Meine Damen und Herren, Mesdames et Messieurs, Ladies and Gentlemen…
Ever since June rolled over, I have been thinking how to commemorate the Apollo 11’s mission’s 50th anniversary.
Then I remembered about the Apollo Guidance Computer (it made waves over the internet a month or so ago, because people were trying to prove that Margaret Hamilton didn’t write the software for it) and its interface — DSKY (pronounced “dis-kee”). As you can see, the DSKY has a black keypad with white legends, yellow indicator lights, and a green electroluminescent seven-segment display. Commands were entered numerically, as two-digit numbers — called Verb and Noun. The first one represented the action being issued, while the second represented the data that would be changed.
DSKY itself was a starting point, but it did not yet give me a satisfactory colourway. But when I saw exactly how and where DSKY was mounted, I instantly knew what I wanted — subtle, lighter and darker greys, with yellows for the accents.
One of my goals was to use the legends and values from DSKY’s various keys and indicators, in place of our traditional legends. This in turn led me to a decision to use stock GMK colours, to make everything easier and more affordable.
GMK Lunar uses a medium 2B gray for the alphas and mods with a lighter 2M gray for legends. The Numpad, which I consider an integral part of the whole design and colourway, uses the darker N9 gray with 2M legends. I also chose N6 yellow as the main accent colour, with N9 legends, where appropriate. The Novelty Kit has a set of optional “Master Alarm” accents — these will be either V1 or RO2 (V1 currently).
(Please note that the keys that you will find on the renders below, have since been modified slightly, so they may not be completely accurate at this point in time. They also have a typo — my bad.)
Please note that the text on the arrows will be replaced by arrow icons. The font is also not a perfect match for GMK’s font. These are temporary renders until they’re more or less finalized, when I’ll get someone who knows what she or he is doing to do them.
it should be possible to cover 2 boards with the Command Module + Lunar Module (alpha kit)
two novelties have been re-worked, to better fit in with GMK’s guidelines for vector art; Astronaut’s Helmet — it now reflects the moon’s surface in the visor; Neil Armstrong’s Footprint — it’s now modelled more on the sole of his boot than on the actual print that he left (shadow and all); currently working on an even better Lunar Lander for the R4 1.5u keys; the Moon will be moved to R4 1u keys.
Lunar Lander has been reworked to meet GMK’s specs (hopefully). Might not be final yet though.
Suuuuper into this. But I’m Ortho squad so I’ve got to see that kit! Would love it you threw in a red 2U Space as well, but now I’m just being greedy.
I like the general idea of having one part of the keyboard in a different base color (or rather different base shade ).
But like apparently many in the keyboard scene, I don’t have a many keyboards with a numpad. I though have a bunch of TKL keyboards.
So for me this set would basically be a 2B colored set with a few orange accents and no N9 colored key caps.
So I suggest to add a TKL kit containing all the keys in the MF-II block (cursor keys, PgUp/PgDwn, Home/End, Ins/Del, PrtScr/ScrLock/Pause) in N9 for the huge number of TKL fans out there.
In the same tought, I wonder if a Plank/Preonic kit with the left third of keys in N9 and the right two third in 2B would probably make sense, too. (I don’t have a Planck, but a Zlant which needs the same keys, so I’d probably buy that kit, too. )
Another common layout where your design idea would more or less work is the 65% format, although then only one single column would be N9. Not sure if that makes the same impression as a numpad or a MF-II block.
Currently don’t have the time for it, otherwise I’d have made some mockups with KLE-Render of how these sets might look like. Might find some time on Sunday unless someone else is quicker.
No idea though how to implement that design on a pure 60% staggered keyboard or similar (40% staggered, 50% staggered) without using a inclined color border.
That’s not what I meant. I don’t think you should extend the base kit. I meant them to be separate kits.
That doesn’t make sense to me. The Novelty kit often has a different target group than add-on keys for specific layouts. E.g. I often just buy the base kit and the 40% kit, but skip the novelty kit. Usually happens if I like the colors, but not the theme. (GMK Terra is such a case: I consider these colors more to be Matcha than earth. Unfortunately they ditched the 40% kit quite early in the GB phase, so I probably want join that GB at all.)
What I imagined are either:
one additional TKL kit and one additional 65% kit,
or, since they share a bunch of keycaps (but then again not that many, mostly right cursor key and Home, maybe also End depending how the keys are ordered on the 65%) one TKL+65% kit
Additionally:
One Ortholinear kit, either with all keys or as the difference to the base kit.
But now that you mentioned the base kit in this context: Why not make the base kit targetted for TKL and the numpad plus 2B TKL keys a separate Full-Size kit?
At least I have the impression that there are more TKL mech keeb lovers out there than Full-Size mech keeb lovers — mostly based on the availability of TKL and Full-Size keyboards in the scene.
This would be much easier if not for MOQ constraints. All the child kits will need to get 100 or more orders to get made. They are also much more expensive than adding the keys to another kit. Removing the NumPad from the base kit saves around 8-10 USD but a NumPad kit costs around 30-40 USD. A large disparity. So a 10 key kit just for TKL users would be around 20-30 USD and 100 people would need to buy it. Around 40% of buyers on average have a 100% board which means the base should sell at least 400. I cannot imagine this child kit would hit MOQ and it’s risky to try (threatens base kit cancellations).
I hope you all have had a pleasant ending to 2019 and are all back for 2020. I have a few updates I’d like to share and I’d greatly appreciate some feedback.
A few people have been asking for N9 (darker) Home/PgUp/PgDn/End keys for the rightmost column on 65% layouts. I have not yet addressed this directly but I’m still thinking about it.
The people from above gave me the idea to expand the novelty kit by a further 6 keys. Please take a look and tell me what you think. I have also taken the liberty of replacing the red with a different shade — it’s now RO2 instead of V1 (more red, less orange) and IT IS NOT COLOUR-ACCURATE in the render below. (Please note the arrow keys will have actual arrows, not text — I can’t render arrows for some reason.)
I’m working on an Assembly Kit (ergo/40s/ortho) with MKUltra (he will be buying out any remaining MOQ, so it should get made regardless). The first draft is below. It is a bit different in style than the other kits, because I’m trying to cater to MKUltra’s expectations and style. All feedback is welcome!
… and the ZXC keys, they have sub-legends with the date of the mission. The 3 astronauts themselves were Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins.
So what if I added a “Buzz” sub-legend to the B key, “Neil” to N, and “Michael” to M? They’re all right next to each other (there are no coincidences).
Thank you for adding an ergo kit <3 I’ll buy it.
Any reason for the darker mods on the ergo kit vs the uniform color on the standard kit? I really like the uniform look, and would prefer that for the ergo kit as well.
).
Unfortunately they ditched the 40% kit 
quite early in the GB phase, so I probably want join that GB at all.)
