and restrict that (as Goupil was a French company) to a French layout and ask everyone to help it happen
despite not being able to use it on their national keyboards,
I doubt there would be much interest

Make sure there's an ANSI Return, and an HHKB sized pair of Shifts, Delete, backslash and Fn key, and I'd be cool with that. I don't need legends to tell me where things are. I need legends to look pretty. Much more important!

(Assuming you wouldn't force Windows branded mods on us. Or a Winkeyless layout! The Windows key isn't the only thing that's missing from those. It's a Useless layout for Macs too.)

[Ascaii]

Or a european vendor is contacted and is interested. Has anyone tried to reach out to Ducky, Caseking, or any other european communities?

If there were a European vendor who'd be interested in buying a few hundred sets that'd be great, and would definitely make a language kit worth considering (I'm not speaking about this particular GB, just in general). But.. I'm not so sure a large vendor would be interested in such an enthusiast-oriented thing.

My point remains...has anyone tried to reach out or not? My money is on the regular "we don't need them" attitude with minimal effort and no outreach. Massdrop was brought up several times, but has there actually been communication with them to check if they are interested? I have been bothered by this for a while now...250 sets is not as large a number as people think it is.

Ducky Nordic has been a stable part of this community and would definitely be someone to ask. No idea if they would be interested, as they mainly offer caps made by the parent company, but it is worth a shot I would say.
Casekind has been offering Cherry keyboards and zinc enthusiast caps for a year or so, so they are definitely getting into the mech keyboard hype.

[spopepro]

I wonder, though, that our US friends expect us Europeans (and others) to help them reach the MOQ
even without offering the different caps needed for our national layouts.

OP wasn't asking anyone here to support the buy with purchases... he just wants a cap to match.

There's a reason why there's been nary a mention of this effort here on DT... international support was always going to be minimal, and it wouldn't have been proper to imply otherwise.

[kbdfr]

Well, doesn't including ISO Enter and short left Shift amount to trying to take ISO users on board?
I doubt any ANSI guy would have thought of including those caps if the MOQ wasn't quite huge.

By the way, do any ANSI variants of the original Triumph-Adler exist at all?

Spoiler:

signed: grumpy kbdfr

[photekq]

Yes, they do kbdfr. Just really, really, really rare

[intelli78]

Yes, the first GB from GMK that has international legends will need a genius to organize it -- I They even plan to make the lettering on the grey keys in teal, which doesn't make much sense to me.

FYI I'll be changing this back to the blue I initially selected--I was temporarily persuaded to use teal legends but I regret it already and don't like them either. The blue is both more interesting and truer to the original.

From the initial render:

[intelli78]

A mod may wish to retitle this to general discussion on the GB and move it, since the discussion has gone quite off topic for the WTB section.

[webwit]

Edit your original post and you can do it yourself.

[intelli78]

Edit your original post and you can do it yourself.

Great, did not realize that. Done. Can't seem to change it to an IC tag though.

[Muirium]

Selecting Group Buy in the menu near the title field inserts [GB] as non-editable text. So I dropped in an [IC] after that. Perhaps we need a new entry on the list to prevent tag overload?

—OffTopicThority.

[Cherry1990]

Interesting colours. One easy, but IMPORTANT question: GMK is a German company. Is it possible to ship these keysets from Europe to European customers, instead to ship them to US and ship back to Europe?
It is a silly question, but with the EURO that is almost like wastepaper and our *nice* EU governments who see us as dairy cows, skip the custom extortion would be nice...
In this case, and if the price will be right, I am interested.
P.S.: Is it possible to remove the Windows™ logo? A blank key would me more suitable for all systems... Or add them to stepped keycap.

[Halvar]

If GMK sends the keycaps to a EU customer, they (GMK) have to pay sales tax for it, which means they will have to add 19% to their prices. If GMK sends them to a US customer, for some reason, nobody pays any sales taxes at all. Because, you know, freedom, the sea eagle, no social system, less mafia, no Brussels officials to pay, etc.

Then, when the US customer sends the caps on to Italy, you have to pay your Italian 20% sales tax.

So while shipping is cheaper inside Europe, you don't really save a lot in tax.

On the other hand, if the caps are sent to you from the US, there might be a slim chance that customs let the packange slip through without you having to pay anything. Especially if the customs slip says that the worth is under $X.

So, it's a gamble, really, which way comes out cheaper.

[blighty]

If there is EU interest in this set, despite the limited ISO support, a US proxy might be in order to have that person undervalue the cost of the packages. Since this is planned to go through Massdrop, I rather doubt they'd undervalue your purchase. I'd offer to help, but I have to find a proxy myself (Massdrop had issues shipping to my PO box, then blamed me for it...). Or fuck it, I have enough caps, or would if R5 ever ships. LOL

[Halvar]

Oh, ok, I didn't realise this was going though Massdrop. In that case, Cherry1990 is of course right... Pretty much everything is better for European customers than going through Massdrop.

[intelli78]

FYI, latest discussion is on reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyb ... confidence

I'm really sorry we couldn't include more language support, but with GMK prices and MOQ it's just not economically possible. The ISO keys are already a big concession since 90% of buyers won't have any use for them and are just subsidizing them for the minority.

[intelli78]

This buy is now live! Comes with U.S. ISO keys.

https://www.massdrop.com/buy/triumph-ad ... guest_open