What happened to the Mini-M?

[JCMax]

I was browsing on Unicomp's website and I was thinking about getting the Mini-M. And now it is not posted anywhere on their site!

What happened?! Can anybody explain what in the name of Sam Hill is going on? Is something up at Unicomp?

[CoolPenguin1]

A quote from the homepage of their website

"As many of you have noticed, last week we had to suddenly withdraw availability of the Mini M. Unfortunately, as with a large number of companies that use electronics, our supply of processors used with the Mini M has not been available for two years. We finally ran out. We have had two aborted efforts at redesigning the controller card for the Mini M. In both cases, the processors we choose became unavailable. We have a third design underway that uses a processor we believe will have ongoing availability. However, we are still weeks away from having a functional controller card. Rest assured, The Mini M will be back but it's going to take a little while.

While we don't yet have an estimated date for renewed availability of the the Mini M, we're hopeful it will be within the next couple of months. When we have a better estimate we'll post an update. Thank you to all our customers for your patronage."

[Yasu0]

Good to know it will be back!

[wobbled]

Time to get it listed on ebay for 10x the price!

[Muirium]

LAST EVA—FINAL CHANSE!—2 GET UR HANDS ON MYTHICAL I**B**M __MODEL M___ KING OF KEYBAORDS OFFISHUL BEST MECH EVER IN IMPOSSIBLE TENKEY FORMAT. NEVER B4 NVR AGANE! HAPPY BIDDING GUYS. U WANT IT SO BADD! CLICKY RARE NOS NIB SEO VIAGRA C1ALIS

[Seirin-Blu]

LAST EVA—FINAL CHANSE!—2 GET UR HANDS ON MYTHICAL I**B**M __MODEL M___ KING OF KEYBAORDS OFFISHUL BEST MECH EVER IN IMPOSSIBLE TENKEY FORMAT. NEVER B4 NVR AGANE! HAPPY BIDDING GUYS. U WANT IT SO BADD! CLICKY RARE NOS NIB SEO VIAGRA C1ALIS

My lord dude. Was this really necessary?

[hellothere]

Yes. And someone needs to take the user name "My Lord Dude."

[Muirium]

Near miss.

[hellothere]

.

[My Lord Dude]

Yes. And someone needs to take the user name "My Lord Dude."

I got you bro

[hellothere]

I really should watch The Big Lebowski.

[Muirium]

Once you do, this clip ascends to true excellence.

Spoiler:

[D W]

Yes. And someone needs to take the user name "My Lord Dude."

I got you bro

AWESOME!!

[fohat]

this clip

I have never heard that astonishing bit of language censorship/cleanup.

[apastuszak]

I think this would be a good opportunity for Unicomp to design a new board that works with QMK and is flashable.

How much money did Unicomp waste mailing Mini-Ms back and forth to fix the issues that it had with some keys not working? I know I sent mine back to them 3 times. Having the ability to flash the firmware would have saved them a ton of money.

[stormcrash]

I think this would be a good opportunity for Unicomp to design a new board that works with QMK and is flashable.

How much money did Unicomp waste mailing Mini-Ms back and forth to fix the issues that it had with some keys not working? I know I sent mine back to them 3 times. Having the ability to flash the firmware would have saved them a ton of money.

Probably zero since the goal of finding the new chip is to use the same software as much as possible. Besides I thought the problem turned out to be a design defect in the controller board not the firmware that was causing the Q issues in the end

[LambdaCore]

The dream would be a complete revamp of their stock alongside a new Mini-M, but of course that probably won't happen. A girl can dream though...

[apastuszak]

I think this would be a good opportunity for Unicomp to design a new board that works with QMK and is flashable.

How much money did Unicomp waste mailing Mini-Ms back and forth to fix the issues that it had with some keys not working? I know I sent mine back to them 3 times. Having the ability to flash the firmware would have saved them a ton of money.

Probably zero since the goal of finding the new chip is to use the same software as much as possible. Besides I thought the problem turned out to be a design defect in the controller board not the firmware that was causing the Q issues in the end

I believe it was both. Some keyboards got a firmware update, and that fixed the issue. It did not fix it for me. They offered me a second firmware update, but could not guarantee it would fix the issue. I told them to hold off until they had a permanent fix, to avoid all these shipping charges. When the controller board fix came out, then I sent it back.

But now Unicomp is switching processors. I think it may save them some headache and costs if these new controller boards could be flashed by end-users. That way if there a firmware bug with these new controller boards, they don't need to mail boards back and forth.