Designing the next Topre keycap set

[Muirium]

Don't forget to ask for two-colour legends, for the mods and numpad in particular. And about the 87U's front printed numpad legends. The fullsize guys can just live with that, surely! Front printed legends are nice even if they are superfluous on larger boards.

I'd be horrified if they force domed keys on us. But that windowed Control is a nice throwback the Realforce still has with its configurable Caps Lock location. No harm in supporting that.

[cswanic]

So I just got my 55G RealForce 87U in the mail today. Wow, these keys are like butter to type on compared to this back door banging sound on the Novatouch ripoff. Yes, please I would die for some honey. I tried to hold it back but I.. I.. just can't. The red white blue dark gray is super cool. The legends would come out super clean and crisp on that bright white honey and gray with a hint of red. That's all, carry on...

[rsbseb]

This is awesome Matt, I'm sure you wont disappoint...

[romevi]

Been trying to follow this thread closely, so hopefully this hasn't been asked as I'm bringing it up now, but if it has please feel free to redirect me to the answer.

Since the mockups show that the set will be for the full keyboard layout instead of the TKL versions like 87U, does that mean that they won't work with the external 23U numpads?

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Or will separate keys be offered for those input devices?

Cheers!

[matt3o]

as far as I understand the set will be for full size RF (hence TLK will work too) only. No extras. But I will try to push for as many options as possible.

[cookie]

I am glad you are in charge with this, all the caps you've organized in the past were awesome!

The last one is fantastic and I like that the esc and enter key are red, I'd like to see something on the gray/pink (which are my favorites! )

I had some Ideas I'd like to share:

[Muirium]

I can feel the battle ahead, between the rainbow unicorn brigade and the boring fart corps… my allegiance is clear. Elegance all the way. Red, not pink. White, not grey. Etc. etc. grumble.

General rule of thumb: I prefer sets that work on the white Realforces too. Higher legend contrast, subtler colour pairings, with light alphas in particular but also deeper mods. Dark alphas look like shit on a white board. Which reduces their appeal to plenty of Topre owners besides just me. While light sets work just as well on black. (If I had another Realforce it would be a black body with white caps.)

Got the sense we're limited to a single set? If so, the fight will get slappy!

[cookie]

I like the idea to do something that hasn't been done before. It would be a missed opurtunity if we end up with a set that looks like a stock one. "Rainbow unicron brigade" gave me a good laugh though

I personally prefere elegance and simplicity too, thats why I like blanks so much. But when I see pink caps, I am totally losing it and feel the urge to ride on my Nyan-Cat though the galaxy and shoot gray planets with a Confetti-Bazooka!

[Muirium]

Uh…

Anywho, bear in mind that many things may have been done before. But elsewhere! And usually poorly. For instance, as much as I love Round 5, I know for a fact that Matteo can make legends that are far ahead of SP's doubleshot legend style. There will be SHIFT keys! Indeed, the mods will be better than anything Topre makes now.

Being afraid of what's come before — even when NONE of it can bloody well fit on a Realforce — is no way to kick off a great design. Be inspired by the past and present. Then improve it!

Granite was a tour de force. If we can make something as great as that, we must seize it.

[cswanic]

Bright clear alphas with an excellent contrast is just amazing.
Sharp colors
OR (later)
A color scheme to purpose the PBT spacebars

Oh by the way, Matt3o, could you please pass the honey...

[Hypersphere]

Another vote for a classic design. It is fine to build on something that has been done before. Keep in mind that Topre is no longer making replacement key cap sets. What has gone before is gone.

Somewhat related to this, I notice that KBP has started taking advance orders for new key cap sets for Matias/Alps-mount keyboards. Their new sets are a revival of Dolch and Olivetti. They know what will sell well.

[romevi]

Another vote for a classic design. It is fine to build on something that has been done before. Keep in mind that Topre is no longer making replacement key cap sets. What has gone before is gone.

Somewhat related to this, I notice that KBP has started taking advance orders for new key cap sets for Matias/Alps-mount keyboards. Their new sets are a revival of Dolch and Olivetti. They know what will sell well.

KBP are offering the sets which were offered through Massdrop a couple of weeks ago.

[Hypersphere]

Another vote for a classic design. It is fine to build on something that has been done before. Keep in mind that Topre is no longer making replacement key cap sets. What has gone before is gone.

Somewhat related to this, I notice that KBP has started taking advance orders for new key cap sets for Matias/Alps-mount keyboards. Their new sets are a revival of Dolch and Olivetti. They know what will sell well.

KBP are offering the sets which were offered through Massdrop a couple of weeks ago.

Yes, indeed, and for this venture they have chosen to base their sets on two classic designs that are well recognized and widely appreciated: Dolch and Olivetti.

[cookie]

Topre does not making caps anymore?
Need to start hording caps imediately!

[Hypersphere]

Topre does not making caps anymore?
Need to start hording caps imediately!

Too late!

[Jmneuv]

Very interesting endeavours you're getting into matteo.
Since ..some day.. i'll be buying a realforce too: any chance to forfeit those padlock icons? They look so old windows cheap.. the dashed arrow i.e. from granite i find much stronger.

[cookie]

You are right, I can barely find any keycaps for a Realfoce board, HHKB is available though. I should start hording those.
Paying such premium price for a keyboard without the posibility to replace caps is a dealbreaker in my opinion.

The switch can be as premium and nice as possible but shiny caps will ruin the typing expirience totally
Thankfully realforce comes with one of the highest quality caps which will last good years befor starting to shine.

[Muirium]

Except the stock ABS spacebar. You need to fix that, Cookie!

the dashed arrow i.e. from granite i find much stronger.

Entirely agreed. Granite's icon mods are absolutely amazing. I'd like to see what they look like with Helvetica alphas.

I'm guessing we can only choose one set in the end? Matteo's Topre text mods are strong and would go very nicely with existing Realforce caps… tough decision!

[cookie]

Jeah that ABS Spacebar is a bummer

[Muirium]

Did you miss Matteo's PBT replacements during your DT holiday? Or are you still waiting on MassDrop?

They're sweet!

[seebart]

Yeah I believe Matteo still has some of his tasty PBT's, the color is not 100% yet but good enough for me.

[Muirium]

The white ones are just as close as Topre's own slightly-off ABS spacebars. The black ones are meant to be less accurate. I've got one, but no keyboard to match it against. It's just in case…

[seebart]

I got a black and a grey one. Both fit like a charm. I'd say the color match on the black one is approximately 80-85%.

[002]

The black ones are meant to be less accurate.

Oh? Do you mean the black ones are actually off a bit on purpose or just that you hear that they are? They definitely are a bit off.

[cookie]

Did you miss Matteo's PBT replacements during your DT holiday? Or are you still waiting on MassDrop?

They're sweet!

Thankfully I didn't! Ordered all kind of sets right away!

[Muirium]

Who's fulfilling them though? I managed to dodge the process by going to Matteo directly and testing samples instead. I don't know the timeframe of the main buy, or indeed if anyone's doing outside of MassDrop.


@002: Ah, a silly Britischerism on my part. "Meant" means "not meant" in this case! It's just one of our many euphemisms for "word has it" here. What a delightfully global language…

Seeing as you're here 002, got any tips about the troublesome left Control key on a Realforce? I had my 87U open the other night to install some Hyper rings, which work very well, but I think I put that slider back in wrong, as the key doesn't lie flat like the rest. There is no ring in there as it plain doesn't fit thanks to that switch's oddball construction. But I only discovered that after opening it up first. Did I perhaps put the slider back in 180º off or something?

[Khers]

Saw on GH yesterday that Matt3o was finally satisfied with the colour matching and gave the go ahead for mass production. Don't know what delivery time fram that implies though, but can't be many weeks of now!

[002]

@Mu:
Gotcha regarding "meant". People use it in that way here too but I've just never actually seen it written out and didn't realise it was common outside of our colourful interpretation of the English language here. It reminds me of another strange Aussie habit of opening with "Yeah-nah" which means "no" for some reason. I guess the 'yeah' being the acknowledgement that you understood what the other person was asking and then the 'nah' to answer the actual question...

As for the control...I know that key is dodgy because they had to squeeze the LED in the top-left instead of the top-right which is the norm for Topre so there is some weird slider and/or housing that they use to get that to work on the 87U? Are you able to illustrate the issue with a photo perhaps?

[Hypersphere]

<snip>
Seeing as you're here 002, got any tips about the troublesome left Control key on a Realforce? I had my 87U open the other night to install some Hyper rings, which work very well, but I think I put that slider back in wrong, as the key doesn't lie flat like the rest. There is no ring in there as it plain doesn't fit thanks to that switch's oddball construction. But I only discovered that after opening it up first. Did I perhaps put the slider back in 180º off or something?

I have my RF87uw55 "Storm Trooper" open at the moment, waiting for two conical springs and my Silencing Rings. I can see that the Left Ctrl slider is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise relative to the adjacent sliders (as viewed from the bottom of the sliders -- i.e., with the keyboard inverted). It would be quite possible to install it incorrectly if you were trying to have all the sliders aligned in the same way. Despite this difference, it appears that it ought to take a Silencing Ring with no problem, although I have yet to do this in a RF.

[Muirium]

Okay, this is what I've got:

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Note the rotation of the key. It looks and feels a bit more skewed than that in practice. Not nearly so noticeable however until the cap is on:

IMG_0307.JPG (612.59 KiB) Viewed 4831 times

Reckon I've put the slider in wrong?

IMG_0311.JPG (789.13 KiB) Viewed 4831 times

I didn't remove the switch housing. But when I pulled the slider out (or did it fall? I remember one slider fell on out when I opened up the board) and put a ring on it, I couldn't make it move freely in its shell. Something was too tight. So I took the ring off and popped it back.

That housing isn't nearly as tight and full bodied as the others, when seen from inside. It looked quite a different design from its peers. Lots of open space. I wasn't too sure what I was doing with it! The slider itself is just the same though. I'll point out this is quite a new Realforce, though unlike the HHKB I don't see the production date right on the label.