Apparently MechanicalKeyboards.com carry TeX cases as well. The linked one is exactly the one I have. I like it a lot - it's heavy enough for the keyboard to be stable (especially with a metal plate), but not too heavy. And I like the looks. The alu cases of this type (CNC'd) are a bit overpriced in my opinion.
EDIT: I also have this cast one. I found it good for plate-less keyboards, or at most with an alu plate; with a steel plate it was too heavy for my taste.
Alps Party 60%
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flabbergast
- Location: Southampton, UK
- DT Pro Member: 0120
- Contact:
I'm just not aware of anything (plastic) between the Chinese/poker-like plastics for $15 and this TeX one. And I don't like the looks and feel of the $15 plastics. Also I'm sure it's the case (pun intended) of "I've already put $200 into this bloody keyboard, so what's $50 more" 
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Muirium
- µ
- Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
- Main keyboard: HHKB Type-S with Bluetooth by Hasu
- Main mouse: Apple Magic Mouse
- Favorite switch: Gotta Try 'Em All
- DT Pro Member: µ
Perhaps, perhaps. Once you make enough of a habit of that, though, you wake up to discover that you can't make too much of a habit of that! I reached that point a while ago…
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BlueNalgene
- Location: United States
- Main keyboard: KUL-87, clears, 1976 set
- Main mouse: some MS abomination
- Favorite switch: none
- DT Pro Member: -
And now it is time for me to do my little reveal.
My GB has been built upon some lies.
It was never about the Alps, and it was never about me.
So why did I do it?
...to make the best Christmas present ever.
So here is how the con went down. It was the middle of August when I was trying to stay on top of the game. I was racking my brain, trying to figure out a great Christmas gift idea for the girlfriend. You see, last year she got me a Tom Baker scarf. Never heard of it? There is a whole website dedicated to researching the colors and lengths used to replicate this iconic bit of knit extravagance. And she didn't just go on Etsy and pay a few hundred $$$ for some subpar knockoff. No, she hand-knit the entire thing. She had secretly knit every day for months on the bus, between work, at home, this 18 foot monstrosity. It was genius. I refused to be outdone.
So I decided to give her this gift.
In the middle of August, I put feelers out to a few select individuals about making this happen. The next day, the IC was up. After a month of dickering over the details, the GB went live on Sept. 23rd. At the end of that month, I realized I would need stabilizers to complete my goal, so I started a SECOND IC/GB to raise interest. By the 5th of October, I was shutting down the entries. I had a deadline to make, and I didn't have time to let stragglers hold me back. I started the ordering process before I had all of the invoices paid, risking my own cash to front the bill and keep things moving full steam. Things started rolling in during the last half of November. By December, I didn't have any room left in my living room. I spent hours getting everything sorted and taken care of before finally building my boards.
Some folks politely suggested when I first started running this that I was overstepping my bounds by making a catch-all GB for first time. I quietly assured them that I was competent, not revealing my true motives. I had to get all of the parts built for my boards by December. I couldn't wait for someone else to run a plate buy while someone else ran the PCB buy, leaving me hoping that everything turned out ok. I had to take fate into my own hands. I had to be the collected resource.
I spent a lot of time doing the extracurricular projects for this GB. I made cute little photoshopped headers to advertise the sale. I sculpted and produced a limited run of caps from scratch so people could get excited about a little contest to encourage them to participate. I made sure to answer as many questions as possible as soon as possible, so much that my advisor started getting frustrated by the time I was spending on this, rather than my research. I had to have the support of the participants. I needed to draw you in.
The girlfriend knew I was working on this. I couldn't hide it from her. I was spending hours of my time making sure everything went smoothly. But she never knew. I placated her with lies about how I was doing this for selfish keyboard greed. I told her about every move I made save the most critical ones. She never saw it coming. I told her I was making the board blue because it was related to my screenname, not that I made them blue because it is her favorite color. I got a little Cherry switch tester early on and had her tell me about which switch she liked most. I used that information to choose to make an Alps board. She didn't know that they were a thing, and she didn't know that she was describing qualities about the switches she liked which happened to match the Alps peculiarities.
I took more time than I expected when etching the cases. Each hand scrawled engraving needed to have something personal to connect each board, his and hers, to each other. A half-heart outlined as yin on one side; a half-heart shaded in as yang on the other. Names. A cat snuggling a tufted titmouse, myself and my ornithologist respectively. Little symbols that have meaning only to us. For her I doodled and practiced to get them just the way I wanted.
The reveal to her when she unwrapped it was worth it all. The box contained her keyboard, but not her gift.
"The keyboard wasn't her gift?", you ask yourself.
No.
Like Helen of Troy, her gift was something more than a golden apple trinket.
I raised an army for her.
So there you have it. My big reveal. All of you were pawns in my game all along. I can look back and say this now, because I took pains to make sure the only thing I gained from this was the support of my minions. I took no profit. I took no easy path. I hope no one feels too betrayed by this. I may not be the Alps crusader you assumed or the GB messiah I strove to be, but I still hope you enjoyed the ride.
I'm typing on my half of the whole now. I really do like it. I get a special sort of joy every time I use it. I have even been writing more because I enjoy the board so much.
To all of you, thanks for helping me achieve my goal.
And any time somebody gives you shit for a nerdy hobby, you can look to this answer to the age old question: can keyboards get you laid?
My GB has been built upon some lies.
It was never about the Alps, and it was never about me.
So why did I do it?
...to make the best Christmas present ever.
So here is how the con went down. It was the middle of August when I was trying to stay on top of the game. I was racking my brain, trying to figure out a great Christmas gift idea for the girlfriend. You see, last year she got me a Tom Baker scarf. Never heard of it? There is a whole website dedicated to researching the colors and lengths used to replicate this iconic bit of knit extravagance. And she didn't just go on Etsy and pay a few hundred $$$ for some subpar knockoff. No, she hand-knit the entire thing. She had secretly knit every day for months on the bus, between work, at home, this 18 foot monstrosity. It was genius. I refused to be outdone.
So I decided to give her this gift.
In the middle of August, I put feelers out to a few select individuals about making this happen. The next day, the IC was up. After a month of dickering over the details, the GB went live on Sept. 23rd. At the end of that month, I realized I would need stabilizers to complete my goal, so I started a SECOND IC/GB to raise interest. By the 5th of October, I was shutting down the entries. I had a deadline to make, and I didn't have time to let stragglers hold me back. I started the ordering process before I had all of the invoices paid, risking my own cash to front the bill and keep things moving full steam. Things started rolling in during the last half of November. By December, I didn't have any room left in my living room. I spent hours getting everything sorted and taken care of before finally building my boards.
Some folks politely suggested when I first started running this that I was overstepping my bounds by making a catch-all GB for first time. I quietly assured them that I was competent, not revealing my true motives. I had to get all of the parts built for my boards by December. I couldn't wait for someone else to run a plate buy while someone else ran the PCB buy, leaving me hoping that everything turned out ok. I had to take fate into my own hands. I had to be the collected resource.
I spent a lot of time doing the extracurricular projects for this GB. I made cute little photoshopped headers to advertise the sale. I sculpted and produced a limited run of caps from scratch so people could get excited about a little contest to encourage them to participate. I made sure to answer as many questions as possible as soon as possible, so much that my advisor started getting frustrated by the time I was spending on this, rather than my research. I had to have the support of the participants. I needed to draw you in.
The girlfriend knew I was working on this. I couldn't hide it from her. I was spending hours of my time making sure everything went smoothly. But she never knew. I placated her with lies about how I was doing this for selfish keyboard greed. I told her about every move I made save the most critical ones. She never saw it coming. I told her I was making the board blue because it was related to my screenname, not that I made them blue because it is her favorite color. I got a little Cherry switch tester early on and had her tell me about which switch she liked most. I used that information to choose to make an Alps board. She didn't know that they were a thing, and she didn't know that she was describing qualities about the switches she liked which happened to match the Alps peculiarities.
I took more time than I expected when etching the cases. Each hand scrawled engraving needed to have something personal to connect each board, his and hers, to each other. A half-heart outlined as yin on one side; a half-heart shaded in as yang on the other. Names. A cat snuggling a tufted titmouse, myself and my ornithologist respectively. Little symbols that have meaning only to us. For her I doodled and practiced to get them just the way I wanted.
The reveal to her when she unwrapped it was worth it all. The box contained her keyboard, but not her gift.
"The keyboard wasn't her gift?", you ask yourself.
No.
Like Helen of Troy, her gift was something more than a golden apple trinket.
I raised an army for her.
So there you have it. My big reveal. All of you were pawns in my game all along. I can look back and say this now, because I took pains to make sure the only thing I gained from this was the support of my minions. I took no profit. I took no easy path. I hope no one feels too betrayed by this. I may not be the Alps crusader you assumed or the GB messiah I strove to be, but I still hope you enjoyed the ride.
I'm typing on my half of the whole now. I really do like it. I get a special sort of joy every time I use it. I have even been writing more because I enjoy the board so much.
To all of you, thanks for helping me achieve my goal.
And any time somebody gives you shit for a nerdy hobby, you can look to this answer to the age old question: can keyboards get you laid?
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seaworthy
- Location: Utah
- Main keyboard: White Fox / Zealio
- Main mouse: CST trackball / MX Master 2S
- Favorite switch: Alps / Topre / Zealio
- DT Pro Member: -
Great story and motivation. Congratulations on all your hard work and the nice surprise.
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” Victor Frankl
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” Victor Frankl
.
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Redmaus
- Gotta start somewhere
- Location: Near Dallas, Texas
- Main keyboard: Unsaver | 3276 | Kingsaver
- Main mouse: Kensington Slimblade
- Favorite switch: Capacitative Buckling Spring
- DT Pro Member: -
- Contact:
I'll even join a GB if we go another round. I wanna put these apple PBT caps to use.
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Scarpia
- Location: Sweden
- Main keyboard: F77 / Alps SKCM Brown TKL
- Main mouse: Logitech MX Anywhere 2
- Favorite switch: Capacitive BS, Alps SKCM Brown
- DT Pro Member: 0223
So if my math is right, we just need another 19 people to reach the MOQ of 25 (assuming this GB could negotiate the same deals BlueNalgene got on the first one)
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Abstractions
- Location: United States
- Main keyboard: Model M
- Favorite switch: Blue Alps
- DT Pro Member: -
Count me in aswell!
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BlueNalgene
- Location: United States
- Main keyboard: KUL-87, clears, 1976 set
- Main mouse: some MS abomination
- Favorite switch: none
- DT Pro Member: -
Hey all. I like that people are still interested in seeing more of this project. However, I don't know if I am going to do a round 2. This was a big undertaking for a specific goal (the xmas present).
But, that doesn't mean someone else can't take the helm. All of the things from this GB were made by other folks first, I just put everything together at once for this one.
I have asked Hasu if he still has his google docs form. If so, I will post a link here. That form lets him keep track of the number of people wanting to get in on the next round of PCBs he prints. He sends out an email to everyone who signed that list when it is time for a new round, and one was sent out to folks when I started the Alps Party 60% buy.
If you are just wanting another super well run GB from lovable old BlueNalgene, I think I might have something else in mind. For the next Alps Party, I might go with something different than a 60% board, such as a TK pad or TKL board. I'm in the middle of getting my PhD, so finding time to organize these things takes planning on it's own. Stay tuned here, and if I get something ready to go, I will post here.
But, that doesn't mean someone else can't take the helm. All of the things from this GB were made by other folks first, I just put everything together at once for this one.
I have asked Hasu if he still has his google docs form. If so, I will post a link here. That form lets him keep track of the number of people wanting to get in on the next round of PCBs he prints. He sends out an email to everyone who signed that list when it is time for a new round, and one was sent out to folks when I started the Alps Party 60% buy.
If you are just wanting another super well run GB from lovable old BlueNalgene, I think I might have something else in mind. For the next Alps Party, I might go with something different than a 60% board, such as a TK pad or TKL board. I'm in the middle of getting my PhD, so finding time to organize these things takes planning on it's own. Stay tuned here, and if I get something ready to go, I will post here.
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Redmaus
- Gotta start somewhere
- Location: Near Dallas, Texas
- Main keyboard: Unsaver | 3276 | Kingsaver
- Main mouse: Kensington Slimblade
- Favorite switch: Capacitative Buckling Spring
- DT Pro Member: -
- Contact:
Yes, please!BlueNalgene wrote: ↑ such as a TK pad or TKL board.
TKL would be great!
I still don't have any 60% boards so it would be nice to have it either way.
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vivalarevolución
- formerly prdlm2009
- Location: USA
- Main keyboard: IBM Beam spring
- Main mouse: Kangaroo
- Favorite switch: beam spring
- DT Pro Member: 0097
I know the PCB files are available, so anybody can use those if they want. But what about the plates?
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BlueNalgene
- Location: United States
- Main keyboard: KUL-87, clears, 1976 set
- Main mouse: some MS abomination
- Favorite switch: none
- DT Pro Member: -
The plates were designed by JDCarpe mostly. I modified one or two and he has those versions as well. They can be obtained by asking him. He seems to be cool with people doing individual ones or non-profit GB's, but he doesn't want the files just posted willy-nilly so some unscrupulous person could mass produce based on his work.
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emdude
- Model M Apologist
- DT Pro Member: 0160
Just to let everyone know, hasu has a new round for PCBs going now! 
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=69 ... msg2150471
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=69 ... msg2150471