[IC] SA Well, Honey!

[Piperaceae]

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Intro

Well, Honey! is a remix of the classic Honeywell colorway, last offered in SA profile eight years ago. My goal is to make these colors available in SA again for everyone who missed out before, while also doing something a little different than a straight rerun. I’ve swapped the red accents for the white alphas, creating a red and grey set with a solid black number pad like the one used on the original terminals.

This set features vintage legends drawn from Honeywell boards of the past, but also novelties and legends from the “Honey” colorway Rounds of the 2010s. Signature Plastics has graciously opened up these formerly-restricted plates for everyone going forward, and several keys from those runs are making their first appearance here in a decade.

Legends

Among the newly-available Rounds legends are the interrobang, which I recently used in my SA Selectresque private run and as an aftermarket add-on for History of Violets. Joining it are the Webwit duck, Helvetic cross, and KeebRunner, all making their first appearances in a set since circa 2016.

This also means that the much-requested flat-top Gorton 3 can finally be used again! The one variation of it that doesn’t yet exist, flat-top UK 3 with £, requires a new plate made for this set, which will be free for anyone else to use in the future. Numpad 3 and F3 will be flat-top as well.

Finally, I’ve tried to sprinkle in some vintage Honeywell terminal legends from SP’s extensive archives. I’m borrowing unique mod legends from multiple old Honeywell boards, rather than attempting to faithfully reproduce any single model.

Vendors

US: Saber Keebs
UK: ProtoTypist
More TBD

Please note that as of the end of 2025, Signature Plastics is no longer accepting new designer-created sets to sell through their own SPKeyboards storefront, so this will be sold entirely through independent vendors.

Dates

I’m targeting Q1 or Q2 2026 for a group buy. Shipping probably ~3 months after the GB ends.

Colors and Materials

All keys are doubleshot ABS. Colors are Signature Plastic stock resins, in the same colors as both the 2018 Honeywell run and the 2010s Rounds.

Alphas are RAS with WFK legends. Mods are GPA with WFK legends. Accents are NN with WFK legends.

Pricing

TBD, but in keeping with regular SA base sets (versus giant monokits).

Kitting

Base Kit
The base kit is similar to the ones from History of Violets and Grand Budapest Round 2. It includes 4-key 40s, UK ISO, and black accent keys, plus an interrobang since that’s my thing now.

Extension/Novelty Kit
Alternates, accent arrows, HHKB mods, and expanded 40% coverage. There are also former Rounds novelties like the KeebRunner, Webwit duck, and Helvetic cross; plus a Roman numeral macro column.

Numpad Kit
The numpad uses retro chonky operator legends, and is all-black to match the look of vintage Honeywell terminals, which featured solid black number pads.

Spacebar Kit
Alice bars, HHKB 6u centered bar, and bars for 3-1-3 and 2.25-1.25-2.75 splits.

Alert Row Kit
A black alert numrow, with monolegend numerals including flat-top 3. Also contains black variants of all row 1 novelties.

Board Renders

Thanks

Thank you to Bob and Melissa at Signature Plastics for the quotes, legend research, and making the 7bit legends available. Thanks to Jae at ProtoTypist for giving me the idea for this set, and also working with SP to help free up the previously restricted legends. And to Kenny at Saber Keebs, for volunteering to carry yet another one of my sets when it’s not even 40’s-oriented this time.

Thanks to Originative, Prime Keyboards, Mcmcmc, 7bit, and anyone else who’s run straight Honeywell in the past. (And to whoever at Honeywell put these colors together to begin with.)

And thank you to all of the members of the Keyboard Designers Forum, and SPKeyboards’s design channel, for helping me fine-tune this over the past couple weeks.

Like this? Be sure to fill out the IC Feedback Form!

[Piperaceae]

Fixed a render error that showed the base numrow as having monolegends!

[cynic12]

The renders really don’t do justice to the deep, deep red of RAS. I think this will be a really striking looking set in the flesh.

[lemmons_athome]

Yes! Give me all the RAS and with the fun legends, all the black accents/numpad, and novelties

[madmax13]

Good luck with the interest check!

[Piperaceae]

Thanks everyone! The first day has gone better than I’d expected, so I’m optimistic we can get this made, at least in some form. I know the extension kit is on the big side, but I’m hoping people will dig the chance to get their hands on all the obscure 7bit-era novelties SP has open-sourced!

[Piperaceae]

I’ve updated the proposed kitting based on feedback from the first week. UK will be split into its own kit that ProtoTypist will carry. Most of the extension keys have been rolled into the base in place of the UK keys, in order to turn the extension/novelty kit into a full, dedicated novelty kit with more coverage and options. The alert kit has been dropped due to low interest. I’ve also removed questions about additional kits, since I feel like this is as many as we can get away with.

Be sure to fill out the feedback form to let us know what you want and need in terms of coverage, and to express your interest! This is the biggest decision-driver in terms of shaping the set, and also what vendors will be looking at in determining if/when to run it, and the number of units to shoot for.

[Piperaceae]

The quotes for this came in high enough that even cutting a lot and taking no commission (which I wasn’t going to anyway) would make it difficult to run.

I haven’t made any final decision yet. I may try to salvage the novelties in black and white as their own small add-on set that could mix with existing sets, since those performed very well in the IC. But I may just move on from designing for SA, since it’s no longer affordable for most people at MOQs it’s likely to hit.

[pixelpusher]

This is by far my favorite thing you’ve designed to date. I hope it can become a reality!

[Piperaceae]

Thank you, I hope so too. I’m just feeling kind of pessimistic after seeing the pricing. It’s a lot tougher to do an SA set now than a year ago, and it was pretty rough then.

[lemmons_athome]

I’m sorry about the pricing - I’m definitely in if you still decide to run it! It’s too bad it seems to have changed so much since your other SA sets

[pixelpusher]

My gut tells me there are a good chunk of people who aren’t put off by SA sets being more expensive. It’s like hearing that 1980s classic cars are becoming more expensive. We’re not in it for the value.

[Piperaceae]

Buyers might be willing to spend that much, but vendors often balk when they see the price tag, and aren’t sure 100+ people would spend $250 on a set during the GB window. Especially when there are so few vendors in general still willing to carry SA sets - you can’t get eight big vendors across multiple regions onboard like you can with DCS, to help spread sales out globally.

Prior to a couple months ago, SP themselves were the main outlet for SA sets, subsidizing those that ran through their storefront by waiving MOQ on individual kits, and the cost of new legend plates, among other things. But they’re no longer going to sell new sets from designers going forward. With them and Drop out of the picture, the remaining vendors who might be interested can’t afford to take on the risk of a ton of extras.

[pixelpusher]

Good point. And yes, I don’t think vendors would go for it. I’m afraid that SA sets will have to go the ways of old. A true Group Buy that’s run, and fulfilled, by an individual. High risk, low payoff. We might only ever see true works of passion come to life in SA if that’s the case. Not ideal

[wjrii]

I hate to see it, because even as a dabbler on the low-end, I need a steady supply of high-end stuff to eventually percolate down and get to the secondary market or inspire copycats, and I love taller spherical profiles in general.

It’s hard to suss out trends, especially with things being so compartmentalized these days, but I wonder if we starting to simply see an age-out to a certain extent, statistically speaking. At this point, SA has got to be starting to hit some of the Gen Z and Alpha customers as not just retro, but downright antique. They’ve grown up with chiclet laptop boards, if anything, so a sharp cylindrical like Cherry or even the slightly less sharp (and therefore better, LOL) DCS hits their eye as retro but identifiable and DCS as an obvious alternative to GMK CYL, while Gorton’ed sphericals evoke systems and technologies they’ve never seen, much less used. It takes a certain niche-within-a-niche sensibility to embrace that, and maybe it always did anyway. Then, if that person is drawn to “good enough” stuff like Keychron’s in-house profiles or XVX ISA, the market for SP’s high end SA (and DSA and DSS, frankly) shrinks even farther.