German company GMK does MX 2shots

[mintberryminuscrunch]

...with these colors:

so the first will be weed coloured caps
way to make a good impression

[kwago]

as a designer, I LOVE the idea of a CMYK set. Did cherry ever make Apple legends?

[IvanIvanovich]

Apple legends I have never seen on Cherry. Apple was primarily all Alps until they switched to domes/scissor/chiclet. If there ever was such a thing most likely it would have been pad print or maybe dyesub.

[kbdfr]

Since full sets are a ways off since GMK can't fit any large orders like that into their production schedule until spring, we will be going ahead with some smaller modifier packs and a few single keys. Currently we are looking into running some things with these colors:


CMYK set since RGB has been done to death, and the other colors brown, green, and purple with white legend or vice versa for modifier pack which will consist of esc, tab, caps lock, shifts, ctrls, alts, wins, menu, enter, backspace. Mod packs will include ISO and ANSI options, both stepped and fulltouch caps lock and 1.5, 1.25 and 1x for bottom row.

OK, I admit I counterfeited your post, the above is not the pic you had posted

I sure hope in the not too distant future there will be such sets in just plain vintage black on beige.

[kwago]

anyone know if they can do doubleshots of a brown keycap w/ light blue legend?

[7bit]

Nice color samples you have!

[dirge]

[Grond]

It's true that RGB kits have been done many times. I would not mind a new one perfectly matching the original cherrys though. Since hashbaz's rgb, the legends have been pretty accurate. However Signature plastics profile and matte will never be exactly like Cherry's.

[BimboBB]

Lysol, what about the original beige/white modifiers? Did you heard something from the retailers? Are they doing them already and thats why you want to go with these rainbow colors?

Have nothing against colored options, but would prefer first having a few vintage sets to be completed before going crazy with the rainbow.

[domin8r]

I'd prefer a colored modifier set. Cherry 1.5x modifiers are easy to get in beige, but other colors (even black) are a pain.

[BimboBB]

yes, but lots of modern boards use 1.25 modifier which are close to impossible to find from cherry boards. And not forgetting about a spacebar which finally would match in terms of colors.

[TDub]

I can already feel my wallet getting lighter.....

[IvanIvanovich]

Any colorway is possible, but whether enough people would like a particular combination to make it cost effective is another matter. These colors are merely some ideas, and nothing is set in stone. We just picked some things so we could get a qoute. Different colors shouldn't effect the price very much if at all, but we just want to get a rough idea of what we will be getting into. We will be polling for some other choices and will go with the most popular.
Surely RGB will be available sooner or later. I just thought it would be interesting to do something else that hasn't been done before.
This first buy will just be some smaller packs of modifiers and such to supplement vintage sets. Later when it's time to do full sets, we are likely to do classics and maybe one colorful option like red/white. If things are successful we can go into other colorways later.
As far as retail goes, I am not really sure what they will be doing. They have made it quite clear that they will not let us know anything, and won't co-operate in any way what so ever. They seemed to be quite upset about the idea of us doing our own thing instead of rely on them for all our keycap needs. They seem to have no real interest in helping benefit the community and even went so far as to try and persuade us from not pursuing groupbuys.

[dirge]

Well they should be more clear on retail, if they are going to accommodate what we want and at a reasonable price then everyone can just hit "buy it now" on their website and be done with it. No need for months of planning on your side.

doubt it's ever going to be that easy....

[inlikeflynn]

does retail mean just EK or is there additional retailers you speak of?

[RC-1140]

dirge: yup, I didn't really get that part either. Also I don't quite agree on the color options. But if there was a C64 lookalike set once for 122-Key Keyboards I would so buy this, no matter how complicated it would be to order. Except when I have to order from 7bit. 7bit-groupbuys tend to bubble…

[IvanIvanovich]

There will be some other entities in the game. I'm not going to name names and be vindictive though. While as I said they would not let us know thier plans, it did sound like they were not likely to offer any ISO options or other than US layouts. So we will have a different focus anyway. Also I'm not really sure about how much selection there would ever be on full sets at retail. It's a lot of upfront cost and risk and a wrong move could easily prove a disaster financially. It's a lot easier to attempt riskier colorways and options in a groupbuy as it becomes clear quite quickly what people will and will not buy. Also as I have said before (maybe elsewhere) retail prices are still likely to be higher than groupbuy prices. Even though they may be able to buy more upfront if they have the capital for a lower price, they are likely to add back a considerable mark up since they are obviously interested in making profits as a buisiness.
Groupbuy is not a buisiness, its for the love of it.

[GMC]

I vote GB for whatever the retailers have ordered to start as soon as they advertise and we only buy if we don't have enough volume to match their price
Seriously though, they should see this as a way to reduce risk, not be negative about community activity.

[dirge]

GMC hard to say what happened first mind. I mean the red cherry escapes are already made and they were.... maybe top of the list of custom work that would be requested. But no foul intentions were ever there as we had no idea until lysol found the company.

I'm very happy with lysol taking the lead, and prepared to wait as long as needed. The retailers will do ansi, geekhackers will buy em and rest of us will make do and mend

[BimboBB]

I vote GB for whatever the retailers have ordered to start as soon as they advertise and we only buy if we don't have enough volume to match their price
Seriously though, they should see this as a way to reduce risk, not be negative about community activity.

I am fully with you. However the problem will be that these retailers will have the sets "ready to ship" and we would have to wait at least 3 months in best case. So future scenario will be, that retailers offering the ANSI stuff and ISO people would have to organize a GB for a few keys to match up that sets.

[HzFaq]

Groupbuy is not a buisiness, its for the love of it.

This is the best thing I've heard for a long time, so glad someone like you is taking charge mate, especially on something as epic as this. If you need any help from the UK with anything, let me know.

I'm also happy to sit back and wait and see what comes from the retailers before organizing any kind of GB (although I would love some Cherry ISO/1.25 RGB kits, just sayin' ).

[Soarer]

Chill guys!

It's pretty obvious that 'retail' will go for the perennials: Escapes, ANSI RGB mods, coloured WASD and maybe some cursors.

And TBH, those are the few things that really suit retail, since there's a fairly constant demand for them. So I don't think there will be much clash anyway, apart from the RGB mods, where I think it would have to have all the options in the group buy to differentiate it.

[IvanIvanovich]

Exactly, which is why some may have notice that I have been sort of brushing some things off. I want to sort of try and stay out of each others way unless they are really gouging I won't offer the same items in competition. I expect to have some rough pricing info tomorrow on the modifer kits, and once I complete a detailed list of all the different unique keys we will submit the QWERTZ language group as a sample for pricing estimate on the type of full sets we have planned. Then we will have plenty of time to discuss those options for full sets once we know what we are getting into cost and quantity wise.

[7bit]

Please ask for prices of 25, 50, 75 and 100 sets.

Also single prices for space bars, different return keys, stepped and unstepped Caps, LED keys of various sizes, 1.5 units modifiers etc.

[IvanIvanovich]

I'm pretty sure we will be starting above 100. They aren't SP.
Mod pack will have:
key | size | qty
tab 1.5 qty 1
caps lock stepped 1.75 qty 1
caps lock full touch 1.75 qty 1
shift 1.25 qty 1
shift 1.75 qty 1
shift 2.25 qty 1
shift 2.75 qty 1
ctrl 1.25 qty 2
ctrl 1.5 qty 2
alt 1.25 qty 2
alt 1.5 qty 2
win 1.25 qty 2
win 1x qty 2
menu 1.25 qty 1
menu 1x qty 1
ANSI enter 2.25 qty 1
ISO enter qty 1
backspace 2x qty 1
Fn (TBD)

CMYK set will have all the same sizes for the shift, ctrl and alt keys listed above, but only those keys.
Also looking into space bars which will be offered seperate if so on this first round, and will investigate clear first shot and windowed keys for next time for a lock key pack.

[GMC]

Wonder if they can do centre stepped shift keys?
Probably annoying to use if your habits aren't key centred, but they look cool

[GMC]

Wonder if they can do centre stepped shift keys?
Probably annoying to use if your habits aren't key centred, but they look cool

[guilleguillaume]

Lysol that mod pack sounds good since it contains every modifier someone should need.

[Soarer]

Almost great for -1800 as well, but would need a couple more single width keys...

Code: Select all

key | size | qty
ctrl   1      2
alt    1      2

[IvanIvanovich]

No, the good 1800 have 1.5 :p. Yes you are correct. If there is enough 1800/11900/? owners that need those 1x keys we can see about include them too. I was mostly thinking in terms of the most common mass production and kit boards.

__/---\__ those kind of 'plateau' key? Maybe they can, but I somehow don't think interest would be very high for them.