There’s a certain similarity here to a GB that was before my time in the hobby, SA Danger Zone, but I don’t see that anyone mentioned WYSE on Drop or on GH back in the day. The clones on AE and amazon are maybe even a little more WYSE-like, having fewer molds to play with, particularly on the arrows.
This IC is definitely a step beyond either of those though, and looks great. Not currently the market niche I occupy, but you never know, and I do love retro-inspired boards and keycaps.
Aha!
Again, not a great comparison to yellow on blue, but a data point in terms of legend thickness. I would think the brighter yellow would pop more than red. I’ll see if I can find any info about sampling; not sure if that would need to be after nailing down a vendor or not.
Thank you! Yeah, Danger Zone is a fav of mine - I’m using the Danger Zone BFU blue in a design that’s currently in production. It’s slightly lighter than the BBI I’m using here, but very close. Part of wanting to have sublegends was to differentiate it from Danger Zone, though having grey mods does differentiate it a bit more, too.
Here’s my post with photos
Honestly, it will probably be good since the yellow is much brighter than the red, but just something to consider.
Not to diss anyone else’s design, but the red was indeed very brownish to be set against black. So that complicates being able to compare how a pretty vivid yellow will look, though I guess you can still at least get an idea of the legend thickness. (Edit, just to add that I actually really do like how Silent Assassin looks overall, it’s just not the brightest red on a dark background.)
Was not accusing you of copying btw and your execution is significantly more sophisticated a d elegant than the 2013 IC 
No worries, I didn’t read it that way! I was just fascinated that there was another effort over a decade ago, and it was neat seeing what was similar and what was different.
Love the design here! Big retro KB fan myself & have always thought the Wyse caps that inspired this were on of the best OG colorways. Speaking for myself I use very similar layouts on most of my boards, almost always using WKLs or Tsangan bottom row. Also I would value a more comprehensive kit being able to cover more layouts on one board vs being able to kit out 2 boards. I’d also go as far as saying that would probably be a common opinion among enthusiasts. If you’re an enthusiast you’re gonna have multiple custom keyboards & keycap sets. Which would most likely lead to you valuing being able to cover more layouts than being able to cover 2 boards with the extra alpha kit IMO.
Thanks! So I do have an ortho/40’s combined kit that I’ve been worried wouldn’t meet MOQ, but is “designed” (that is, copied from other similar kits, because I don’t know those layouts super well myself). I’d love if it did get picked up, along with everything else:
I have about 16 boards myself; most are 60%, 75%, and 1800 layout. They’re split about 50-50 between ANSI and Tsangan bottom rows, and almost all are UK ISO, because my old C64 had the " on the 2 key, and my Amiga had a tall Return. I’ve never been able to break that muscle memory - I always hit Return where the pipe-slash key would be, and reach for the 2 to type ". So I’ve incorporated what I’m familiar with from those layouts, but that does leave a gap, where I don’t know as much about others.
I’ve tried to squeeze everything into the mods kit that I’ve seen people complain about being missing from other sets- 2u shift, and 1.5u OS modifiers (labeled “Compose” here, since the molds exist and that legend was used often on Wyse boards). I put in a 1.25u Caps Lock, and another 1.75u “Compose” key that can serve as a Control or Function key on row 3.
I’m still looking at other recent SA sets to compare coverage. If there’s anything obvious that I’m missing that would be helpful to have included, let me know!
So the numbers are small, but the ergo/ortho folks are where you’ll find most of the anti-stabilizer crowd. If the molds exist, a couple of convex spacebars below 2u would be nice in the 40s kit. I like the variety Wuque provides in that area, and I’ll probably pick up one of their sets before too long because of it. I will of course use them on some sort of misbegotten numpad-laden beast of Home Depot parts and 3d printed plastic instead of a tidy little ergo thing, but the heart wants what it wants.
Cool. There are molds - Arcalogic has some in stock that they had made, to match sets that never had them originally.
Right now I have a single 1u convex spacebar, and a single 1.25u convex spacebar in the spacebars kit. (Plus two 1u conCAVE keys in the 40s/ortho kit.)
Should I add more? And would all of those sub-2u bars fit better into the 40s/ortho kit than the spacebar kit?
So, the Corne, Sofle, Redox, and Minidox (among others) might all benefit from some convex spaces, though some 40s people find the angles do the thumb-comfort work that convex crowning normally does. “Normal” split space boards seem to be handled mostly by the 2.25, 2.75, and 1.25 you already have in the space kit, so anything smaller would be better in the 40s kit, and wouldn’t need to be extensive. 2 each of 1.25 and 1.5 would be generous and sufficient, and selfishly it would serve my (very different) personal builds perfectly if more 40s kits came with at least 3u (total) of no-stab convex spaces. 
So something like this?
I’m not opposed by any means! Again, whether a vendor will even let me do a 40s/ortho kit is anyone’s guess, let alone with extra minibars. But I’m happy to pitch it and try, especially if the extra bars might be useful enough to get more people interested in buying it.
Which brings me to my next real challenge - how do I approach vendors? For my previous set, I literally just shot SP an email with some drawings. But if I don’t go directly through them (and I don’t know if I can, since I still have that previous set in manufacturing, for another couple months at least) then I’ll need to find some vendors. Does anyone know what they want in terms of a proposal?
So let me start out by saying that I’m NOT currently planning to do this. This is purely hypothetical, and SA is by far my preferred profile. But if it would help this design get produced, would it be be a plus or minus for you if it were to run as DCS instead of SA?
Again, I’m NOT saying this will happen. And well before it did, I’d want to reach out to the runner of the failed 2020 DCS Wyse Compatibility set group buy, and secure his blessing. This is just me playing around with DCS kitting for funsies, and looking at the current marketplace.
Cons of changing to DCS:
Pros of changing to DCS:
Looking at US vendors, only Novelkeys, Drop, and SP themselves really carry SA sets regularly. Omnitype only picks one up when their previous one sells out, and they still have Ramses in stock. Vala and Kono are rumored to be on the verge of going under. Divinikey has never carried SA, while Cannonkeys only ran Mizu. Mechs & Co and MKUltra are obviously out.
Most of these have carried DCS though; even multiple DCS sets at a time. (This is all to the best of my knowledge; I’ve been searching as well as I can - correct me if I’m wrong on any of these!)
IF it were to run in DCS, This is what I was thinking of. Note that the 40s keys in the base aren’t needed if a separate 40s kit were to happen. With DCS, I also have more confidence a UK ISO kit could sell on its own, and not need to be in the base. I’m unsure if the generic diamond OS mod key is sufficient, or if there’s strong demand for a Win 3.1-era Windows key, as the 2020 runner thought.
HYPOTHETICAL DCS SMRT KITTING
Again, I love SA, and it’s my strong preference. This is very much hypothetical, and a “if it can’t run in SA, then what?” scenario. And it would absolutely depend on getting the 2020 set runner’s blessing.
I think I’m in line with you. I definitely prefer the SA version, but I would definitely purchase the DCS version if that was the only option. The DCS version reminds me a lot of the Tai Hao alps caps:
https://www.instagram.com/p/ByGDPKAlNCi/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
For me running this in DCS would take this from a really cool colorway I might pick up for display, to a definite buy that I would use a lot. That’s just me though as I highly prefer DCS to SA, unfortunately I’m fairly sure I am in the minority there. I think SA is still more popular overall than DCS & would have a better chance of making it to production if I’m being honest.
Oh, that is similar. Although there’s only so many ways to do beigish-grey, or grey-ish beige, especially with SP’s stock colors. But I’d want to make sure that if I did go the DCS route that I differentiated it enough from what’s already out there.
I’ve never even typed on DCS before! I have a Wyse WY-85 supposedly en route to me off eBay, and plan to build a converter so I can use it - that will be my first experience with the profile. I’m hoping I like it.
It’s funny, because I feel like SA is the more divisive profile, at least if MechMarket is any guide. I always see posts like, “I bought this SA set, typed on it once, and discovered I hated it” as a reason for flipping any given SA set for 2x its original cost.
I only have one of each SA and DCS, and I love them both. I have this general feeling that DCS is gaining favor at the moment with BAEs and 10u bars, and I can see DCS feeling more generally reachable since it’s not a high profile, but I had the feeling that SA and DCS were each divisive in their own way. (Am I saying we are all picky? haha) I am not knowledgable about kitting or history, but if you went this direction, I like the diamonds in general better than Win, and I would prefer arrows for the arrow keys instead of triangles. Diamonds and triangles aside, I am probably in for all sets for either SA or DCS if you run it!
Now that you mention it, those very “normal” arrows on the Wyse boards that upon second viewing are little flecks of that bright yellow… that’s one of the little things that made those boards so interesting.
