[Interest Check] Specy48 keycap set

slashwhatever · 17 Feb 2016, 14:51

DISCLAIMER: This is my first post. I've never been involved in a GB before, let alone organised one. I just came up with a keyboard design and I thought it would be cool to spread the idea to see if we can make it a real thing.

So, nice and simple. Here it is:

: keyboard-layout (1).png (62.83 KiB) Viewed 4571 times

Based on the 1982 Sinclair ZX Spectrum (colours changed to closest SP PBT colours).

Here's the 80's beauty that inspired it:

: ZXSpectrum48k.jpg (439.83 KiB) Viewed 4571 times

Rimrul · 17 Feb 2016, 21:28

I like it. It has some similarity to 1976, but is not too similar. What profile are you planning to do?
Have you considdered reverting the order of the colours to make them identical to the sinclair? What about just one stripe of each (i.e. no big blue area in the top left corner)? I'm just throwing in a few random ideas, not trying to nag abut your design.

slashwhatever · 18 Feb 2016, 10:56

Hi! Thanks for the input. It is still a work in progress so your ideas are very welcome!

It is indeed inspired by the 1976

Profile-wise, I'm thinking SA to keep the retro vibe strong. The editor I'm using makes it difficult to change fonts but I'd like to get that closer to the Spectrum too.

Rimrul · 18 Feb 2016, 21:12

AFAIK SP currently has only one font for ABS doubleshots and a second one is currently-ish being funded. They don't do PBT doubleshots, because they don't have the tooling. PBT dye-sub would be an option, but the legends have to be darker than the rest of the key for dye-sub. Your last option would be pad printing, but I don't think you can raise any interest for an aftermarket set with pad printed primary legends.

slashwhatever · 19 Feb 2016, 11:34

Great info Rimrul - thanks

PBT is my preference, purely for quality of the actual physical key but if there's an issue with the ability to print white on red the ABS would have to do.

Ail · 20 Feb 2016, 00:22

I like it much better than 1976 to be honest. Would make a great DSA set.

romevi · 22 Feb 2016, 01:41

Very nice!

slashwhatever · 23 Feb 2016, 11:01

OK, so given my complete n00b status to all this, what's my next step? Sure I could get in touch with SP and ask them to quote for a one off but I'd rather spread the love a little, get a few made for people and help everyone reduce costs.

scottc · 23 Feb 2016, 11:21

You should probably start an interest check (IC). That'll gauge how the community feels about the design etc. That'll help you determine what kits are necessary. Once you have a rough idea of what kits you need, get in touch with SP. SP have a MOQ of 25 iirc, so you'll need at least another 24 interested parties.

Muirium · 23 Feb 2016, 11:25

Take a look through this similar thread:

group-buys-f50/sa-dasher-sa-dancer-keyc ... lit=dasher

Zslane is a prickly bugger detail oriented, and likes to ask a lot of questions. (As do I.) So you'll see a lot of discussion of the ways caps GBs are run, right in that thread.

Spoiler: no Dasher GB yet. Why? Well, read on.

hoggy · 23 Feb 2016, 14:46

Out of curiosity, why did you reverse the colours?

slashwhatever · 23 Feb 2016, 16:59

hoggy wrote: Out of curiosity, why did you reverse the colours?

it was impossible to get a nice straight looking line across the bottom left corner of the key layout. Just looks way better this way.

Edit: realised you may have meant just swapping the colours in place. Right now, it's as if the board had been physically flipped but I will look at the other colour way that would be created by placing red in the right corner