It has been a long time since last post. The pandemic changed the world and our lives. A lot of things were delayed or cancelled due to the Covid-19 situation, including keyboard/keycap stuff. I would like to give some brief updates about my keycap designs, although they were dormant during the past two years.
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SA Hacker
In 2019, we did several rounds of color matching to the old Symbolics PN 364000 keyboard to pick a close color match. But the color samples from SP turned out to be obviously different to the colors codes we had. I was not happy with the last color samples but the Covid-19 happened before I think through it whether to carry out another round of color sample with SP. Things are kind of suspended since then.
The color sample making procedure was quite opaque, there was no much info from SP to figure out what happened and why the last samples were pretty much off to the color codes that we picked. It's done by another companny and no insight info was shared how the colors were made. Anyway, SP required real color chips to adjust the color to correction if we gonna run another round of samples to make it right. The best way is to send SP some real keycaps of the PN 364000 keyboard but I don't have this keyboard, and I'm too hesitated to use keycaps from my friend's keyboard because it's so rare and expensive that I'm unable to get a replacement if any keycap is lost during the color matching/adjusting procudure(especially in shipment). If I continue this project later, probably I would go with some Pantone color chips. Or, get to some preset SP ABS codes to avoid this burdensome color matching/adjusting process, with compromise in color accuracy.
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SA Colevrak(+)
I started a Geekhack thread about SA Colevrak(+) to collect interests of the SA Colevrak(+) kit for any other SA keycap design or group buy. SA Colevrak(+) is the next version of the Colevrak kit for SP SA keycap designs or group buys. It adds support to Programmer's Dvorak, Colemak DH & DHm, Workman, Norman, etc. In the past Colevrak kit didn't sell enough to reach MOQ, so designers and group buy vendors usually leave this kit out. I would like to make some effort to gather some Colevrak(+) users, try to make it happen for other designs that were without Colevrak(+) support. The interest form was open for more than one year, but I only got less than two dozens of form-filling records. The number was much less than the sold number of Colevrak kit for many keycap group buys. Probably it's due to the lack of promotion and many Colevrak users don't even know about the thread. Or they thought it's an impossible run. Anyway for those who showed up and gave support, I would try my best to fullfill their requirement if possible, espcially in my keycap designs.
There is a long waiting queue for SP's production line, and the order waiting time is as long as about two years. It's a long time to wait till a good time window to start a SP SA keycap group buy. In other words it means we still have plenty of time for preparation. With patience and tenacity, we would move on when its time comes. The pandemic still spreads. I hope everyone keeps healthy and safe.