Thanks! The old Wyse boards had either triangle or regular arrows, and it seems pretty random even within the same model which arrows a board would wind up with. I prefer the regular arrows myself, even though the triangles are more visible with the yellow - that’s why I went that way for the renders.
I really prefer the diamond OS mods myself, because they’re neutral. I used “Super” on the SA renders, but might make them diamonds as well to match. The runner of the 2020 attempt at a Wyse set seemed to think not having vintage Windows logo keys hurt it, but I think it was more a case of buyers needing to bring their own vintage Wyse caps, since his set only included the necessary keys to fit them to modern layouts.
Speaking of which, I made an attempt to reach out to him, but haven’t heard back. He doesn’t seem to have had a social media presence in years, so I think it’s safe to proceed regardless; it’s unlikely he’s about to try again himself.
I need to see if I can get Keyboard Render Kit to make a BAE key; that might be fun to toss in.
I’m not opposed to arrow arrows, so long as they’d be legible in yellow against the grey. SA’s thicker font is more forgiving in renders.
Also I just wanted to give both SA and DCS versions little differences to set them apart from each other. If I was really torn on two ideas I liked, I split the difference between the profiles. So some legends like “Prev” and “Next” are only used in SA, while DCS gets “Do” and “Re-Move.” SA gets “COMPOSE” while “Compose Character” actually fits in DCS. And SA has arrow arrows, while DCS has (so far, at least) triangles.
I like the simple 40s support I don’t know that a full kit is needed. The only thing I would really miss with the 3-Key is the lack of an R2 ESC or 1U novelty for the escape key on my 40s.
I would almost trade the 1.25u Tab for a 1.75u Enter because you can any of the R3 1.25u keys from the bottom row for the tab.
Full 40’s is my goal and hope. But if it’s not possible in either profile, I want to do more than the minimum. I wonder if I could get away with 5-key 40’s, if push came to shove? Throwing in a 1u R2 novelty “Find” key, and 1.75 R3 Enter along with 3-key, to make things slightly easier on folks.
After two more days of extensive tweaking, I reached out to Signature Plastics to see if they might be interested in running this in-stock, like they’re doing with my previous design. They can take a while to respond, so I’ll keep you posted.
I gave them both SA and DCS options. If they’re interested in either, I have three kitting options made up:
A large combined modifiers kit, with “5-key” 40’s support (1u R2 Esc novelty, 1.75u R2 Backspace, 1.25 R3 Tab, 1.50 R3 Enter, and 1.75 R3 Enter), plus 2x 1u, 1.25u, 1.50u, and 2.0u bars included in the spacebars kit.
A regular modifiers kit, with the “5-key” 40’s shunted off to a small Alt Mods kit, along with a handful of other less used modifiers, plus 1x 1u novelty legends for each row. The spacebars kit remains the same, with all of the minibars included.
Full 40s/ortho kit. The Alt Mods and spacebars kits are smaller, since some of those keys move into the 40s/ortho kit. (This is the closest to SP’s SA Standard Black & White kitting they seem to prefer for SA, at least.)
Option 3 is my preference, since it offers the most comprehensive coverage, and is flexible enough that no one is buying a bunch of keys they don’t need.
I assume you might be motivated to keep abreast of such things, so have you heard anything about their plans since the ownership announced they were looking to exit the business?
Bob posted on GeekHack in May saying they have a potential enthusiast buyer wanting to keep things running as-is, and that Melissa was staying on for a while during any transition.
"I wanted to let the community know that we are making good progress with a group, spearheaded by an active community member, to purchase Signature Plastics LLC. This new management team is full of exciting new ideas and creative approaches they plan to share with the community.
As I mentioned in the previous posts, the primary reason for the sale is to allow me to step away from the day-to-day activities of the business and enjoy retirement. Melissa will remain with SP for the foreseeable future to help carry on the legacy we have built.
She is hearing a lot of concern from customers regarding the stability of the business, understandably, but we want to assure everyone that our business remains very strong and financially sound. Lead times are currently running 6 to 8 weeks (depending on material availability). We would love to make your keyset ideas a reality. We will continue to post updates as the sale progresses."
So they’re actively soliciting new designs. It was this post that led me to send in my previous one, which should go on sale this autumn. There’s more in the pipeline after that, into 2025.
EDIT: So DCS Honeywell is in production right now, and that group buy ended in May '24. Delivery estimate for that is October-ish. I sent my final kitting for SA Dasher Nights in on May 14th, so I’m guessing November-ish? If they run SMRT, I’m going to estimate a release early next year.
It’s basically a darker ,monotone Dasher, as the name would imply; the goal was to use up resin SP had on hand already, and require no new molds, so it could be churned out fast. I was working on it last winter, when SP’s future was still up in the air, and no one was sure if any buyer would carry on operations or not. If it was going to be one of their final sets, I wanted it to be a tribute to my all-time favorite.
It’s designed to be standalone, or act as a giant moogle kit for old Dasher/Dancer sets, since the Specialty and ISO kits are so hard to come by for those secondhand anymore. It uses BBJ Dancer blue for the accents and legends, but Danger Zone’s BFU as the dark base - the darkest stock blue I could use without resorting to black (which would just make it a less green Pulse). So it can also mix with Danger Zone, Calm Depths, Mechanist, and any other older blue sets where you may not have all the mods you need for a modern layout.
It’s way more basic a design than SMRT, since it’s just two colors, with no new legends, and was my very first stab at making a set. But it will have a full 40s/ortho kit; the kitting is close to “option 3” I laid out for SMRT a couple posts back.
HELL YES!!! I hoped this is what you had going on. Absolutely love the darker blue with cyan (ish). It’s now on my radar. SP gets a lot of my money anyways, glad to know the maker I’m supporting!
I bought a maxkey set a few years back because I love the look of the blue on blue. But you can see from my post here Maxkey Blue & White set color comparisons that the maxkey set has a bit more green. A nice look still, but I think your set will be right on the money.
Thanks! I’ll admit blue on blue isn’t super original; my main worry was coming in too close to MT3 Dusk. Drop doesn’t offer color chips, but best I can tell by looking at photos of Dusk under various lighting conditions, it’s a little more towards Pulse’s blue-green than it is Dancer blue.
Another idea I was messing with at one point using the 8010 teal and Fledgling pink leftover resins was to combine them to make SA Preppy. (Novelties here are just stolen SVGs that were placeholders until I drew my own, but I never got past this mockup.)
Anyone, feel free to steal this idea; I think it’s fun, but I don’t have the energy to do it.
Yeah, I have 8010 myself, and couldn’t figure out how it was going to look before it actually arrived. The renders were green, but it was also supposed to be a match to real 8010 keypunch terminals, which were much more blue. Which is where it wound up in the end, I think. Very close to the originals, but nowhere near the renders.
Which one will be used for the final version: the ‘return’ or the ‘new line’ enter key?