I haven’t owned a mechanical keyboard in years, but I found this while thrifting the other day. Cleaned it up, everything seems to work fine.
The only thing that irks me is the spacebar. It sort of teeter totters and only works when I press in the center. Are there supposed to be three switches under it?
Also, is there any way to swap the alt/windows keys at the hardware/firmware level? I prefer the macOS layout and would like to avoid juggling configuration software on each device I own.
This is a very standard AliExpress keycap set, it should be on the first page of results for “DSA keycap set”
I’ll be honest I haven’t explored much
Followup question, where do you recommend getting keycaps from?
I have bought sets from https://typemachina.com/collections/keysets. They used to be called Originative but changed the name at some point. Keysets can be really really expensive. Like $125 you wait months for that is essentially plastic but it’s made in a specific factory in Germany lol But, there are lots of cheap sets too. mechanicalkeyboards.com is another place that should have more affordable sets. Just make sure you choose the right layout and get the correct amount of keys for your board. There are artisans too and you can spend lots of money on a single key that is a piece of art.
I get mine from AliExpress. They’re by no means good, but I refuse to spend more than 30€ on plastic. I also get my board from there, there are some good deals on subpart boards that are actually quite serviceable.
I would also say they’re (mostly) by no means bad. For me, keycaps get into the area of diminishing returns very quickly. If some iffy kerning on Caps Lock bothers someone that much, then they should do what they need to, but it’s not hard for me to find sufficiently durable and attractive keycaps at a good price these days.
Also, while I try to avoid cloned novelties, I have fairly little sympathy for designers trying to assert some sort of moral claim to colorways, often colorways where they were already adapting existing vintage boards. By all means make as much money as you can from the channels who want to be first to market and work with you. Or sometimes, the only way to get a certain profile is to go through the vendors who own the molds; that’s cool too.
Pink and green Enter keys, however, do not obligate anyone to pay GMK prices.
Completely agree. Also, fuck the artificial scarcity culture in mk. Why are DSA drifters a collector item, they’re pretty but there’s nothing that says only 500 of them must exist.
Had to look that one up myself. I can’t think of anything in particular that would keep them from re-running it, unless it’s maybe something to do with the licensed IP from the game? Also, DSA seems to be a bit out of fashion for the collectors, though it looks like TheKeyCompany already ran it once in KAT profile.
I support people working to get the stuff they like made for small runs, and understand that those runs will sort of necessarily be higher priced, based on the small number of companies willing and able to do community designs at reasonable minimum-order-quantities. There’s still a point for me though, where the rewards and loyalty that are expected can feel a little naive, and that’s all I’m saying. Hell, a lot of time it’s not even the designers themselves (especially veteran designers), but rather gatekeepers within the broader hobbyist community.