Post by: azhdar on Wed, 19 June 2019, 04:37:36
People that knows me know I'm a big defender of ISO. Even Azerty FR ISO but well that's not what I want to discuss today.
I've been a lot less active on the hobby since I pretty much reached my endgame. But lately 2 IC threads have kind of startled me:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.0
and this:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=100896.0
Before I continue, this IC threads I'm pointing are just examples toward the point I'm trying to make. I don't blame any of the IC starters.
First one : Sanctuary:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.450
On the latest pages we can see an argument ongoing because some kits were dropped and especially the ISO one.
And I have to say it's infuriating to read things such as:
"ISO is a non standard layout and most of the world use ANSI"
"Those niche kits won't ever come back."
But I'll come back to it later.
Now one the second IC that interests me :
7V 75% Keyboard :
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=100896.0
Watching through all the pages there are 7 differents people asking for ISO support.
The arguments on why there should be no ISO support:
"Actually, iso pads overlap ansi, creating swiss cheese effect. Nobody likes swiss cheese pcb. Its (one of) the same reason wilba refuses to do ISO on most of his pcb's, if im not mistaken."
"As with the above, I've opted not to include ISO support because of how it messes with the footprints for ANSI and as selfish as it sounds, this a design that is tailored to my personal preferences and is optimised for that."
Ok moving on.
ISO is a much larger subject but for today let's assume only UK ISO for keycap compatibility.
(https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9a92060c5ed44ef831773596d1e7d6e45a728a65591b5fed8fc6628d90ecb61f/Sanctuary-New-Kit-01.png)
On the base kit you're seeing there are about 60 caps outside of the "standard 104 ANSI layout" to accomodate for weird layouts such as 75% & 1800.
Reminder of the keys for UK ISO compatibility :
- ISO Enter ( ALso used for JIS)
- 1.25 Shift ( which can be used for layouts outside of ISO)
- 1u R3 key
- 1u R4 Key
4 keys total. When other layout require so much more keys, ISO can't get his 4 keys. And let's not talk about the keys that are included and god's know what use they have but well.
And remember I'm not talking about this IC in particular so don't throw me this post : https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.msg2776810#msg2776810 to the face that's not what I'm talking about.
I can understand that including more keys add to the price of the GB and can make or lose a GB.
Also I want to add one more thing. The kits included :
- HHKB
- 75%
- 1800
Moving on back onto the subject of Customs keyboard and ISO support.
On some GB there's Winkeyless and Winkey top part. Yet have 4 more holes in a pcb is too much ?
On the plates, having more cutouts is bad ?Doesn't look pretty ? Remember it's gonna be underneath your keycaps.
Well we can even have separated plates.
Ok so to finish this way too long message already.
I'm not saying ISO should be in every GB.
I'm not saying ISO is standard and the most used layout.
But you have to understand that the hobby is too ANSI-Centric.
To the point that a lot of people migrates towards ANSI because they can't get compatible keys for their country layout. Hell if I wanted brand new Azerty FR caps, there's been 2 GB in total in the span of 6 years.
It's NOT ANSI VS ISO and I can't accept flawed arguments against ISO support.
Let's work together so everyone can have a keyboard they cherrish.
Let's try to keep the arguments civil pls.
Post by: Coumbaya on Wed, 19 June 2019, 05:47:31
Also Azerty ftw. :))
Post by: Myoth on Wed, 19 June 2019, 06:25:11
I do agree with the ISO compatibility problem in keysets, I use ISO sparsely, but I know where people who want ISO come from, when I was beginning in the hobby, I was using ISO-FR, and it was a pain in the **** to get keycaps for that layout, and it still is, I quickly swapped over to ISO-UK because it was ISO, and it had lots of keysets including it. I can understand why someone would not want International kits, I get it, everyone wants one, nobody gets one.
But come on, ISO-US is 4 keys, it's really not the end of the world, even more so when you have such weird layouts, for the sake of the argument, I'll also pick DCS Sanctuary as an exemple, if you look at the base kit, there are a few things that I really don't understand :
- a 1u R4 Enter key ? the only use I can see for that one would be on 96s, and splitting the numpad enter
- a 1u R2 + key ? I guess it's the same like the enter key I mentioned just above
- there is NO 1u R2 -, which is literally needed in a 1800 kit
- Alt Gr keys but no ISO ? scrap the Alt Gr and put ISO keys lol, unless you use ANSI INTL and then they are relevant, but I highly doubt that's what happened
There are far more stuff I could say about it but I'm lazy and I mainly want to talk about the Custom aspect of ISO. I hope you get the point I'm trying to make, there are keys that have far less use than ISO keys.
The Keyboards
On this point, I disagree, I am biased, like I said, I don't use ISO anymore, but I know people want ISO support, and I don't have anything against that, with that out of the way, I am against any sort of plate compatibility, here me out, crooked switches are one of the worse flaw a board can have, and if it's not crooked, there is pressure put on the switch and it will bind (on an ISO enter key). Fixed plates are the way to go.
If I ever make a keyboard in the future, it would have a FIXED tsangan ANSI plate, and a FIXED tsangan ISO plate. I somewhat agree with "some people might want their board to look good even without keycaps", especially on high boards, it just feels better to have a clean plate with no useless cutouts. (Which is one of the reasons I really don't like any TX boards, ever seen their bottom row ? no thanks.) Hence why I agree with people who might choose fixed plates over compatibility (i.e. keycult).
And well ... the pcb argument .... the pcb problem is a dumb one brought by lazy pcb makers, not going to lie lol. The "swiss cheese effect" for the ISO keys, but they're fine with having 10000000 bottom rows ? miss me with that ****, if PCB makers really cared about the "swiss cheese effect", we'd only have tsangan and poker supported, for a TKL at least.
For the board mentioned, I can see effort has been put to make the cleanest PCB possible, but at the same time, I don't think putting ISO would have hurt the thing.
/2cents
Post by: Sintpinty on Wed, 19 June 2019, 08:32:30
Hello maybe this isn't the right section so move it if necessary.
People that knows me know I'm a big defender of ISO. Even Azerty FR ISO but well that's not what I want to discuss today.
I've been a lot less active on the hobby since I pretty much reached my endgame. But lately 2 IC threads have kind of startled me:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.0
and this:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=100896.0
Before I continue, this IC threads I'm pointing are just examples toward the point I'm trying to make. I don't blame any of the IC starters.
First one : Sanctuary:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.450
On the latest pages we can see an argument ongoing because some kits were dropped and especially the ISO one.
And I have to say it's infuriating to read things such as:
"ISO is a non standard layout and most of the world use ANSI"
"Those niche kits won't ever come back."
But I'll come back to it later.
Now one the second IC that interests me :
7V 75% Keyboard :
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=100896.0
Watching through all the pages there are 7 differents people asking for ISO support.
The arguments on why there should be no ISO support:
"Actually, iso pads overlap ansi, creating swiss cheese effect. Nobody likes swiss cheese pcb. Its (one of) the same reason wilba refuses to do ISO on most of his pcb's, if im not mistaken."
"As with the above, I've opted not to include ISO support because of how it messes with the footprints for ANSI and as selfish as it sounds, this a design that is tailored to my personal preferences and is optimised for that."
Ok moving on.
ISO is a much larger subject but for today let's assume only UK ISO for keycap compatibility.Show Image(https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9a92060c5ed44ef831773596d1e7d6e45a728a65591b5fed8fc6628d90ecb61f/Sanctuary-New-Kit-01.png)
On the base kit you're seeing there are about 60 caps outside of the "standard 104 ANSI layout" to accomodate for weird layouts such as 75% & 1800.
Reminder of the keys for UK ISO compatibility :
- ISO Enter ( ALso used for JIS)
- 1.25 Shift ( which can be used for layouts outside of ISO)
- 1u R3 key
- 1u R4 Key
4 keys total. When other layout require so much more keys, ISO can't get his 4 keys. And let's not talk about the keys that are included and god's know what use they have but well.
And remember I'm not talking about this IC in particular so don't throw me this post : https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.msg2776810#msg2776810 to the face that's not what I'm talking about.
I can understand that including more keys add to the price of the GB and can make or lose a GB.
Also I want to add one more thing. The kits included :can all get combined with an hypothetical ISO kit.
- HHKB
- 75%
- 1800
Moving on back onto the subject of Customs keyboard and ISO support.
On some GB there's Winkeyless and Winkey top part. Yet have 4 more holes in a pcb is too much ?
On the plates, having more cutouts is bad ?Doesn't look pretty ? Remember it's gonna be underneath your keycaps.
Well we can even have separated plates.
Ok so to finish this way too long message already.
I'm not saying ISO should be in every GB.
I'm not saying ISO is standard and the most used layout.
But you have to understand that the hobby is too ANSI-Centric.
To the point that a lot of people migrates towards ANSI because they can't get compatible keys for their country layout. Hell if I wanted brand new Azerty FR caps, there's been 2 GB in total in the span of 6 years.
It's NOT ANSI VS ISO and I can't accept flawed arguments against ISO support.
Let's work together so everyone can have a keyboard they cherrish.
Let's try to keep the arguments civil pls.
Most of their customers don't use ISO. They assume their customers come from places where it is english.
If you're typing in weird accents, then it's probably going to have that weird n or going to that big enter.
Unless if you literally can't use ANSI, then i see no reason for iso.
What's the point if your enter takes up a large portion of the keyboard?
Post by: azhdar on Wed, 19 June 2019, 10:38:21
The Keycap setsWell said. Thanks for your input.
I do agree with the ISO compatibility problem in keysets, I use ISO sparsely, but I know where people who want ISO come from, when I was beginning in the hobby, I was using ISO-FR, and it was a pain in the **** to get keycaps for that layout, and it still is, I quickly swapped over to ISO-UK because it was ISO, and it had lots of keysets including it. I can understand why someone would not want International kits, I get it, everyone wants one, nobody gets one.
But come on, ISO-US is 4 keys, it's really not the end of the world, even more so when you have such weird layouts, for the sake of the argument, I'll also pick DCS Sanctuary as an exemple, if you look at the base kit, there are a few things that I really don't understand :
- a 1u R4 Enter key ? the only use I can see for that one would be on 96s, and splitting the numpad enter
- a 1u R2 + key ? I guess it's the same like the enter key I mentioned just above
- there is NO 1u R2 -, which is literally needed in a 1800 kit
- Alt Gr keys but no ISO ? scrap the Alt Gr and put ISO keys lol, unless you use ANSI INTL and then they are relevant, but I highly doubt that's what happened
There are far more stuff I could say about it but I'm lazy and I mainly want to talk about the Custom aspect of ISO. I hope you get the point I'm trying to make, there are keys that have far less use than ISO keys.
The Keyboards
On this point, I disagree, I am biased, like I said, I don't use ISO anymore, but I know people want ISO support, and I don't have anything against that, with that out of the way, I am against any sort of plate compatibility, here me out, crooked switches are one of the worse flaw a board can have, and if it's not crooked, there is pressure put on the switch and it will bind (on an ISO enter key). Fixed plates are the way to go.
If I ever make a keyboard in the future, it would have a FIXED tsangan ANSI plate, and a FIXED tsangan ISO plate. I somewhat agree with "some people might want their board to look good even without keycaps", especially on high boards, it just feels better to have a clean plate with no useless cutouts. (Which is one of the reasons I really don't like any TX boards, ever seen their bottom row ? no thanks.) Hence why I agree with people who might choose fixed plates over compatibility (i.e. keycult).
And well ... the pcb argument .... the pcb problem is a dumb one brought by lazy pcb makers, not going to lie lol. The "swiss cheese effect" for the ISO keys, but they're fine with having 10000000 bottom rows ? miss me with that ****, if PCB makers really cared about the "swiss cheese effect", we'd only have tsangan and poker supported, for a TKL at least.
For the board mentioned, I can see effort has been put to make the cleanest PCB possible, but at the same time, I don't think putting ISO would have hurt the thing.
/2cents
Hello maybe this isn't the right section so move it if necessary.
People that knows me know I'm a big defender of ISO. Even Azerty FR ISO but well that's not what I want to discuss today.
I've been a lot less active on the hobby since I pretty much reached my endgame. But lately 2 IC threads have kind of startled me:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.0
and this:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=100896.0
Before I continue, this IC threads I'm pointing are just examples toward the point I'm trying to make. I don't blame any of the IC starters.
First one : Sanctuary:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.450
On the latest pages we can see an argument ongoing because some kits were dropped and especially the ISO one.
And I have to say it's infuriating to read things such as:
"ISO is a non standard layout and most of the world use ANSI"
"Those niche kits won't ever come back."
But I'll come back to it later.
Now one the second IC that interests me :
7V 75% Keyboard :
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=100896.0
Watching through all the pages there are 7 differents people asking for ISO support.
The arguments on why there should be no ISO support:
"Actually, iso pads overlap ansi, creating swiss cheese effect. Nobody likes swiss cheese pcb. Its (one of) the same reason wilba refuses to do ISO on most of his pcb's, if im not mistaken."
"As with the above, I've opted not to include ISO support because of how it messes with the footprints for ANSI and as selfish as it sounds, this a design that is tailored to my personal preferences and is optimised for that."
Ok moving on.
ISO is a much larger subject but for today let's assume only UK ISO for keycap compatibility.Show Image(https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9a92060c5ed44ef831773596d1e7d6e45a728a65591b5fed8fc6628d90ecb61f/Sanctuary-New-Kit-01.png)
On the base kit you're seeing there are about 60 caps outside of the "standard 104 ANSI layout" to accomodate for weird layouts such as 75% & 1800.
Reminder of the keys for UK ISO compatibility :
- ISO Enter ( ALso used for JIS)
- 1.25 Shift ( which can be used for layouts outside of ISO)
- 1u R3 key
- 1u R4 Key
4 keys total. When other layout require so much more keys, ISO can't get his 4 keys. And let's not talk about the keys that are included and god's know what use they have but well.
And remember I'm not talking about this IC in particular so don't throw me this post : https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.msg2776810#msg2776810 to the face that's not what I'm talking about.
I can understand that including more keys add to the price of the GB and can make or lose a GB.
Also I want to add one more thing. The kits included :can all get combined with an hypothetical ISO kit.
- HHKB
- 75%
- 1800
Moving on back onto the subject of Customs keyboard and ISO support.
On some GB there's Winkeyless and Winkey top part. Yet have 4 more holes in a pcb is too much ?
On the plates, having more cutouts is bad ?Doesn't look pretty ? Remember it's gonna be underneath your keycaps.
Well we can even have separated plates.
Ok so to finish this way too long message already.
I'm not saying ISO should be in every GB.
I'm not saying ISO is standard and the most used layout.
But you have to understand that the hobby is too ANSI-Centric.
To the point that a lot of people migrates towards ANSI because they can't get compatible keys for their country layout. Hell if I wanted brand new Azerty FR caps, there's been 2 GB in total in the span of 6 years.
It's NOT ANSI VS ISO and I can't accept flawed arguments against ISO support.
Let's work together so everyone can have a keyboard they cherrish.
Let's try to keep the arguments civil pls.
Most of their customers don't use ISO. They assume their customers come from places where it is english.
If you're typing in weird accents, then it's probably going to have that weird n or going to that big enter.
Unless if you literally can't use ANSI, then i see no reason for iso.
What's the point if your enter takes up a large portion of the keyboard?
pls make sense.
Enter may be larger to your eyes but we still have one more key on our keyboards :cool:
Post by: Sup on Wed, 19 June 2019, 11:48:51
Quote
Most of their customers don't use ISO. They assume their customers come from places where it is english.
If you're typing in weird accents, then it's probably going to have that weird n or going to that big enter.
Unless if you literally can't use ANSI, then i see no reason for iso.
What's the point if your enter takes up a large portion of the keyboard?
[qoute]
pls make sense.
Enter may be larger to your eyes but we still have one more key on our keyboards :cool:
[/quote]
He doesn't make sense. He doesn't have any experience with the custom mechanical keyboard scene but still spurs information here from other posts/reddit as if he has experience with everything.
But still i agree there should be support for ISO. I don't see why a few extra keys would increase the price so drastically. I see enough GMK/EPBT with ISO support in the base kit while still having a normal price. But yeah at the end of the day its the GB runners choice even though he misses a few extra buyers to reach MOQ :rolleyes:
Post by: dgneo on Wed, 19 June 2019, 12:15:06
not really sure the point of this thread, other than to ***** about lack of iso compatibility for a couple sets. if you have that big of a problem with it, take it up with the makers?
Post by: azhdar on Thu, 20 June 2019, 02:11:54
i like how the only azerty supporters here are french
not really sure the point of this thread, other than to ***** about lack of iso compatibility for a couple sets. if you have that big of a problem with it, take it up with the makers?
Well azerty is a french layout so yeah, duh.
The makers don't want the conversation to derail on the IC thread, they ask to take it elsewhere.
So this is elsewhere.
Post by: zekth on Thu, 20 June 2019, 04:08:37
i like how the only azerty supporters here are french
(https://pics.me.me/godzilla-face-palm-for-when-an-epic-facepalm-is-not-20915840.png)
Why do all QWERTZ users are German?!
Post by: MAR82 on Thu, 20 June 2019, 04:47:08
i like how the only azerty supporters here are frenchShow Image(https://pics.me.me/godzilla-face-palm-for-when-an-epic-facepalm-is-not-20915840.png)
Why do all QWERTZ users are German?!
All AZERTY users are French. But not all QWERTZ users are German.
If you're going to mock someone, try to get your info right so other people don't mock you...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTZ
(and some countries that speak French also use an AZERTY variant, so technically not only French use AZERTY)
Post by: zekth on Thu, 20 June 2019, 04:58:58
Post by: funderburker on Thu, 20 June 2019, 06:32:37
ISO users are most of Europeans and even if they don't have a country-specific ISO layout, most of the boards (and laptops for that matter) come in ISO. I for one have used ISO-DE and ISO-UK keycaps on boards because there is no ISO-LV so the characters aren't that important for me. Now I actually am planning to use ISO-US keycaps are I prefer the large LShift but absolutely love my \| key being closer and in the proper location.
I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).
In the end of the keyboards are tools and they need to be customizable not in terms of (just) looks but in terms of functionality primarily thus cutting out ISO users from GBs means making people choose looks over functionality and that's not right. It's like saying - we only make sneakers in X size and not in any other because there's not enough people with Y foot size to make it profitable. Like c'mon.
Post by: fleeceman on Thu, 20 June 2019, 08:35:08
As an ISO user myself, I flat out refuse to compromise and use caps with the wrong legends when I am spending hundreds on keycaps.
It is a bad omen for the future of this community that so many new people don't really give a f*ck about anyone but themselves and their particular layout. Look at all the OG sets that included full ISO compatibility in the base set that had absolutely no issue hitting MOQ.
I've even seen ridiculous statements like "please drop ISO and numpad so I can afford 2 base kits pls".
Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
Post by: Poesjuh on Thu, 20 June 2019, 08:59:00
With regards to keycap sets, I honestly see no reason not to include the 4 keys. Unless there is some kind of "GMK Base kit for $100" that we (the masses) don't know off and anything beyond that instantly raises the price with $10-20, adding 4 keys surely can't be that much more expensive. Adding 4% extra keys for perhaps 5% of the users (guessing here) doesn't look like a bad thing to me. Cutting the ISO keys just keeps ISO users from buying a keycap set which is a shame imho. Yes I know, not adding 40% kits does the same... But I hope we can agree iso and 40's don't fall in the same category. (Although, perhaps 40% users disagree with me on this.)
Talking about keyboards I do think that a cheese plate doesn't improve the sound and feel of the plate. I'm all for fixed layouts. If a GB runner chooses to only include ANSI, that's fine by me. Be the legend, give the files for ISO plates. Also be a legend and make the pcb support both ansi and iso, it really isn't that much more support that's needed.
It feels a bit like "the community", or at least the Western one, is slowly pushing a group within our community away and banishing them. No ISO keyboards, no ISO keycap sets. I can't agree on that.
tldr; I support adding 4 keys with keycap sets for ISO users. I also vote for open plate design and pcb that supports iso.
Post by: fleeceman on Thu, 20 June 2019, 09:03:51
Most of their customers don't use ISO. They assume their customers come from places where it is english.
If you're typing in weird accents, then it's probably going to have that weird n or going to that big enter.
Unless if you literally can't use ANSI, then i see no reason for iso.
What's the point if your enter takes up a large portion of the keyboard?
The country where English was invented, ENGLAND in case you didn't know, uses ISO layout.
You must be trolling because no one is genuinely that thick.
Post by: Prelim on Thu, 20 June 2019, 09:07:17
also, ansi+iso pcbs and plates are most needed on korean customs GB :thumb:
Post by: boboking5 on Thu, 20 June 2019, 09:21:37
Talking about keyboards I do think that a cheese plate doesn't improve the sound and feel of the plate. I'm all for fixed layouts. If a GB runner chooses to only include ANSI, that's fine by me. Be the legend, give the files for ISO plates. Also be a legend and make the pcb support both ansi and iso, it really isn't that much more support that's needed.
Couldn't agree more. With things like laserboost and other services popping up getting a new plate is easier than ever it just requires a plate file. As you says adding ISO support to a PCB is really not that much more work.
Post by: Findecanor on Thu, 20 June 2019, 09:49:22
Post by: dgneo on Thu, 20 June 2019, 09:51:17
I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).
IMO the reason to cut ISO out in favor of novelty keys is simple - ANSI outweighs ISO, ANSI users want novelty keys.
It's like saying - we only make sneakers in X size and not in any other because there's not enough people with Y foot size to make it profitable. Like c'mon.
Kinda, some shoe manufacturers definitely make less of larger/smaller sizes that aren't purchased as frequently. Making ISO compatibility an add-on set is probably the best option.
Post by: jamoz330 on Thu, 20 June 2019, 10:08:13
I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).
IMO the reason to cut ISO out in favor of novelty keys is simple - ANSI outweighs ISO, ANSI users want novelty keys.It's like saying - we only make sneakers in X size and not in any other because there's not enough people with Y foot size to make it profitable. Like c'mon.
Kinda, some shoe manufacturers definitely make less of larger/smaller sizes that aren't purchased as frequently. Making ISO compatibility an add-on set is probably the best option.
So completely get rid of functionality for one group of people in order to add extra’s to another group of people?
Post by: Oblotzky on Thu, 20 June 2019, 10:22:38
Post by: Wilba on Thu, 20 June 2019, 11:10:10
The arguments on why there should be no ISO support:
"Actually, iso pads overlap ansi, creating swiss cheese effect. Nobody likes swiss cheese pcb. Its (one of) the same reason wilba refuses to do ISO on most of his pcb's, if im not mistaken."
"As with the above, I've opted not to include ISO support because of how it messes with the footprints for ANSI and as selfish as it sounds, this a design that is tailored to my personal preferences and is optimised for that."
You're quoting someone else, not me. I don't refuse to do ISO. Custom keyboard designers commission me for a PCB, and it's their choice what they want. If they want a single plate design that is tailored to their preferences (and the majority of their potential customers), and a PCB to match, then that's their choice. LeandreN wanted ISO support on PCBs for future Mekanisk group buys. No problem.
https://mekanisk.co/collections/group-buys/products/unannounced-product
And well ... the pcb argument .... the pcb problem is a dumb one brought by lazy pcb makers, not going to lie lol. The "swiss cheese effect" for the ISO keys, but they're fine with having 10000000 bottom rows ? miss me with that ****, if PCB makers really cared about the "swiss cheese effect", we'd only have tsangan and poker supported, for a TKL at least.
For the board mentioned, I can see effort has been put to make the cleanest PCB possible, but at the same time, I don't think putting ISO would have hurt the thing.
You're missing the point here. I can put ISO on a PCB, it's not particularly hard, I'm not "lazy", I designed Zeal60 which had ANSI and ISO and in-switch RGB, and I did it just to prove one could do both, some things are sub-optimal but it works. It was designed to fit in 60% tray cases, not as part of a custom keyboard "kit" (case + PCB), so it makes sense.
The arms race to put as many layouts as possible on a PCB has led to the "swiss cheese". Now, people who don't want "swiss cheese" create a demand for "cleaner" PCBs, single-layout or minimal layout PCBs, the custom case designers choose this, and I make it. Other case designers favour compatibility and choose to add more layouts on the PCB and/or plates. That's their choice, too. There are no right or wrong answers, just choices and diversity.
Post by: dgneo on Thu, 20 June 2019, 11:19:26
Show Image(https://i.imgur.com/nyXxfOm.png)
love it
I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).
IMO the reason to cut ISO out in favor of novelty keys is simple - ANSI outweighs ISO, ANSI users want novelty keys.It's like saying - we only make sneakers in X size and not in any other because there's not enough people with Y foot size to make it profitable. Like c'mon.
Kinda, some shoe manufacturers definitely make less of larger/smaller sizes that aren't purchased as frequently. Making ISO compatibility an add-on set is probably the best option.
So completely get rid of functionality for one group of people in order to add extra’s to another group of people?
As I said in my post, making ISO compatibility an add-on set is probably the best option.
From a financial standpoint, ANSI users supporting a groupbuy with awesome novelties will vastly outweigh the few folks who want ISO compatibility. And with price breaks for GBs happening the more people purchase, not to mention some GBs not even launching without X amounts of orders, are you really surprised that makers would rather push ANSI + Novelties than ISO?
Post by: the pokemon kid on Thu, 20 June 2019, 11:34:02
For me, if a Keyset or Keyboard doesn't have ISO then its a non purchase for me entirely. No matter how good the board is or pretty the keyset is, its a no go. I was hyped with funds ready for the U80-A however when I saw it was ANSI only, I bought something else.
However I am more than happy to do some of the work in getting ISO for the boards. I am currently running a Groupbuy for the ISO users for the Satisfaction75 as UPAS is only including an ANSI Plate (PCB supports ISO). This is a 75 euro add on, however to me this is more than worth it.
With regards to keycaps, I am more than happy to pay extra for an ISO UK addon set. However I have always wondered how much extra it actually cost to put ISO support in the base set?
Post by: megaforce on Thu, 20 June 2019, 11:40:10
GGGRRRRRRR!!!!
(https://i.pinimg.com/236x/2a/df/8a/2adf8aa675ee89da73c742ffad07cd8c.jpg)
Post by: Findecanor on Thu, 20 June 2019, 11:43:58
Here in a ISO-land, I see people adopting ANSI because of key sets being only in ANSI / ISO keysets requiring additional sets at best.I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).
IMO the reason to cut ISO out in favor of novelty keys is simple - ANSI outweighs ISO, ANSI users want novelty keys.
When a set requires additional ISO kit + additional NORDE kit + international shipping, then the price for a ISO user could easily become twice that as for an ANSI customer.
Many ISO users just avoid these GBs altogether, because it is often just not worth it.
In other words, you should infer too much from the fact that ANSI sets are selling more.
Post by: Sifo on Thu, 20 June 2019, 13:17:54
When a set requires additional ISO kit + additional NORDE kit + international shipping, then the price for a ISO user could easily become twice that as for an ANSI customer.
Many ISO users just avoid these GBs altogether, because it is often just not worth it.
which means that GB runners are gonna have even less of a reason to include ISO
the cycle continues!
Post by: Poesjuh on Thu, 20 June 2019, 13:38:47
I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).
IMO the reason to cut ISO out in favor of novelty keys is simple - ANSI outweighs ISO, ANSI users want novelty keys.
You’re assuming here. What research has been done to show that ansi users want novelties?
Not trying to offend here, but making statements that have no ground to them makes no sense. Perhaps ansi users want novelties. Perhaps not? GMK Minimal >800 kits sold without novelties. But apparently ansi users want novelties?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Post by: dgneo on Thu, 20 June 2019, 13:58:51
I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).
IMO the reason to cut ISO out in favor of novelty keys is simple - ANSI outweighs ISO, ANSI users want novelty keys.
You’re assuming here. What research has been done to show that ansi users want novelties?
Not trying to offend here, but making statements that have no ground to them makes no sense. Perhaps ansi users want novelties. Perhaps not? GMK Minimal >800 kits sold without novelties. But apparently ansi users want novelties?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
First off it's just that - an opinion - which I stated at the beginning of the post.
I expanded a little bit more here:
"As I said in my post, making ISO compatibility an add-on set is probably the best option.
From a financial standpoint, ANSI users supporting a groupbuy with awesome novelties will vastly outweigh the few folks who want ISO compatibility. And with price breaks for GBs happening the more people purchase, not to mention some GBs not even launching without X amounts of orders, are you really surprised that makers would rather push ANSI + Novelties than ISO?"
Post by: nappis on Thu, 20 June 2019, 14:12:47
I mean some very niche layout users cry for their niche layout keys to be included in base kits. But if your base set doesn't have ISO support then your excluding a continent of users. It does not make any sense.
Post by: depletedvespene on Thu, 20 June 2019, 14:32:23
And I have to say it's infuriating to read things such as:
"ISO is a non standard layout and most of the world use ANSI"
"Those niche kits won't ever come back."
Allow ME, then, to pound on this for a minute...
Most of the world uses ISO Enter keyboards, not ANSI. Whoever states the inverse is just flat out wrong. Step away from mechanical keyboards for a minute, and go look what regular keyboards used by non-enthusiasts look like, and you'll be hard-pressed to find ANSI keyboards on countries where the standard (as dictated by the language) is ISO... and now look up the countries that use ISO and the ones using ISO (and then sum up their respective populations).
So, yeah, it may be the case now that mech-enthusiasts use more ANSI than ISO, but that is definitely not the case when looking outside our own niche. And if this niche wants to grow, it can't do so by alienating the rest of the universe.
So why no support for ISO in the first place? I think it's just myopia.
Now, allow me to make an argument that I haven't seen issued so far (and which kinda surprises me that is the case). NO ONE will bat an eye at the amount of repetition in the nav-cluster keys. I'll put up GMK Nines as an example because this one is actually modest in this regard - it has:
- 1 Insert key (R1)
- 2 Delete keys (R1, R2)
- 1 Home key (R1)
- 2 Page Up keys (R1 and R2)
- 3 Page Down keys (R1, R2, R3)
- 3 End keys (R1, R2, R4)
You guys may name other kits that have even more copies of those six keys (five, actually - I've yet to see a kit with more than one Home key).
If anyone asks, everyone will agree that this is necessary to support as many physical layouts as possible (fullsize/TKL, 75%/65%, 60%, 1800, etc.).
Same goes for the Shift keys, where it's pretty much the standard, for the same reason, to have four keys just for the right Shift (2.75U, 2.25U, 1.75U and 2.00U, besides the 2.25U ANSI left Shift key).
Yet... adding a 1.25U Shift key and a second Enter key (ISO) seems to be tantamount to sacrilege for some. I'll reiterate: it's myopia.
The discussion always goes over how much of an international support should there be and gets futher complicated by NORDE, NORDEUK, lack of sales, some stroppy git claiming for support for something called "LAPTES", etcetera.
I think, if you ask me, that the compromise solution should be simple enough. Support US ISO in the base kit. How?
1) The base kit should be US ANSI, as it has always been, with all the repetition of nav keys and Shift and accented Esc and Enter keys and whatnot, albeit...
2) The base kit should also contain EXACTLY FOUR more keys: ISO left Shift (1.25U), ISO Enter, R3 \| key, R4 \| key.
3) An "accent" ISO Enter may or may not be added.
4) An R4 <> key may or may not be added, to evoke the terminal keyboards of old.
That's it. A simple enough compromise, that adds full support for 50% of ALL physical layouts out there in the world (TKL ANSI / TKL ISO, 60% ANSI / 60% ISO, etcetera). With as little as four keys.
Internationalization kits should be then added if feasible, with ONLY the necessary 1U alphas, plus one, two or three AltGr keys (as deemed necessary). I won't get into whether splitting NORDEUK into two or not is necessary, or adding LAPTES or BEFRIT, as that is another issue best talked about separately.
IMNAAHO. YMMV.
EDIT: typo.
Post by: azhdar on Thu, 20 June 2019, 14:50:37
The arguments are interesting.
Trolls well ... w/e.
I want to highlight one point one more time:
The argument is about "75% support is 100 more buyers whilst ISO support is 25 more , ISO don't make the bank " <== pretty much no ?
The thing everyone seems to forget is that 75% support, 1800 support, ... aren't ANSI specific.
But if an ISO user wants a 75% or 1800 board he'll need both those kits. He'll have a reason to buy the set in the first place.
so maybe that 100+25 turns into a bigger number if the pricing is correct. Don't you think ?
Post by: Myoth on Thu, 20 June 2019, 15:15:06
And well ... the pcb argument .... the pcb problem is a dumb one brought by lazy pcb makers, not going to lie lol. The "swiss cheese effect" for the ISO keys, but they're fine with having 10000000 bottom rows ? miss me with that ****, if PCB makers really cared about the "swiss cheese effect", we'd only have tsangan and poker supported, for a TKL at least.
For the board mentioned, I can see effort has been put to make the cleanest PCB possible, but at the same time, I don't think putting ISO would have hurt the thing.
You're missing the point here. I can put ISO on a PCB, it's not particularly hard, I'm not "lazy", I designed Zeal60 which had ANSI and ISO and in-switch RGB, and I did it just to prove one could do both, some things are sub-optimal but it works. It was designed to fit in 60% tray cases, not as part of a custom keyboard "kit" (case + PCB), so it makes sense.
The arms race to put as many layouts as possible on a PCB has led to the "swiss cheese". Now, people who don't want "swiss cheese" create a demand for "cleaner" PCBs, single-layout or minimal layout PCBs, the custom case designers choose this, and I make it. Other case designers favour compatibility and choose to add more layouts on the PCB and/or plates. That's their choice, too. There are no right or wrong answers, just choices and diversity.
I don't think ISO is the biggest problem on many PCBs, while I do agree with what you say, for the sake of the argument, I can't really play devil's advocate. Else everything is subjective and there isn't any argument. Maybe lazy was too much of a buzzword, but come on, I HIGHLY doubt 8 pads are the end of the world. Clean PCBs and are nice, and I respect it, but I don't think adding ISO support dirties them or whatever, and if I were to make PCBs, ISO + tsangan would be the least they would be, on any of them. But I don't make any. So eh ?
Post by: Acereconkeys on Thu, 20 June 2019, 15:31:09
And well ... the pcb argument .... the pcb problem is a dumb one brought by lazy pcb makers, not going to lie lol. The "swiss cheese effect" for the ISO keys, but they're fine with having 10000000 bottom rows ? miss me with that ****, if PCB makers really cared about the "swiss cheese effect", we'd only have tsangan and poker supported, for a TKL at least.
For the board mentioned, I can see effort has been put to make the cleanest PCB possible, but at the same time, I don't think putting ISO would have hurt the thing.
You're missing the point here. I can put ISO on a PCB, it's not particularly hard, I'm not "lazy", I designed Zeal60 which had ANSI and ISO and in-switch RGB, and I did it just to prove one could do both, some things are sub-optimal but it works. It was designed to fit in 60% tray cases, not as part of a custom keyboard "kit" (case + PCB), so it makes sense.
The arms race to put as many layouts as possible on a PCB has led to the "swiss cheese". Now, people who don't want "swiss cheese" create a demand for "cleaner" PCBs, single-layout or minimal layout PCBs, the custom case designers choose this, and I make it. Other case designers favour compatibility and choose to add more layouts on the PCB and/or plates. That's their choice, too. There are no right or wrong answers, just choices and diversity.
I don't think ISO is the biggest problem on many PCBs, while I do agree with what you say, for the sake of the argument, I can't really play devil's advocate. Else everything is subjective and there isn't any argument. Maybe lazy was too much of a buzzword, but come on, I HIGHLY doubt 8 pads are the end of the world. Clean PCBs and are nice, and I respect it, but I don't think adding ISO support dirties them or whatever, and if I were to make PCBs, ISO + tsangan would be the least they would be, on any of them. But I don't make any. So eh ?
The thing is that what you feel doesn't matter. When someone designs a custom keyboard they have a choice to make, design wise. The choice to remove iso compatibility obviously disappoints people who like iso, but most people who prefer ansi prefer to have their expensive high end customs not have cheese pcb/plate. The beauty of this hobby is you absolutely have that freedom. Make your own boards, or support the designers who add iso compatibility to their projects even if they don't need to.
Interesting discussion though about Iso. Personally, I think it's an unfortunate situation not sure what's to be done about it. I empathize with the frustration of not being able to use the keysets you're interested in on the boards you buy. I recognize that's unfortunate for a hobby designed around making the perfect board for yourself. On the other hand though 100% of these arguments proposed here can work for any odd layout. I'm making a keyboard with 2x r3 1.25u keys. If that gets popular can I start demanding those? It's only 2 keys! What about the high amount of 40s users, why can't they demand we include 1.25u r3 tab key and a 1.75u r3 enter key in base kits. I understand it's annoying but regardless of whatever percentage of the globe supports ISO, it's absolutely a small minority in custom mechanical keyboards, period.
Post by: funderburker on Thu, 20 June 2019, 15:37:01
I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).
IMO the reason to cut ISO out in favor of novelty keys is simple - ANSI outweighs ISO, ANSI users want novelty keys.
You’re assuming here. What research has been done to show that ansi users want novelties?
Not trying to offend here, but making statements that have no ground to them makes no sense. Perhaps ansi users want novelties. Perhaps not? GMK Minimal >800 kits sold without novelties. But apparently ansi users want novelties?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
First off it's just that - an opinion - which I stated at the beginning of the post.
I expanded a little bit more here:
"As I said in my post, making ISO compatibility an add-on set is probably the best option.
From a financial standpoint, ANSI users supporting a groupbuy with awesome novelties will vastly outweigh the few folks who want ISO compatibility. And with price breaks for GBs happening the more people purchase, not to mention some GBs not even launching without X amounts of orders, are you really surprised that makers would rather push ANSI + Novelties than ISO?"
Poesjuh, let's keep this discussion a discussion.
Not all keysets absolutely need them imo and there's not real reason to INCLUDE them in a base kit (not all GBs do that but some does)
I think this whole ISO exclusion started because of all the gazillion GMK ICs and GBs that are a way of our community growing bigger and starting to just churn out GMK keysets like farts after a lunch in nasty taco place. It's a ****ing mess what is going on with all these GMK ICs and people wanting everything but not being able to afford everything they want. There's a new shiny keyset that may or may not be "THE ONE" for some build they apparently have in mind. This is a way of our hobby growing ever so bigger, the options expanding and GB runners and shops understanding the massive commercial potential that is catering to the masses.
Just my opinion. I too would/will join some GMK GBs but it's just food for thought - there's an audience that WOULD BE willing to join but their not catered and it's a shame because it's not people that want some ****ing novelties or weird layouts but a real population that want to use their tools.
P.S. I started writing this way back so I left out a few posts after the quoted ones.
P.P.S. Think about numbers - if ISO people don't get in a GB, the runner is missing out on like $120-$200 on each person. But if an ANSI person has to pay $20 more for a few keycaps that aren't gonna be used - let's cater to the $20 discount and not all that more ISO people pays?
Post by: Acereconkeys on Thu, 20 June 2019, 15:42:17
I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).
IMO the reason to cut ISO out in favor of novelty keys is simple - ANSI outweighs ISO, ANSI users want novelty keys.
You’re assuming here. What research has been done to show that ansi users want novelties?
Not trying to offend here, but making statements that have no ground to them makes no sense. Perhaps ansi users want novelties. Perhaps not? GMK Minimal >800 kits sold without novelties. But apparently ansi users want novelties?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
First off it's just that - an opinion - which I stated at the beginning of the post.
I expanded a little bit more here:
"As I said in my post, making ISO compatibility an add-on set is probably the best option.
From a financial standpoint, ANSI users supporting a groupbuy with awesome novelties will vastly outweigh the few folks who want ISO compatibility. And with price breaks for GBs happening the more people purchase, not to mention some GBs not even launching without X amounts of orders, are you really surprised that makers would rather push ANSI + Novelties than ISO?"
Poesjuh, let's keep this discussion a discussion.
Not all keysets absolutely need them imo and there's not real reason to INCLUDE them in a base kit (not all GBs do that but some does)
I think this whole ISO exclusion started because of all the gazillion GMK ICs and GBs that are a way of our community growing bigger and starting to just churn out GMK keysets like farts after a lunch in nasty taco place. It's a ****ing mess what is going on with all these GMK ICs and people wanting everything but not being able to afford everything they want. There's a new shiny keyset that may or may not be "THE ONE" for some build they apparently have in mind. This is a way of our hobby growing ever so bigger, the options expanding and GB runners and shops understanding the massive commercial potential that is catering to the masses.
Just my opinion. I too would/will join some GMK GBs but it's just food for thought - there's an audience that WOULD BE willing to join but their not catered and it's a shame because it's not people that want some ****ing novelties or weird layouts but a real population that want to use their tools.
I agree about the reason for ISO exclusion Funder. The more sets there are, the more they have to compete with each other and therefore the more they're going to slim and slim and slim their base kits to try and get that cheapest kit price. We've even seen sets go as far as removing the numpad from the base kit.
The only point about your reply that I don't personally agree is what makes Iso any different. I think it's a big stretch to think that the buying power of the Iso support group is somehow bigger than the buying power of other support groups. A lot of people really like novelties or other unsusual layouts and they might not want to join a GB that doesn't fill their board too, what's the difference?
Post by: depletedvespene on Thu, 20 June 2019, 15:44:15
………
I understand it's annoying but regardless of whatever percentage of the globe supports ISO, it's absolutely a small minority in custom mechanical keyboards, period.
And it's going to remain a minority if ISO users are kept being alienated by this issue, especially if OTHER small minorities are being served their needs in what today is considered the "proper minimal standard" for a keycap set (the 2.0U Shift key being the most obvious example of this), and some more keys getting added to the base kit as well without fuss (R2 Esc, R2 1.0 Tab), all the while an important key (ISO Enter) is treated like the plague.
Do remember that mech enthusiasm is not a hobby with a more or less fixed population - it's been growing for a few years already, to the point that it's becoming difficult for keycap set GBs to fail (a common occurrence even in 2017). At some point, the idea of ISO users being a "small minority" will become not just wrong, but laughable.
So, just as a non-controversial compromise exists for, say, the 1800 layout (with its R1 Del, End and Page Down keys), which is indeed used by a minority, why can't the same attitude exist for all the "ISO layouts" (be them full-size, TKL, 1800, 75%, 65&, 60%, etc.)?
And that's not getting into JIS - it reuses ISO left Shift and ISO Enter, adds a couple alphas, one R1 1U Backspace (which, it must be noted, already exists in plenty of "ANSI ONLY WE HATE ISO!" kits), and the bottom row keys. A small "JIS kit" could well be added, to add on to the base kit, which should support ISO and ANSI, plus the ANSISO and ISANSI hybrids out of the box.
We can all get the best of both worlds. We actually do, in the non-controversial compromises that already exist. Why not agree on this one, too?
Post by: Acereconkeys on Thu, 20 June 2019, 15:54:44
………
I understand it's annoying but regardless of whatever percentage of the globe supports ISO, it's absolutely a small minority in custom mechanical keyboards, period.
And it's going to remain a minority if ISO users are kept being alienated by this issue, especially if OTHER small minorities are being served their needs in what today is considered the "proper minimal standard" for a keycap set (the 2.0U Shift key being the most obvious example of this), and some more keys getting added to the base kit as well without fuss (R2 Esc, R2 1.0 Tab), all the while an important key (ISO Enter) is treated like the plague.
Do remember that mech enthusiasm is not a hobby with a more or less fixed population - it's been growing for a few years already, to the point that it's becoming difficult for keycap set GBs to fail (a common occurrence even in 2017). At some point, the idea of ISO users being a "small minority" will become not just wrong, but laughable.
So, just as a non-controversial compromise exists for, say, the 1800 layout (with its R1 Del, End and Page Down keys), which is indeed used by a minority, why can't the same attitude exist for all the "ISO layouts" (be them full-size, TKL, 1800, 75%, 65&, 60%, etc.)?
And that's not getting into JIS - it reuses ISO left Shift and ISO Enter, adds a couple alphas, one R1 1U Backspace (which, it must be noted, already exists in plenty of "ANSI ONLY WE HATE ISO!" kits), and the bottom row keys. A small "JIS kit" could well be added, to add on to the base kit, which should support ISO and ANSI, plus the ANSISO and ISANSI hybrids out of the box.
We can all get the best of both worlds. We actually do, in the non-controversial compromises that already exist. Why not agree on this one, too?
Sort of unintentionally on your end I imagine, but I agree with you about the 2u shift being a really odd inclusion versus iso. In my opinion the next compatibility added after though should be 40s not iso. I believe more people are interested in 40s than iso.
To sort of spawn a new discussion the only thing that matters at all is, right now, what's the current distribution of boards for the people who buy custom keysets.
Imo, it goes as follows: 65, TKL (including tsangan), 60, 75, 1800, 40s, iso, full size, 60 with arrows
Post by: funderburker on Thu, 20 June 2019, 16:00:28
………
I understand it's annoying but regardless of whatever percentage of the globe supports ISO, it's absolutely a small minority in custom mechanical keyboards, period.
And it's going to remain a minority if ISO users are kept being alienated by this issue, especially if OTHER small minorities are being served their needs in what today is considered the "proper minimal standard" for a keycap set (the 2.0U Shift key being the most obvious example of this), and some more keys getting added to the base kit as well without fuss (R2 Esc, R2 1.0 Tab), all the while an important key (ISO Enter) is treated like the plague.
Do remember that mech enthusiasm is not a hobby with a more or less fixed population - it's been growing for a few years already, to the point that it's becoming difficult for keycap set GBs to fail (a common occurrence even in 2017). At some point, the idea of ISO users being a "small minority" will become not just wrong, but laughable.
So, just as a non-controversial compromise exists for, say, the 1800 layout (with its R1 Del, End and Page Down keys), which is indeed used by a minority, why can't the same attitude exist for all the "ISO layouts" (be them full-size, TKL, 1800, 75%, 65&, 60%, etc.)?
And that's not getting into JIS - it reuses ISO left Shift and ISO Enter, adds a couple alphas, one R1 1U Backspace (which, it must be noted, already exists in plenty of "ANSI ONLY WE HATE ISO!" kits), and the bottom row keys. A small "JIS kit" could well be added, to add on to the base kit, which should support ISO and ANSI, plus the ANSISO and ISANSI hybrids out of the box.
We can all get the best of both worlds. We actually do, in the non-controversial compromises that already exist. Why not agree on this one, too?
Sort of unintentionally on your end I imagine, but I agree with you about the 2u shift being a really odd inclusion versus iso. In my opinion the next compatibility added after though should be 40s not iso. I believe more people are interested in 40s than iso.
To sort of spawn a new discussion the only thing that matters at all is, right now, what's the current distribution of boards for the people who buy custom keysets.
Imo, it goes as follows: 65, TKL (including tsangan), 60, 75, 1800, 40s, iso, full size, 60 with arrows
Just wanted to say your list of distribution while valid shows that first 5 board types in your list are all ISO compatible so that means it can cover a lot of ISO use cases. Even though I like seeing 40% kits in GBs as I do own a smaller form factor board, I'd prefer ISO Enter and \| (at least!) on a 60%+ form factor any day.
Post by: Acereconkeys on Thu, 20 June 2019, 16:07:54
………...
...
Sort of unintentionally on your end I imagine, but I agree with you about the 2u shift being a really odd inclusion versus iso. In my opinion the next compatibility added after though should be 40s not iso. I believe more people are interested in 40s than iso.
To sort of spawn a new discussion the only thing that matters at all is, right now, what's the current distribution of boards for the people who buy custom keysets.
Imo, it goes as follows: 65, TKL (including tsangan), 60, 75, 1800, 40s, iso, full size, 60 with arrows
Just wanted to say your list of distribution while valid shows that first 5 board types in your list are all ISO compatible so that means it can cover a lot of ISO use cases. Even though I like seeing 40% kits in GBs as I do own a smaller form factor board, I'd prefer ISO Enter and \| (at least!) on a 60%+ form factor any day.
While I agree and understand what you're saying. My tier list included all keyboards with iso in the iso group. I think that all ISO users, 60, 75, 1800, etc, combined still do not add up to the number of 40s/1800s users, when considering only the group of people who buy custom keycap sets.
Post by: depletedvespene on Thu, 20 June 2019, 16:10:15
……
Just wanted to say your list of distribution while valid shows that first 5 board types in your list are all ISO compatible so that means it can cover a lot of ISO use cases. Even though I like seeing 40% kits in GBs as I do own a smaller form factor board, I'd prefer ISO Enter and \| (at least!) on a 60%+ form factor any day.
I think that part of the reason for this treatment of "ISO" is that "ISO" is thought of by some as if it were one distinct physical layout out of several, while it actually is a set of two variants (for left Shift and Enter/slash) for each of those several physical layouts. Instead of "full size, TKL, 1800, 75%, 60%, 40%, ISO", the list of physical layouts is actually "full size (ANSI and ISO), TKL (ANSI and ISO), 1800 (ANSI and ISO), 75% (ANSI and ISO), 60% (ANSI and ISO), 40% (ANSI and ISO)".
Just imagine if stepped and non-stepped Caps Lock keys were treated as different physical layouts instead of a variant in the same physical layout.
Post by: Acereconkeys on Thu, 20 June 2019, 16:14:43
……
Just wanted to say your list of distribution while valid shows that first 5 board types in your list are all ISO compatible so that means it can cover a lot of ISO use cases. Even though I like seeing 40% kits in GBs as I do own a smaller form factor board, I'd prefer ISO Enter and \| (at least!) on a 60%+ form factor any day.
I think that part of the reason for this treatment of "ISO" is that "ISO" is thought of by some as if it were one distinct physical layout out of several, while it actually is a set of two variants (for left Shift and Enter/slash) for each of those several physical layouts. Instead of "full size, TKL, 1800, 75%, 60%, 40%, ISO", the list of physical layouts is actually "full size (ANSI and ISO), TKL (ANSI and ISO), 1800 (ANSI and ISO), 75% (ANSI and ISO), 60% (ANSI and ISO), 40% (ANSI and ISO)".
Just imagine if stepped and non-stepped Caps Lock keys were treated as different physical layouts instead of a variant in the same physical layout.
I think it's correct to consider iso the same as 65/75/whatever. Here's my argument. Functionally, all that matters from a keycap set designers perspective, is which group of people they are going to enable combatibility for and at what cost to the majority of other buyers. In that sense, iso is equivalent to other added options since it's a group of people you're adding compatibility for, at the cost of the other people who don't use those keys. It doesn't mater that the 20-50 iso users you're adding for are spread cross 60, 65, 75, etc. They still add up in total to less people than other options.
You're absolutely right that stepped/nonstepped caps lock should be treated as a different layout (when it comes to choosing base kits at least). The cost there is including 1 key, for all of the people who use stepped caps (a significant chunk, imo).
Post by: lewisflude on Fri, 21 June 2019, 01:58:39
I often see the argument that removing ISO brings down base price, with people going as far as to outwardly state it's because they "want to be able to afford two base kits". I think it's undeniable that people get excessively vocal about removing ISO when compared to other extra keys that either add compatibility for some esoteric layout or some novelties people want.
ANSI is an American layout, whereas ISO is used by much of the rest of the world. ISO users want to be able to use a keyboard that looks and feels like what they've grown up on. I wouldn't buy a kit that doesn't support ISO and I know I've skipped out on a few GBs because of this.
I do think that bringing base cost down is important so that GBs can make use of the economies of scale and get onto as many boards as possible. I'm interested in ways set designers could do this while being inclusive. I think bundling smaller sets together is one strategy that's worked really well in the past.
In any given set, I'm sure there's at least a handful of keys that someone isn't using. You can't use every single key in a set on a board. So this idea of the "ISO tax" of $2-3 per kit just doesn't really make sense to me. I understand the reasoning behind building sets that will generate the most sales and optimising those sets for maximum reach/profit. I also see the logic behind using kit sales as the primary metric behind the inclusion of ISO. It makes sense that a set designer would listen to the market and make changes that the majority want.
I think that the vocal support of ISO in this thread, and interest checks show that there's another metric set designers should take note of, which is how important ISO is to people who use it. Although it might seem like an aesthetic/functional preference like choosing HHKB layout, 40s or 1800 is really something cultural and fundamental to our experience using keyboard. If the majority want rid of ISO, that makes the world of mechanical keyboards more homogenous and America-centric and as a growing community I think inclusion should be at the forefront of discussions around what keys to support or not support.
Post by: fleeceman on Fri, 21 June 2019, 03:54:08
Show Image(https://i.imgur.com/nyXxfOm.png)
You were moaning that Oblivion international kit would not hit MOQ but it has easily?
Post by: fleeceman on Fri, 21 June 2019, 03:57:43
Sorry to break it to you but Jamon is just ugly af.
Post by: Oblotzky on Fri, 21 June 2019, 08:03:05
Show Image(https://i.imgur.com/nyXxfOm.png)
You were moaning that Oblivion international kit would not hit MOQ but it has easily?
I said it was not unlikely that it wouldn't, but gave it a shot because it had a chance. Also I wasn't sure that I could offer it with MOQ 50, had it been MOQ 100 we'd still be far off.
Out of the 1574 Base Kits sold, only 65 people cared about proper legends (Base Kits offer physical ISO), that's 4.13%.
I wouldn't call it 'easily' when you need to sell 1500+ Base Kits to hit such a low MOQ. Oblivion will probably remain my only set that I will try serving with proper ISO/NorDeUK coverage, everything else will have physical ISO at most.
Still waiting for Zambumon or Puddsy to show up with a screenshot of the Jamon ISO UK kit only getting 30 orders as if that is proof that only 30 people in the world use ISO.
Sorry to break it to you but Jamon is just ugly af.
A set being pretty or not is irrelevant when you are analyzing percentages.
Post by: [Lewynlight] on Fri, 21 June 2019, 08:16:13
Hello maybe this isn't the right section so move it if necessary.
People that knows me know I'm a big defender of ISO. Even Azerty FR ISO but well that's not what I want to discuss today.
I've been a lot less active on the hobby since I pretty much reached my endgame. But lately 2 IC threads have kind of startled me:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.0
and this:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=100896.0
Before I continue, this IC threads I'm pointing are just examples toward the point I'm trying to make. I don't blame any of the IC starters.
First one : Sanctuary:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.450
On the latest pages we can see an argument ongoing because some kits were dropped and especially the ISO one.
And I have to say it's infuriating to read things such as:
"ISO is a non standard layout and most of the world use ANSI"
"Those niche kits won't ever come back."
But I'll come back to it later.
Now one the second IC that interests me :
7V 75% Keyboard :
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=100896.0
Watching through all the pages there are 7 differents people asking for ISO support.
The arguments on why there should be no ISO support:
"Actually, iso pads overlap ansi, creating swiss cheese effect. Nobody likes swiss cheese pcb. Its (one of) the same reason wilba refuses to do ISO on most of his pcb's, if im not mistaken."
"As with the above, I've opted not to include ISO support because of how it messes with the footprints for ANSI and as selfish as it sounds, this a design that is tailored to my personal preferences and is optimised for that."
Ok moving on.
ISO is a much larger subject but for today let's assume only UK ISO for keycap compatibility.Show Image(https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9a92060c5ed44ef831773596d1e7d6e45a728a65591b5fed8fc6628d90ecb61f/Sanctuary-New-Kit-01.png)
On the base kit you're seeing there are about 60 caps outside of the "standard 104 ANSI layout" to accomodate for weird layouts such as 75% & 1800.
Reminder of the keys for UK ISO compatibility :
- ISO Enter ( ALso used for JIS)
- 1.25 Shift ( which can be used for layouts outside of ISO)
- 1u R3 key
- 1u R4 Key
4 keys total. When other layout require so much more keys, ISO can't get his 4 keys. And let's not talk about the keys that are included and god's know what use they have but well.
And remember I'm not talking about this IC in particular so don't throw me this post : https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.msg2776810#msg2776810 to the face that's not what I'm talking about.
I can understand that including more keys add to the price of the GB and can make or lose a GB.
Also I want to add one more thing. The kits included :can all get combined with an hypothetical ISO kit.
- HHKB
- 75%
- 1800
Moving on back onto the subject of Customs keyboard and ISO support.
On some GB there's Winkeyless and Winkey top part. Yet have 4 more holes in a pcb is too much ?
On the plates, having more cutouts is bad ?Doesn't look pretty ? Remember it's gonna be underneath your keycaps.
Well we can even have separated plates.
Ok so to finish this way too long message already.
I'm not saying ISO should be in every GB.
I'm not saying ISO is standard and the most used layout.
But you have to understand that the hobby is too ANSI-Centric.
To the point that a lot of people migrates towards ANSI because they can't get compatible keys for their country layout. Hell if I wanted brand new Azerty FR caps, there's been 2 GB in total in the span of 6 years.
It's NOT ANSI VS ISO and I can't accept flawed arguments against ISO support.
Let's work together so everyone can have a keyboard they cherrish.
Let's try to keep the arguments civil pls.
Hello.
This is the only time that i will reply in this thread.
The reason that I am forced to drop ISO in sanc. Rebirth are that the factory didn"t have the mold for the key. So they basically can't make ISO.
That's all.
>inb4 Move to another factory
Find me a company that can make 5 sided dyesub that have good quality, is competent and quick to respond.
Ok, that's it. ;D
Good day to you all.
Post by: fleeceman on Fri, 21 June 2019, 08:39:15
Show Image(https://i.imgur.com/nyXxfOm.png)
You were moaning that Oblivion international kit would not hit MOQ but it has easily?
I said it was not unlikely that it wouldn't, but gave it a shot because it had a chance. Also I wasn't sure that I could offer it with MOQ 50, had it been MOQ 100 we'd still be far off.
Out of the 1574 Base Kits sold, only 65 people cared about proper legends (Base Kits offer physical ISO), that's 4.13%.
I wouldn't call it 'easily' when you need to sell 1500+ Base Kits to hit such a low MOQ. Oblivion will probably remain my only set that I will try serving with proper ISO/NorDeUK coverage, everything else will have physical ISO at most.Still waiting for Zambumon or Puddsy to show up with a screenshot of the Jamon ISO UK kit only getting 30 orders as if that is proof that only 30 people in the world use ISO.
Sorry to break it to you but Jamon is just ugly af.
A set being pretty or not is irrelevant when you are analyzing percentages.
4.13% is just the percentage of people willing to pay almost twice the cost of the regular base kit for correct legends, for this particular run of Oblivion. It is impossible to analyse this data and make any sort of practical conclusions. Especially when it is from Massdrop which is almost universally hated by everyone in Europe.
I am going to join Oblivion and buy the international kit because I love the set and hate having incorrect legends, but I will have to pay 20% import tax + handling charge, bringing my total to $273 just go cover a 65% board. As you can imagine, not everyone loves the set enough or has enough disposable income to pay that much for a keycap set so will compromise by having incorrect legends with ISO enter. I bet if it was run on mykeyboard.eu or another EU proxy there might be even more interest in the international kit.
Massdrop data is useless for analysing demand in Europe, and if you and Zambumon can't see that then this is a pointless debate. By running the set on MD you are sacrificing EU exposure and sales for more US sales, which is fine, but don't then point at the lack of EU sales as evidence for dropping ISO.
Just out of interest, do you know how much including an additional 4 keys for full ISO UK support would push the base set price up? I can't imagine it is more than a few dollars at most.
Post by: azhdar on Fri, 21 June 2019, 08:46:16
But how far are they from the 75% users, 1800 users , ergo users ?
Post by: Oblotzky on Fri, 21 June 2019, 09:50:15
Show Image(https://i.imgur.com/nyXxfOm.png)
You were moaning that Oblivion international kit would not hit MOQ but it has easily?
I said it was not unlikely that it wouldn't, but gave it a shot because it had a chance. Also I wasn't sure that I could offer it with MOQ 50, had it been MOQ 100 we'd still be far off.
Out of the 1574 Base Kits sold, only 65 people cared about proper legends (Base Kits offer physical ISO), that's 4.13%.
I wouldn't call it 'easily' when you need to sell 1500+ Base Kits to hit such a low MOQ. Oblivion will probably remain my only set that I will try serving with proper ISO/NorDeUK coverage, everything else will have physical ISO at most.Still waiting for Zambumon or Puddsy to show up with a screenshot of the Jamon ISO UK kit only getting 30 orders as if that is proof that only 30 people in the world use ISO.
Sorry to break it to you but Jamon is just ugly af.
A set being pretty or not is irrelevant when you are analyzing percentages.
4.13% is just the percentage of people willing to pay almost twice the cost of the regular base kit for correct legends, for this particular run of Oblivion. It is impossible to analyse this data and make any sort of practical conclusions. Especially when it is from Massdrop which is almost universally hated by everyone in Europe.
I am going to join Oblivion and buy the international kit because I love the set and hate having incorrect legends, but I will have to pay 20% import tax + handling charge, bringing my total to $273 just go cover a 65% board. As you can imagine, not everyone loves the set enough or has enough disposable income to pay that much for a keycap set so will compromise by having incorrect legends with ISO enter. I bet if it was run on mykeyboard.eu or another EU proxy there might be even more interest in the international kit.
Massdrop data is useless for analysing demand in Europe, and if you and Zambumon can't see that then this is a pointless debate. By running the set on MD you are sacrificing EU exposure and sales for more US sales, which is fine, but don't then point at the lack of EU sales as evidence for dropping ISO.
Just out of interest, do you know how much including an additional 4 keys for full ISO UK support would push the base set price up? I can't imagine it is more than a few dollars at most.
Is buying from Massdrop and that handling charge when importing really that much of a deal breaker? I offered SA Arcane via MyKeyboard.eu, we sold 3 ISO-UK kits during the month long GB. (inb4 ArCaNe SuCkS).
Post by: lewisflude on Fri, 21 June 2019, 09:56:21
Show Image(https://i.imgur.com/nyXxfOm.png)
You were moaning that Oblivion international kit would not hit MOQ but it has easily?
I said it was not unlikely that it wouldn't, but gave it a shot because it had a chance. Also I wasn't sure that I could offer it with MOQ 50, had it been MOQ 100 we'd still be far off.
Out of the 1574 Base Kits sold, only 65 people cared about proper legends (Base Kits offer physical ISO), that's 4.13%.
I wouldn't call it 'easily' when you need to sell 1500+ Base Kits to hit such a low MOQ. Oblivion will probably remain my only set that I will try serving with proper ISO/NorDeUK coverage, everything else will have physical ISO at most.Still waiting for Zambumon or Puddsy to show up with a screenshot of the Jamon ISO UK kit only getting 30 orders as if that is proof that only 30 people in the world use ISO.
Sorry to break it to you but Jamon is just ugly af.
A set being pretty or not is irrelevant when you are analyzing percentages.
4.13% is just the percentage of people willing to pay almost twice the cost of the regular base kit for correct legends, for this particular run of Oblivion. It is impossible to analyse this data and make any sort of practical conclusions. Especially when it is from Massdrop which is almost universally hated by everyone in Europe.
I am going to join Oblivion and buy the international kit because I love the set and hate having incorrect legends, but I will have to pay 20% import tax + handling charge, bringing my total to $273 just go cover a 65% board. As you can imagine, not everyone loves the set enough or has enough disposable income to pay that much for a keycap set so will compromise by having incorrect legends with ISO enter. I bet if it was run on mykeyboard.eu or another EU proxy there might be even more interest in the international kit.
Massdrop data is useless for analysing demand in Europe, and if you and Zambumon can't see that then this is a pointless debate. By running the set on MD you are sacrificing EU exposure and sales for more US sales, which is fine, but don't then point at the lack of EU sales as evidence for dropping ISO.
Just out of interest, do you know how much including an additional 4 keys for full ISO UK support would push the base set price up? I can't imagine it is more than a few dollars at most.
Is buying from Massdrop and that handling charge when importing really that much of a deal breaker? I offered SA Arcane via MyKeyboard.eu, we sold 3 ISO-UK kits during the month long GB. (inb4 ArCaNe SuCkS).
Buying from Massdrop is a deal breaker for a lot of people in the EU community as opposed to buying from an EU proxy. Even with sets I've really liked, the extra shipping, fees and customer service of Massdrop has been enough to make me opt out of getting into a GB.
Post by: Oblotzky on Fri, 21 June 2019, 10:02:26
Show Image(https://i.imgur.com/nyXxfOm.png)
You were moaning that Oblivion international kit would not hit MOQ but it has easily?
I said it was not unlikely that it wouldn't, but gave it a shot because it had a chance. Also I wasn't sure that I could offer it with MOQ 50, had it been MOQ 100 we'd still be far off.
Out of the 1574 Base Kits sold, only 65 people cared about proper legends (Base Kits offer physical ISO), that's 4.13%.
I wouldn't call it 'easily' when you need to sell 1500+ Base Kits to hit such a low MOQ. Oblivion will probably remain my only set that I will try serving with proper ISO/NorDeUK coverage, everything else will have physical ISO at most.Still waiting for Zambumon or Puddsy to show up with a screenshot of the Jamon ISO UK kit only getting 30 orders as if that is proof that only 30 people in the world use ISO.
Sorry to break it to you but Jamon is just ugly af.
A set being pretty or not is irrelevant when you are analyzing percentages.
4.13% is just the percentage of people willing to pay almost twice the cost of the regular base kit for correct legends, for this particular run of Oblivion. It is impossible to analyse this data and make any sort of practical conclusions. Especially when it is from Massdrop which is almost universally hated by everyone in Europe.
I am going to join Oblivion and buy the international kit because I love the set and hate having incorrect legends, but I will have to pay 20% import tax + handling charge, bringing my total to $273 just go cover a 65% board. As you can imagine, not everyone loves the set enough or has enough disposable income to pay that much for a keycap set so will compromise by having incorrect legends with ISO enter. I bet if it was run on mykeyboard.eu or another EU proxy there might be even more interest in the international kit.
Massdrop data is useless for analysing demand in Europe, and if you and Zambumon can't see that then this is a pointless debate. By running the set on MD you are sacrificing EU exposure and sales for more US sales, which is fine, but don't then point at the lack of EU sales as evidence for dropping ISO.
Just out of interest, do you know how much including an additional 4 keys for full ISO UK support would push the base set price up? I can't imagine it is more than a few dollars at most.
Is buying from Massdrop and that handling charge when importing really that much of a deal breaker? I offered SA Arcane via MyKeyboard.eu, we sold 3 ISO-UK kits during the month long GB. (inb4 ArCaNe SuCkS).
Buying from Massdrop is a deal breaker for a lot of people in the EU community as opposed to buying from an EU proxy. Even with sets I've really liked, the extra shipping, fees and customer service of Massdrop has been enough to make me opt out of getting into a GB.
Okay, guess we've had very different experiences with Massdrop then. I've bought plenty of keysets from them, and I was sent entire kits to replace faulty keys I had. Headphones that I sent back I got replaced and a shipping label provided to send the old one back.
Post by: lewisflude on Fri, 21 June 2019, 10:05:56
Show Image(https://i.imgur.com/nyXxfOm.png)
You were moaning that Oblivion international kit would not hit MOQ but it has easily?
I said it was not unlikely that it wouldn't, but gave it a shot because it had a chance. Also I wasn't sure that I could offer it with MOQ 50, had it been MOQ 100 we'd still be far off.
Out of the 1574 Base Kits sold, only 65 people cared about proper legends (Base Kits offer physical ISO), that's 4.13%.
I wouldn't call it 'easily' when you need to sell 1500+ Base Kits to hit such a low MOQ. Oblivion will probably remain my only set that I will try serving with proper ISO/NorDeUK coverage, everything else will have physical ISO at most.Still waiting for Zambumon or Puddsy to show up with a screenshot of the Jamon ISO UK kit only getting 30 orders as if that is proof that only 30 people in the world use ISO.
Sorry to break it to you but Jamon is just ugly af.
A set being pretty or not is irrelevant when you are analyzing percentages.
4.13% is just the percentage of people willing to pay almost twice the cost of the regular base kit for correct legends, for this particular run of Oblivion. It is impossible to analyse this data and make any sort of practical conclusions. Especially when it is from Massdrop which is almost universally hated by everyone in Europe.
I am going to join Oblivion and buy the international kit because I love the set and hate having incorrect legends, but I will have to pay 20% import tax + handling charge, bringing my total to $273 just go cover a 65% board. As you can imagine, not everyone loves the set enough or has enough disposable income to pay that much for a keycap set so will compromise by having incorrect legends with ISO enter. I bet if it was run on mykeyboard.eu or another EU proxy there might be even more interest in the international kit.
Massdrop data is useless for analysing demand in Europe, and if you and Zambumon can't see that then this is a pointless debate. By running the set on MD you are sacrificing EU exposure and sales for more US sales, which is fine, but don't then point at the lack of EU sales as evidence for dropping ISO.
Just out of interest, do you know how much including an additional 4 keys for full ISO UK support would push the base set price up? I can't imagine it is more than a few dollars at most.
Is buying from Massdrop and that handling charge when importing really that much of a deal breaker? I offered SA Arcane via MyKeyboard.eu, we sold 3 ISO-UK kits during the month long GB. (inb4 ArCaNe SuCkS).
Buying from Massdrop is a deal breaker for a lot of people in the EU community as opposed to buying from an EU proxy. Even with sets I've really liked, the extra shipping, fees and customer service of Massdrop has been enough to make me opt out of getting into a GB.
Okay, guess we've had very different experiences with Massdrop then. I've bought plenty of keysets from them, and I was sent entire kits to replace faulty keys I had. Headphones that I sent back I got replaced and a shipping label provided to send the old one back.
I'm glad you've had a good experience! The shipping, fees, delays and skew towards kits being run there being tailed for Drop-designed boards are all factors that turn EU people off buying from Massdrop. I think the shipping, fees and delays/lack of transparency (just look at the Holy Panda situation) are the biggest reasons.
Post by: Oblotzky on Fri, 21 June 2019, 10:14:52
Show Image(https://i.imgur.com/nyXxfOm.png)
You were moaning that Oblivion international kit would not hit MOQ but it has easily?
I said it was not unlikely that it wouldn't, but gave it a shot because it had a chance. Also I wasn't sure that I could offer it with MOQ 50, had it been MOQ 100 we'd still be far off.
Out of the 1574 Base Kits sold, only 65 people cared about proper legends (Base Kits offer physical ISO), that's 4.13%.
I wouldn't call it 'easily' when you need to sell 1500+ Base Kits to hit such a low MOQ. Oblivion will probably remain my only set that I will try serving with proper ISO/NorDeUK coverage, everything else will have physical ISO at most.Still waiting for Zambumon or Puddsy to show up with a screenshot of the Jamon ISO UK kit only getting 30 orders as if that is proof that only 30 people in the world use ISO.
Sorry to break it to you but Jamon is just ugly af.
A set being pretty or not is irrelevant when you are analyzing percentages.
4.13% is just the percentage of people willing to pay almost twice the cost of the regular base kit for correct legends, for this particular run of Oblivion. It is impossible to analyse this data and make any sort of practical conclusions. Especially when it is from Massdrop which is almost universally hated by everyone in Europe.
I am going to join Oblivion and buy the international kit because I love the set and hate having incorrect legends, but I will have to pay 20% import tax + handling charge, bringing my total to $273 just go cover a 65% board. As you can imagine, not everyone loves the set enough or has enough disposable income to pay that much for a keycap set so will compromise by having incorrect legends with ISO enter. I bet if it was run on mykeyboard.eu or another EU proxy there might be even more interest in the international kit.
Massdrop data is useless for analysing demand in Europe, and if you and Zambumon can't see that then this is a pointless debate. By running the set on MD you are sacrificing EU exposure and sales for more US sales, which is fine, but don't then point at the lack of EU sales as evidence for dropping ISO.
Just out of interest, do you know how much including an additional 4 keys for full ISO UK support would push the base set price up? I can't imagine it is more than a few dollars at most.
Is buying from Massdrop and that handling charge when importing really that much of a deal breaker? I offered SA Arcane via MyKeyboard.eu, we sold 3 ISO-UK kits during the month long GB. (inb4 ArCaNe SuCkS).
Buying from Massdrop is a deal breaker for a lot of people in the EU community as opposed to buying from an EU proxy. Even with sets I've really liked, the extra shipping, fees and customer service of Massdrop has been enough to make me opt out of getting into a GB.
Okay, guess we've had very different experiences with Massdrop then. I've bought plenty of keysets from them, and I was sent entire kits to replace faulty keys I had. Headphones that I sent back I got replaced and a shipping label provided to send the old one back.
I'm glad you've had a good experience! The shipping, fees, delays and skew towards kits being run there being tailed for Drop-designed boards are all factors that turn EU people off buying from Massdrop. I think the shipping, fees and delays/lack of transparency (just look at the Holy Panda situation) are the biggest reasons.
You keep repeating fees, how much are they in your country? I pay 6.5eur to DHL for handling the import, which is easily offset by the lower pricing that Massdrop tends to achieve (e.g. GMK Oblivion V2's Git Base Kit will be hitting 1k units at the end of the drop with incoming proxy orders and last day customers, which will shave off 10$. If the set was run through community vendors, we'd not be hitting those price points).
Post by: lewisflude on Fri, 21 June 2019, 10:24:22
Show Image(https://i.imgur.com/nyXxfOm.png)
You were moaning that Oblivion international kit would not hit MOQ but it has easily?
I said it was not unlikely that it wouldn't, but gave it a shot because it had a chance. Also I wasn't sure that I could offer it with MOQ 50, had it been MOQ 100 we'd still be far off.
Out of the 1574 Base Kits sold, only 65 people cared about proper legends (Base Kits offer physical ISO), that's 4.13%.
I wouldn't call it 'easily' when you need to sell 1500+ Base Kits to hit such a low MOQ. Oblivion will probably remain my only set that I will try serving with proper ISO/NorDeUK coverage, everything else will have physical ISO at most.Still waiting for Zambumon or Puddsy to show up with a screenshot of the Jamon ISO UK kit only getting 30 orders as if that is proof that only 30 people in the world use ISO.
Sorry to break it to you but Jamon is just ugly af.
A set being pretty or not is irrelevant when you are analyzing percentages.
4.13% is just the percentage of people willing to pay almost twice the cost of the regular base kit for correct legends, for this particular run of Oblivion. It is impossible to analyse this data and make any sort of practical conclusions. Especially when it is from Massdrop which is almost universally hated by everyone in Europe.
I am going to join Oblivion and buy the international kit because I love the set and hate having incorrect legends, but I will have to pay 20% import tax + handling charge, bringing my total to $273 just go cover a 65% board. As you can imagine, not everyone loves the set enough or has enough disposable income to pay that much for a keycap set so will compromise by having incorrect legends with ISO enter. I bet if it was run on mykeyboard.eu or another EU proxy there might be even more interest in the international kit.
Massdrop data is useless for analysing demand in Europe, and if you and Zambumon can't see that then this is a pointless debate. By running the set on MD you are sacrificing EU exposure and sales for more US sales, which is fine, but don't then point at the lack of EU sales as evidence for dropping ISO.
Just out of interest, do you know how much including an additional 4 keys for full ISO UK support would push the base set price up? I can't imagine it is more than a few dollars at most.
Is buying from Massdrop and that handling charge when importing really that much of a deal breaker? I offered SA Arcane via MyKeyboard.eu, we sold 3 ISO-UK kits during the month long GB. (inb4 ArCaNe SuCkS).
Buying from Massdrop is a deal breaker for a lot of people in the EU community as opposed to buying from an EU proxy. Even with sets I've really liked, the extra shipping, fees and customer service of Massdrop has been enough to make me opt out of getting into a GB.
Okay, guess we've had very different experiences with Massdrop then. I've bought plenty of keysets from them, and I was sent entire kits to replace faulty keys I had. Headphones that I sent back I got replaced and a shipping label provided to send the old one back.
I'm glad you've had a good experience! The shipping, fees, delays and skew towards kits being run there being tailed for Drop-designed boards are all factors that turn EU people off buying from Massdrop. I think the shipping, fees and delays/lack of transparency (just look at the Holy Panda situation) are the biggest reasons.
You keep repeating fees, how much are they in your country? I pay 6.5eur to DHL for handling the import, which is easily offset by the lower pricing that Massdrop tends to achieve (e.g. GMK Oblivion V2's Git Base Kit will be hitting 1k units at the end of the drop with incoming proxy orders and last day customers, which will shave off 10$. If the set was run through community vendors, we'd not be hitting those price points).
Good question! It's not always the easiest thing to break down.
VAT is 20%
Customs duty of around 2.5% (for things above £135)
With royal mail, another fixed fee of £8
Plus shipping
So for a $250 buy + $20 shipping that takes it to $270.
270 + 22.5% = $330.75
Add on a $10 Royal Mail fee for a final cost of $340.75.
That's about $90 or £71 in fees. Or a 36% increase over the base price of the set when you include shipping. To be fair, you'd have to pay for shipping wherever you are, but we pay import tax on the price plus the shipping so it ends up hurting a fair bit.
Some sources:
HMRC import tax info/banding: https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad/tax-and-duty
Reddit post that goes over it pretty well: https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/3hicqy/guide_uk_import_costs_a_basic_guide/
Post by: Oblotzky on Fri, 21 June 2019, 10:27:37
Good question! It's not always the easiest thing to break down.
VAT is 20%
Customs duty of around 2.5% (for things above £135)
With royal mail, another fixed fee of £8
Plus shipping
So for a $250 buy + $20 shipping that takes it to $270.
270 + 22.5% = $330.75
Add on a $10 Royal Mail fee for a final cost of $340.75.
That's about $90 or £71 in fees. Or a 36% increase over the base price of the set when you include shipping. To be fair, you'd have to pay for shipping wherever you are, but we pay import tax on the price plus the shipping so it ends up hurting a fair bit.
Some sources:
HMRC import tax info/banding: https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad/tax-and-duty
Reddit post that goes over it pretty well: https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/3hicqy/guide_uk_import_costs_a_basic_guide/
Why do you list VAT as an additional cost as if it wouldn't exist if buying from MyKeyboard.eu?
Post by: lewisflude on Fri, 21 June 2019, 10:33:12
Good question! It's not always the easiest thing to break down.
VAT is 20%
Customs duty of around 2.5% (for things above £135)
With royal mail, another fixed fee of £8
Plus shipping
So for a $250 buy + $20 shipping that takes it to $270.
270 + 22.5% = $330.75
Add on a $10 Royal Mail fee for a final cost of $340.75.
That's about $90 or £71 in fees. Or a 36% increase over the base price of the set when you include shipping. To be fair, you'd have to pay for shipping wherever you are, but we pay import tax on the price plus the shipping so it ends up hurting a fair bit.
Some sources:
HMRC import tax info/banding: https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad/tax-and-duty
Reddit post that goes over it pretty well: https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/3hicqy/guide_uk_import_costs_a_basic_guide/
Why do you list VAT as an additional cost as if it wouldn't exist if buying from MyKeyboard.eu?
I was using this as an example of fees when buying from Massdrop. When buying from MyKeyboard.eu they'd have to either pay the tax and increase the cost or swallow the cost. Unless set designers are selling to EU proxies at a loss?
Post by: Oblotzky on Fri, 21 June 2019, 10:37:26
Good question! It's not always the easiest thing to break down.
VAT is 20%
Customs duty of around 2.5% (for things above £135)
With royal mail, another fixed fee of £8
Plus shipping
So for a $250 buy + $20 shipping that takes it to $270.
270 + 22.5% = $330.75
Add on a $10 Royal Mail fee for a final cost of $340.75.
That's about $90 or £71 in fees. Or a 36% increase over the base price of the set when you include shipping. To be fair, you'd have to pay for shipping wherever you are, but we pay import tax on the price plus the shipping so it ends up hurting a fair bit.
Some sources:
HMRC import tax info/banding: https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad/tax-and-duty
Reddit post that goes over it pretty well: https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/3hicqy/guide_uk_import_costs_a_basic_guide/
Why do you list VAT as an additional cost as if it wouldn't exist if buying from MyKeyboard.eu?
I was using this as an example of fees when buying from Massdrop. When buying from MyKeyboard.eu they'd have to either pay the tax and increase the cost or swallow the cost. Unless set designers are selling to EU proxies at a loss?
VAT is added on top by MyKeyboard.eu, every business does. Why would they eat that cost, they aren't a charity.
"an example of fees" - yeah but you are painting it bad even though the majority of that "fee" still exists when buying within the EU.
Post by: lewisflude on Fri, 21 June 2019, 11:12:04
Good question! It's not always the easiest thing to break down.
VAT is 20%
Customs duty of around 2.5% (for things above £135)
With royal mail, another fixed fee of £8
Plus shipping
So for a $250 buy + $20 shipping that takes it to $270.
270 + 22.5% = $330.75
Add on a $10 Royal Mail fee for a final cost of $340.75.
That's about $90 or £71 in fees. Or a 36% increase over the base price of the set when you include shipping. To be fair, you'd have to pay for shipping wherever you are, but we pay import tax on the price plus the shipping so it ends up hurting a fair bit.
Some sources:
HMRC import tax info/banding: https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad/tax-and-duty
Reddit post that goes over it pretty well: https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/3hicqy/guide_uk_import_costs_a_basic_guide/
Why do you list VAT as an additional cost as if it wouldn't exist if buying from MyKeyboard.eu?
I was using this as an example of fees when buying from Massdrop. When buying from MyKeyboard.eu they'd have to either pay the tax and increase the cost or swallow the cost. Unless set designers are selling to EU proxies at a loss?
VAT is added on top by MyKeyboard.eu, every business does. Why would they eat that cost, they aren't a charity.
"an example of fees" - yeah but you are painting it bad even though the majority of that "fee" still exists when buying within the EU.
Good point to be fair, my VAT maths doesn't really work out. I dun goofed.
Although what I would say is kits in the EU whether through a vendor or through Drop do end up being more expensive than when buying within the US by quite a significant amount. This means that it's harder for people to buy all the kits they want anyway! This is a subtly different issue from "why don't more sets include ISO support" though.
I do think there is a level of apprehension knowing that there will be a bill coming through the post separately to the main order, it all being bundled together is much more convenient. Not to mention shipping is cheaper, quicker and more visible.
Post by: Poesjuh on Fri, 21 June 2019, 12:07:35
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Post by: Acereconkeys on Fri, 21 June 2019, 13:31:56
Can I expect the same support from this group when I start pushing for 1.25u r3 and 1.75u r3 in base kits for bare minimum keycap support for 40% users?
Post by: depletedvespene on Fri, 21 June 2019, 15:00:59
Back on topic, does the agreement seem to be physical Iso support is worth it while more specific legends you'd fine in NordeUK kits are not worth it and only barely meet low MoQs on big orders? That seems pretty reasonable to me. Everyone gets their compatibility.
I... uhhh... which ones are the "more specific legends" again?
FWIW, I'm fine with a compromise of having all legends in English, in spite of the keyboard using, say German or Spanish alphas. Getting keys with the "proper" legends such as "Strg" or "Mayús" will be feasible only when numbers for custom orders are high enough to disagregate NORDEUK and LAPTES kits into kits for each individual language ("German kit", "Spanish (old) kit", "Spanish (Iberoamerican)", etc.).
Now, if it were for me, I'd have ALL non-alphas in a keyboard use icons and only icons (this making the internationalization issue an alphas-only thing), but I don't expect many people to follow me - it's difficult enough already to convince people that the numpad's bottom row should be zero/comma/period instead of 2Uzero/period. ;D
Can I expect the same support from this group when I start pushing for 1.25u r3 and 1.75u r3 in base kits for bare minimum keycap support for 40% users?
I'll support your 1.25U R3 Tab key if you support my 1.25U R3 Enter key. :cool:
Post by: Acereconkeys on Fri, 21 June 2019, 17:03:39
Back on topic, does the agreement seem to be physical Iso support is worth it while more specific legends you'd fine in NordeUK kits are not worth it and only barely meet low MoQs on big orders? That seems pretty reasonable to me. Everyone gets their compatibility.
I... uhhh... which ones are the "more specific legends" again?
FWIW, I'm fine with a compromise of having all legends in English, in spite of the keyboard using, say German or Spanish alphas. Getting keys with the "proper" legends such as "Strg" or "Mayús" will be feasible only when numbers for custom orders are high enough to disagregate NORDEUK and LAPTES kits into kits for each individual language ("German kit", "Spanish (old) kit", "Spanish (Iberoamerican)", etc.).
Now, if it were for me, I'd have ALL non-alphas in a keyboard use icons and only icons (this making the internationalization issue an alphas-only thing), but I don't expect many people to follow me - it's difficult enough already to convince people that the numpad's bottom row should be zero/comma/period instead of 2Uzero/period. ;DCan I expect the same support from this group when I start pushing for 1.25u r3 and 1.75u r3 in base kits for bare minimum keycap support for 40% users?
I'll support your 1.25U R3 Tab key if you support my 1.25U R3 Enter key. :cool:
Specific legends meaning the modified 1, 2 and 3 keys for UK iso or some of the other modified keys you'd find in a Norde kit for example.
And what layout do you have that uses 1.25u R3 enter key? The beauty of my idea of only have bare minimum compatibility is i'm fine with having either a 1.25u r3 enter or tab key as long as i have some r3 1.25u key for mah board.
Post by: depletedvespene on Fri, 21 June 2019, 17:25:17
…
Specific legends meaning the modified 1, 2 and 3 keys for UK iso or some of the other modified keys you'd find in a Norde kit for example.
Oh, alphas! I thought you were talking about mods.
MY opinion (YMMV, of course) is that the minimum support a base kit should have is US ISO (as stated in my first post in this thread), with ISO Enter, ISO left Shift and two \| keys (R3 and R4) always present; optionally, an "accent" Enter key could be added (and perhaps even an <> R4 key, too). From then on, UK specific alpha keys (namely: `¬ 2" 3£ '@ #~ ----- note that R4 \| is already present in US ISO) should go into an "international" kit, which would have 2 or 3 AltGr keys as well. Nowadays, these alphas for UK layouts would be part of a NORDEUK kit. Later, when numbers merit it, NORDEUK could be separated into NOR and DEUK. Later still, into a specific UK kit.
Same would go for a LAPTES kit (with keycaps for |° Ñ Ç 3· +*~ ◌́◌̈ ◌̀◌̂ ¿¡ <> «» etc.), a BEFRIT kit (R2 A, R3 M, Ù§, ÈÉ, etc.), and whatever else comes our way.
And what layout do you have that uses 1.25u R3 enter key? The beauty of my idea of only have bare minimum compatibility is i'm fine with having either a 1.25u r3 enter or tab key as long as i have some r3 1.25u key for mah board.
Havve you ever seen a "kishie" or an F107 keyboard? I am of the (quite unpopular) opinion that compact keyboards (70% and under) should use neither ANSI nor ISO Enter keys, and go instead with a "TIE" Enter: a 1.25U key in R3. No one listens to me on this, but one day, everyone shall see the... error of my ways, I guess? :))
Post by: lewisflude on Fri, 21 June 2019, 17:31:41
…
Specific legends meaning the modified 1, 2 and 3 keys for UK iso or some of the other modified keys you'd find in a Norde kit for example.
Oh, alphas! I thought you were talking about mods.
MY opinion (YMMV, of course) is that the minimum support a base kit should have is US ISO (as stated in my first post in this thread), with ISO Enter, ISO left Shift and two \| keys (R3 and R4) always present; optionally, an "accent" Enter key could be added (and perhaps even an <> R4 key, too). From then on, UK specific alpha keys (namely: `¬ 2" 3£ '@ #~ ----- note that R4 \| is already present in US ISO) should go into an "international" kit, which would have 2 or 3 AltGr keys as well. Nowadays, these alphas for UK layouts would be part of a NORDEUK kit. Later, when numbers merit it, NORDEUK could be separated into NOR and DEUK. Later still, into a specific UK kit.
Same would go for a LAPTES kit (with keycaps for |° Ñ Ç 3· +*~ ◌́◌̈ ◌̀◌̂ ¿¡ <> «» etc.), a BEFRIT kit (R2 A, R3 M, Ù§, ÈÉ, etc.), and whatever else comes our way.And what layout do you have that uses 1.25u R3 enter key? The beauty of my idea of only have bare minimum compatibility is i'm fine with having either a 1.25u r3 enter or tab key as long as i have some r3 1.25u key for mah board.
Havve you ever seen a "kishie" or an F107 keyboard? I am of the (quite unpopular) opinion that compact keyboards (70% and under) should use neither ANSI nor ISO Enter keys, and go instead with a "TIE" Enter: a 1.25U key in R3. No one listens to me on this, but one day, everyone shall see the... error of my ways, I guess? :))
This is the best practical way ISO should be broken down I’ve seen in this thread so far. I’d also add that I’m personally fine with ISO being merged with numpad if the set is gonna be mega popular.
Post by: depletedvespene on Fri, 21 June 2019, 17:44:48
And what layout do you have that uses 1.25u R3 enter key? The beauty of my idea of only have bare minimum compatibility is i'm fine with having either a 1.25u r3 enter or tab key as long as i have some r3 1.25u key for mah board.
Havve you ever seen a "kishie" or an F107 keyboard? I am of the (quite unpopular) opinion that compact keyboards (70% and under) should use neither ANSI nor ISO Enter keys, and go instead with a "TIE" Enter: a 1.25U key in R3. No one listens to me on this, but one day, everyone shall see the... error of my ways, I guess? :))
This is the best practical way ISO should be broken down I’ve seen in this thread so far. I’d also add that I’m personally fine with ISO being merged with numpad if the set is gonna be mega popular.
I've actually tested this out a bit: the "top" side serves as a HHKB 1.5U backspace and the "bottom" side as the 1.25U Enter key, and I like it. Then again, by actually using constantly BOTH ANSI and ISO keyboards for years, I trained myself (albeit unconsciously) to hit the Enter key (either the ISO or the ANSI) in the area that is common to both: and that' why I call it "TIE".
But let me emphasize that this makes sense for 70% keyboards and smaller. 75%, 79%, TKL form factors and over... not really. ISO is best there (or ANSI... except in the 79% form factor, where it's ISO totally outdoes ANSI - YMMNV).
With respect to the numpad... while I agree that separating it into its own kit apart from the base kit is a good idea, I'll have to seriously disagree on putting the ISO keys there (which are, after all, an integral part of the main alpha block).
Later, in another thread, I'll share what I think a proper (for my own definition of "proper", of course) numpad should be like.
Post by: Auxo on Sun, 23 June 2019, 00:35:46
But for those who are interested in ISO availability, I think it'd be a good idea to look up manufacturers who have molds for ISO layout.
Check out their qualities, gather up a good set of options, and bring light into what's available out there for GB runners and keyset designers to consider.
I would absolutely love to see more coverage, but at the moment, it looks like there are only a small number of manufacturers to choose from, coupled with good customer service and QC, that is.
I notice that there is a lot of talk about including ISO, with justification.. and I may be missing something, but nobody is offering a real solution.
Edit: Also want to thank you guys for taking this matter off the GB thread :)
Post by: nguyenhimself on Sun, 23 June 2019, 10:23:10
On the other hand I'm not pretending ISO is a 50% of the enthusiasts, probably far from it actually.Because when I buy a set with all the keys for those other layouts, I reserve the option to use them on other keyboards down the line, i.e a very common thing in this hobby.
But how far are they from the 75% users, 1800 users , ergo users ?
As an ANSI user, I literally will never touch those ISO keys. I might as well throw them into the trash.
Fine, like the kids say, I’ll take an L on this for inclusivity’s sake.
But then the UK folks start demanding GB runners add UK-ISO keys to the base kit, and that’s just one step too far.
Stop being so wasteful.
Post by: lewisflude on Sun, 23 June 2019, 10:28:47
On the other hand I'm not pretending ISO is a 50% of the enthusiasts, probably far from it actually.Because when I buy a set with all the keys for those other layouts, I reserve the option to use them on other keyboards down the line, i.e a very common thing in this hobby.
But how far are they from the 75% users, 1800 users , ergo users ?
As an ANSI user, I literally will never touch those ISO keys. I might as well throw them into the trash.
Fine, like the kids say, I’ll take an L on this for inclusivity’s sake.
But then the UK folks start demanding ISO-UK keys in the base kit, and that’s just one step too far.
Stop being so wasteful.
Totally get your perspective and it’s a really interesting to hear the perspective of someone who uses ANSI thinking about what boards they might want to build in the future.
US-ISO in base is totally fine by me, and I think that’s the main thing people are asking for. So that people who use ISO can also look at other layouts (the ISO variants).
If there isn’t a NorDeUk kit, I think having UK-ISO in base is a good step as it seems like a lot of international ISO users would rather have that than nothing. I could be wrong on that!
Personally I think US-ISO in base is the bare minimum but totally acceptable with a separate NorDeUk kit.
Post by: depletedvespene on Sun, 23 June 2019, 11:07:54
On the other hand I'm not pretending ISO is a 50% of the enthusiasts, probably far from it actually.Because when I buy a set with all the keys for those other layouts, I reserve the option to use them on other keyboards down the line, i.e a very common thing in this hobby.
But how far are they from the 75% users, 1800 users , ergo users ?
As an ANSI user, I literally will never touch those ISO keys. I might as well throw them into the trash.
Fine, like the kids say, I’ll take an L on this for inclusivity’s sake.
But then the UK folks start demanding GB runners add UK-ISO keys to the base kit, and that’s just one step too far.
Stop being so wasteful.
This is a faulty argument. I use full-size, battleships and TKL keyboards constantly, and the lowest I'll ever go is 75%. Therefore, I "literally will never" use keys like 1U Ctrl and Alt (or, for that matter, those Code keys), yet you don't see me complaining about those (plus some others) being part of a base kit.
That said, I think the best compromise is US ISO support as an integral part of the base kit; UK ISO can then be added as an option (with five, not six, alphas, as one is in the base kit already).
Post by: depletedvespene on Sun, 23 June 2019, 11:13:47
US-ISO in base is totally fine by me, and I think that’s the main thing people are asking for. So that people who use ISO can also look at other layouts (the ISO variants).
If there isn’t a NorDeUk kit, I think having UK-ISO in base is a good step as it seems like a lot of international ISO users would rather have that than nothing. I could be wrong on that!
I believe (and I might be wrong as well) that this is for historical reasons: kits commonly support in the base kit either plain ANSI or go straight to UK ISO, with the US ISO solution being seldom seen; therefore "ISO support in the base kit" is often equated to "UK ISO support in the base kit" (with an additional "NORDE" kit being as an extra - note how the other common one, "NORDEUK", has "-UK" at its tail end instead of at its start).
Post by: lewisflude on Sun, 23 June 2019, 11:18:40
US-ISO in base is totally fine by me, and I think that’s the main thing people are asking for. So that people who use ISO can also look at other layouts (the ISO variants).
If there isn’t a NorDeUk kit, I think having UK-ISO in base is a good step as it seems like a lot of international ISO users would rather have that than nothing. I could be wrong on that!
I believe (and I might be wrong as well) that this is for historical reasons: kits commonly support in the base kit either plain ANSI or go straight to UK ISO, with the US ISO solution being seldom seen; therefore "ISO support in the base kit" is often equated to "UK ISO support in the base kit" (with an additional "NORDE" kit being as an extra - note how the other common one, "NORDEUK", has "-UK" at its tail end instead of at its start).
That makes total sense. I think the smart move is to go straight to UK-ISO and have a NorDe kit, but the bare minimum I expect is US-ISO with NorDeUk. Considering there’s more people after UK-ISO than US-ISO, sticking UK-ISO in the base kit is the best solution.
Like I said earlier, I think inclusion should be at the centre of discussions around keyset design. I think that geographically speaking, ISO matters to people across the pond from America and people should make an effort to support it so that the many people who’ve grown up using ISO can build something that feels familiar.
Post by: depletedvespene on Sun, 23 June 2019, 11:27:21
That makes total sense. I think the smart move is to go straight to UK-ISO and have a NorDe kit, but the bare minimum I expect is US-ISO with NorDeUk. Considering there’s more people after UK-ISO than US-ISO, sticking UK-ISO in the base kit is the best solution.
I'm gonna have to disagree on that. The US ISO compromise implies adding four keys to the base kit that ANSI users won't touch (plus one or two optional extra keys, according to the designer's whim), while "full" UK ISO support implies NINE keys (the US ISO four, plus: `¬ 2" 3£ #~ '@ ). ANSI users would see this as too much, and I'd be hard-pressed to disagree. Heck, non-British ISO users would probably complain, too.
Like I said earlier, I think inclusion should be at the centre of discussions around keyset design. I think that geographically speaking, ISO matters to people across the pond from America and people should make an effort to support it so that the many people who’ve grown up using ISO can build something that feels familiar.
Across the pond AND south of the Río Grande, mind you. :cool:
Post by: nguyenhimself on Sun, 23 June 2019, 11:33:15
The point is, you may and could at some point in the future go for smaller layouts.On the other hand I'm not pretending ISO is a 50% of the enthusiasts, probably far from it actually.Because when I buy a set with all the keys for those other layouts, I reserve the option to use them on other keyboards down the line, i.e a very common thing in this hobby.
But how far are they from the 75% users, 1800 users , ergo users ?
As an ANSI user, I literally will never touch those ISO keys. I might as well throw them into the trash.
Fine, like the kids say, I’ll take an L on this for inclusivity’s sake.
But then the UK folks start demanding GB runners add UK-ISO keys to the base kit, and that’s just one step too far.
Stop being so wasteful.
This is a faulty argument. I use full-size, battleships and TKL keyboards constantly, and the lowest I'll ever go is 75%. Therefore, I "literally will never" use keys like 1U Ctrl and Alt (or, for that matter, those Code keys), yet you don't see me complaining about those (plus some others) being part of a base kit.
That said, I think the best compromise is US ISO support as an integral part of the base kit; UK ISO can then be added as an option (with five, not six, alphas, as one is in the base kit already).
The probability is therefore >0%.
And the longer you remain in this hobby, the more likely that you might “experiment” with other, smaller layouts.
Meanwhile, for ANSI users, the probability of them ever switching to ISO is 0%. I can say with some certainty as I’ve moved to Germany for awhile, and all working expats I met there still kept using ANSI.
Post by: lewisflude on Sun, 23 June 2019, 11:33:23
That makes total sense. I think the smart move is to go straight to UK-ISO and have a NorDe kit, but the bare minimum I expect is US-ISO with NorDeUk. Considering there’s more people after UK-ISO than US-ISO, sticking UK-ISO in the base kit is the best solution.
I'm gonna have to disagree on that. The US ISO compromise implies adding four keys to the base kit that ANSI users won't touch (plus one or two optional extra keys, according to the designer's whim), while "full" UK ISO support implies NINE keys (the US ISO four, plus: `¬ 2" 3£ #~ '@ ). ANSI users would see this as too much, and I'd be hard-pressed to disagree. Heck, non-British ISO users would probably complain, too.Like I said earlier, I think inclusion should be at the centre of discussions around keyset design. I think that geographically speaking, ISO matters to people across the pond from America and people should make an effort to support it so that the many people who’ve grown up using ISO can build something that feels familiar.
Across the pond AND south of the Río Grande, mind you. :cool:
Very good point r.e. adding nine extra keys! Can totally see why people wouldn’t want that. US-ISO in base + NorDeUk kit seems like the real winner then.
Hello from north of the Rio Grande and across the pond!
Post by: Acereconkeys on Sun, 23 June 2019, 14:51:48
That makes total sense. I think the smart move is to go straight to UK-ISO and have a NorDe kit, but the bare minimum I expect is US-ISO with NorDeUk. Considering there’s more people after UK-ISO than US-ISO, sticking UK-ISO in the base kit is the best solution.
I'm gonna have to disagree on that. The US ISO compromise implies adding four keys to the base kit that ANSI users won't touch (plus one or two optional extra keys, according to the designer's whim), while "full" UK ISO support implies NINE keys (the US ISO four, plus: `¬ 2" 3£ #~ '@ ). ANSI users would see this as too much, and I'd be hard-pressed to disagree. Heck, non-British ISO users would probably complain, too.Like I said earlier, I think inclusion should be at the centre of discussions around keyset design. I think that geographically speaking, ISO matters to people across the pond from America and people should make an effort to support it so that the many people who’ve grown up using ISO can build something that feels familiar.
Across the pond AND south of the Río Grande, mind you. :cool:
Very good point r.e. adding nine extra keys! Can totally see why people wouldn’t want that. US-ISO in base + NorDeUk kit seems like the real winner then.
Hello from north of the Rio Grande and across the pond!
+1 for US-ISO in Base + all the specific legended keys in a NorDeUk kit!
Post by: depletedvespene on Sun, 23 June 2019, 18:06:34
…
The point is, you may and could at some point in the future go for smaller layouts.
The probability is therefore >0%.
And the longer you remain in this hobby, the more likely that you might “experiment” with other, smaller layouts.
Meanwhile, for ANSI users, the probability of them ever switching to ISO is 0%. I can say with some certainty as I’ve moved to Germany for awhile, and all working expats I met there still kept using ANSI.
Actually, I have... and bounced back. When I said "... and the lowest I'll ever go is 75%." is because I have found, indeed, that that is the smallest usable layout for me.
To put the argument into another layout, I hate the 1800 layout (and I dislike the "common" 96% for the exact same reason), so the probability of me using that layout is 0%... meaning that the R1 PgDn and End keys in a kit are straight up useless for me. Yet, I don't complain about it because I understand that they're part of a compromise solution that maximizes layout coverage.
... same goes for those ugly, disheveled, evil, Satan-worshipping, party-pooper non-stepped Caps Lock keys. But base kit is base kit, isn't it? ;D
Post by: Poesjuh on Sun, 23 June 2019, 18:34:34
Post by: Yeoh on Mon, 24 June 2019, 01:57:52
4.13% is just the percentage of people willing to pay almost twice the cost of the regular base kit for correct legends, for this particular run of Oblivion. It is impossible to analyse this data and make any sort of practical conclusions. Especially when it is from Massdrop which is almost universally hated by everyone in Europe.
I am going to join Oblivion and buy the international kit because I love the set and hate having incorrect legends, but I will have to pay 20% import tax + handling charge, bringing my total to $273 just go cover a 65% board. As you can imagine, not everyone loves the set enough or has enough disposable income to pay that much for a keycap set so will compromise by having incorrect legends with ISO enter. I bet if it was run on mykeyboard.eu or another EU proxy there might be even more interest in the international kit.
Massdrop data is useless for analysing demand in Europe, and if you and Zambumon can't see that then this is a pointless debate. By running the set on MD you are sacrificing EU exposure and sales for more US sales, which is fine, but don't then point at the lack of EU sales as evidence for dropping ISO.
Just out of interest, do you know how much including an additional 4 keys for full ISO UK support would push the base set price up? I can't imagine it is more than a few dollars at most.
Regardless of your opinion on (mass)Drop, the data is objectively relevant. Data is still data, even if you dont like it.
Earlier in the thread, Zambumon asked possibly the most poignant & obvious question that seems to be (purposely?) ignored by those who discount Drops gb numbers as legitimate data. Ill pose the same question to you: Why do you list VAT as an additional cost as if it wouldn't exist if buying from MyKeyboard.eu, or similar eu proxy?
Taking into account the price drops already achieved in Oblivion v2 (by selling an amount of units thats only possible on Drop) and the fact that you would be paying VAT regardless if it were sold through Drop or an EU proxy, your argument makes little sense when claiming that running it elsewhere would have much of an effect on price, or total number of ISO participants.
Additionally, as others have pointed out elsewhere in the thread: ISO isnt used exclusively in Europe. There are plenty of areas other than the EU where Drop is also a viable option to ISO users and yet despite this, the demand simply isnt there. Hell, the closest non-standard layout to the International Kit is Colevrak, which should give you some perspective as to how prevalent ISO is. Its also solid data in establishing the fact that while it may be arguably widespread in oem keyboards globally, ISO is obviously a non-standard layout in the custom keyboard community.
In any case, regardless of the cost, the four additional extra keys to provide full ISO UK coverage in the base kit would have to be subsidized by the vastly overwhelming majority purchasers who have no use for them in the first place (in addition to the extra they are already paying for to have basic physical ISO coverage included.) If you cant see that, then this is a pointless debate. Its not the lack of EU sales that have designers considering dropping ISO support, its the lack of ISO sales globally, in general.
Post by: lewisflude on Mon, 24 June 2019, 02:15:31
4.13% is just the percentage of people willing to pay almost twice the cost of the regular base kit for correct legends, for this particular run of Oblivion. It is impossible to analyse this data and make any sort of practical conclusions. Especially when it is from Massdrop which is almost universally hated by everyone in Europe.
I am going to join Oblivion and buy the international kit because I love the set and hate having incorrect legends, but I will have to pay 20% import tax + handling charge, bringing my total to $273 just go cover a 65% board. As you can imagine, not everyone loves the set enough or has enough disposable income to pay that much for a keycap set so will compromise by having incorrect legends with ISO enter. I bet if it was run on mykeyboard.eu or another EU proxy there might be even more interest in the international kit.
Massdrop data is useless for analysing demand in Europe, and if you and Zambumon can't see that then this is a pointless debate. By running the set on MD you are sacrificing EU exposure and sales for more US sales, which is fine, but don't then point at the lack of EU sales as evidence for dropping ISO.
Just out of interest, do you know how much including an additional 4 keys for full ISO UK support would push the base set price up? I can't imagine it is more than a few dollars at most.
Regardless of your opinion on (mass)Drop, the data is objectively relevant. Data is still data, even if you dont like it.
Earlier in the thread, Zambumon asked possibly the most poignant & obvious question that seems to be (purposely?) ignored by those who discount Drops gb numbers as legitimate data. Ill pose the same question to you: Why do you list VAT as an additional cost as if it wouldn't exist if buying from MyKeyboard.eu, or similar eu proxy?
Taking into account the price drops already achieved in Oblivion v2 (by selling an amount of units thats only possible on Drop) and the fact that you would be paying VAT regardless if it were sold through Drop or an EU proxy, your argument makes little sense when claiming that running it elsewhere would have much of an effect on price, or total number of ISO participants.
Additionally, as others have pointed out elsewhere in the thread: ISO isnt used exclusively in Europe. There are plenty of areas other than the EU where Drop is also a viable option to ISO users and yet despite this, the demand simply isnt there. Hell, the closest non-standard layout to the International Kit is Colevrak, which should give you some perspective as to how prevalent ISO is. Its also solid data in establishing the fact that while it may be arguably widespread in oem keyboards globally, ISO is obviously a non-standard layout in the custom keyboard community.
In any case, regardless of the cost, the four additional extra keys to provide full ISO UK coverage in the base kit would have to be subsidized by the vastly overwhelming majority purchasers who have no use for them in the first place (in addition to the extra they are already paying for to have basic physical ISO coverage included.) If you cant see that, then this is a pointless debate. Its not the lack of EU sales that have designers considering dropping ISO support, its the lack of ISO sales globally, in general.
I appreciate your input! It’s a totally valid stance on this issue. If you look at existing sales data, I can totally see why it would make sense to follow the numbers and continually optimise kits to benefit the larger demographic of buyers. I do think that this would be a mistake as it makes set uses homogenous, and excludes a huge part of the world where mechanical keyboards as a hobby is rapidly growing.
For one reason or another Drop is massively more popular in the US than it is in Europe.
Similarweb estimates that over 50% of Drop’s traffic is from US and Canada with less than 5% coming from the UK (and even less from other European countries).
The sentiment from Europeans around ordering from Drop is not great to say the least, with many actively avoiding it, some missing out on GBs that are ran there etc.
You’re right in that their sales data is data, but it’s massively skewed by the people who actually buy from there. I don’t think it really adds much to this discussion.
Objectively, ANSI is an American standard and ISO is used in large parts of the rest of the world. From a purely capitalistic point of view, I can totally see why people would want to drop the price for as many people as possible but I think that inclusion should be a big part of this discussion.
IMO there is a big difference between “I don’t have the correct legends for my 40% layout” and cutting out a huge portion of the world that grew up using ISO.
Sets, boards, PCBs not supporting ISO creates a downward spiral and sort of imposes American ideas of what a keyboard should be on the rest of the world.
As this hobby expands globally I think it’s really important that we keep finding ways to maintain ISO support. To try and make all future keyboard layouts more homogenous would be a bit short sighted.
Post by: jonowarren94 on Mon, 24 June 2019, 02:27:23
EDIT: I don't want anyone to eat the cost of VAT, I just dont want to pay it twice. If something moves out of the EU and then comes back in you pay VAT twice, if it was shipped from within the EU entirely then VAT is paid once.
Personally I see this as 2 different issues - keyboards supporting layouts and keycaps supporting layouts. I am personally happy if the base keyboard doesn't support ISO, but there is little reason the PCB shouldn't and a plate file released so that people can have it if they want it. This way you get the cost savings and benefits of only having a fixed layout but you are still being inclusive of other people - To me this is acceptable, but obviously I wouldn't buy a keyboard that I could not ever get ISO on as that is just what I use.
For keycaps personally I won't buy it unless it supports my layout with the correct legends, but I'm in the minority here (I think?). This hobby is a small one it would be nice if we weren't further fragmented by people refusing to offer coverage for everyone. I think GMK cafe is a good example of how kits can be done in such a way that minimizes overall the number of kits but also gets a good coverage of layouts which are likely to hit MOQ with people not having too many 'wasted' keys.
Post by: nguyenhimself on Mon, 24 June 2019, 02:28:19
The hard cold fact is that, while ISO users keep demanding for.vendors to eat their VAT cost, they fail to see that the majority of buyers in America, China, and the rest of Asia are in fact eating the cost of production for their ISO keys.
And now to come and demand everyone should also eat the cost of a bunch other ISO-exclusive keys? Jeez, try seeing it from our perspective too, you guys.
Post by: Jae-3soteric on Mon, 24 June 2019, 02:28:45
Firstly a couple of things to clarify:
1 - Basic ISO support for EU users is 4 keys, 1.25u Shift, 1uR4, 1uR3 and the ISO enter. ISO-US does not cover this as it uses full left shift and the ISO enter key with the 1uR3... small distinction but I do feel that this stuff is important.
2 - I’m primarily an ISO user as most know, and build 90% or more of my boards in ISO layout.
Ok on to the meat and gravy...
ISO in the community is a minority. This is without a shadow of a doubt the case; the hobby is significantly more prevelant in the US and Asian communities than it is in Europe; but the hobby is growing significantly here. You can look at retail manufacturers such as Ducky, corsair, Apple etc, and you’ll see that overall in the non-mech-community, ISO vs ANSI is split pretty closely. I did some Freedom of Information requests on this last year, and the broad strokes of the results were that ISO was about 46% with ANSI being 53% and the rest being ‘other’ layouts.
But this community is not representative of the keyboard industry as a whole. It’s a microcosm, with its own quirks and idiosyncrasies (i.e. HHKB layout is much more prevalent in our community than it is in the keyboard industry).
There are lots of arguments against putting ISO in base kits or including support at all - whilst my preference is for UK ISO, I still buy stuff that only includes basic ISO support (note as I said above ISO-US is different). I get most of these arguments. I understand them: it basically boils down to the markets, is there significant demand for the keys, and does this make financial sense to the majority of buyers.
Yes ISO has always been included traditionally, and lots of base kits used to carry UK ISO as the default option. But now people are pushing for cheaper kits, which means culling keys. Fully understand. But that being said, financial motivation isnt the only reason to do something. Cost reduction, price per key, volume of users all boil into one argument - “does it make financial sense to add 4 keys to a base kit at a cost of say $2-3 for c. 10% of users at best”.
The answer to this is usually a resounding “NO”, and then ISO gets moved into a subsequent kit (numpad, 40’s etc), or removed in its entirety.
There are challenges and benefits to moving it to a kit, and I appreciate that - the benefit being it reduces base kit cost slightly, the negatives being that the user that needs those 4 keys now needs to pay $40 or more for a kit for keys that used to be in the base...(look at GMK calm Depths - had ISO UK and a huge base at a great price; other sets have fewer keys and are way more expensive (and I know that there is MOQ’s and price breaks at play here as well - its just an example).
But why does a financial motivator have to be the only rational for any decision? EU folks tend to spend less, buy fewer keysets, and have a smaller community. Look at any GB - the NA figures are higher than the EU ones for pretty much everything in the hobby from boards to keysets to artisans (except Norde/Uk/ISO kits). But that doesn’t mean there isnt a community here. That doesn’t mean that a minority should be ignored.
In any other industry, country, hobbies etc Minorities are supported. As this hobby becomes bigger and bigger we should be more Inclusive rather than Exclusive from an inclusivity POV. As the hobby grows in time there is more demand for everything. That will include ISO in terms of sheer numbers; even if the overall %age doesn’t change.
I dont think there is a right or wrong answer to any of this - I’m just playing Devils Advocate to say that in a hobby not all decisions should be made on financial factors alone. We often make decisions for reasons of Inclusion, sentiment, historical value, future value etc - but here the only real argument is a financial one.
My personal feeling is that I’d like to see a basic ISO support at least in either the base or a kit (i.e. numpad - the buyers for each will bolster the others). I dont want to have to pay more for the kit for those keys, but I will do to get my compatibility.
I’d also like to see more NordeUK kits run outside of Massdrop - In the EU we just hit MOQ on WoB and BoW NordeUK kits which is great.
Finally - I’d like us to be more inclusive as a community, and even if ISO moves out of base kits more often going forwards, I really dislike how people are mocked and derided for using ISO; thats just unfair and drives exclusivity and isn’t fair on newcomers to the community. We should strive to get along, reduce drama and increase positivity in the community.
I know I’ve not addressed everything or gone into tons of details for the arguments above - this is just an overview, but I’m happy to discuss some of the finer points.
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Post by: Poesjuh on Mon, 24 June 2019, 02:46:04
To add a bit more to the above poster:
The hard cold fact is that, while ISO users keep demanding for.vendors to eat their VAT cost, they fail to see that the majority of buyers in America, China, and the rest of Asia are in fact eating the cost of production for their ISO keys.
And now to come and demand everyone should also eat the cost of a bunch other ISO-exclusive keys? Jeez, try seeing it from our perspective too, you guys.
Eating production cost for 4 iso keys is perhaps around $5-10 at most. (Guessing here, don't know the numbers.) Eating VAT is 20% on top of an already paid 20% from EU to US. So technically it's more than 20% from the original GMK price. I'm not starting the VAT war here, but your equation makes no sense.
Reading through the comments the majority of ISO users are actually able to see it from your perspective and agree that just the 4 basic ISO keys in base kits will be enough. That's what they need to have fitting caps. An additional NordeUK kit is mostly a big bonus. I'm getting the feeling though that you lack to see it from ISO perspective. Would you like it if you physically CAN'T put keycaps on your keyboard because they simply don't exist...?
Post by: Yeoh on Mon, 24 June 2019, 03:56:28
But why does a financial motivator have to be the only rational for any decision?
You did a great job of outlining how reasonable an idea financial motivation is in the bulk of your post actually.
I think you'll find there are very few who are seriously asking for ISO to be banned entirely, or anything of that sort; just for those who need that extra compatibility to pay for it. Personally id be fine if that was the case for alot of extra keys being included in the majority of sets nowadays. GMK sets in particular have become quite bloated. Its rare (and welcomed) when a set can fit into a single tray.
Combining ISO with 40's or Numpad is just as unfair to be honest. As in those cases you are still forcing other people to pay more for the sake of someone else's compatibility.
I agree with being inclusive and not shaming others for their layout choices, but its not a charity. Its actually rather entitled to try and justify asking everyone/anyone else to pony up more cash to help meet MOQs. Ultimately the companies making the keycaps are running a business, and the majority of buyers (who presumably work for their money) are tired of subsidizing other users for keys that are useless to them.
Would you like it if you physically CAN'T put keycaps on your keyboard because they simply don't exist...?
Of course not, which is why I have no trouble paying more for any non-standard layouts I want to cover.
I also wouldnt expect other people to pay more for keys they cant use, just so I dont have to pay anything extra for my non-standard layout.
No one is arguing not to provide ISO coverage period - simply to move it to its own kit.
Post by: Poesjuh on Mon, 24 June 2019, 04:27:39
But why does a financial motivator have to be the only rational for any decision?
You did a great job of outlining how reasonable an idea financial motivation is in the bulk of your post actually.
I think you'll find there are very few who are seriously asking for ISO to be banned entirely, or anything of that sort; just for those who need that extra compatibility to pay for it. Personally id be fine if that was the case for alot of extra keys being included in the majority of sets nowadays. GMK sets in particular have become quite bloated. Its rare (and welcomed) when a set can fit into a single tray.
Combining ISO with 40's or Numpad is just as unfair to be honest. As in those cases you are still forcing other people to pay more for the sake of someone else's compatibility.
I agree with being inclusive and not shaming others for their layout choices, but its not a charity. Its actually rather entitled to try and justify asking everyone/anyone else to pony up more cash to help meet MOQs. Ultimately the companies making the keycaps are running a business, and the majority of buyers (who presumably work for their money) are tired of subsidizing other users for keys that are useless to them.Would you like it if you physically CAN'T put keycaps on your keyboard because they simply don't exist...?
Of course not, which is why I have no trouble paying more for any non-standard layouts I want to cover.
I also wouldnt expect other people to pay more for keys they cant use, just so I dont have to pay anything extra for my non-standard layout.
No one is arguing not to provide ISO coverage period - simply to move it to its own kit.
Underlined the part I'm replying to. This is the main issue. You're saying it but I'm sure others think the same so don't see it as an attack on you :) In this case you're the messenger :P
This means that, according to you and perhaps others, ISO is not a standard layout. And even though I'm an ANSI user, I can't agree on that. ANSI is a standard layout for most of the users in the community, I think we can all agree on that. But what makes ISO a non-standard layout? At the very least the 4 basic ISO keys have been included in many base kits for years. And now all of a sudden, perhaps because of price perhaps other reasons, ISO is turned into a non-standard layout.
Can I make F keys a non-standard key as well? Only use them on one board, have no use for them :P
Imho, a base kit should do what the name implies. It should provide a base that supports as much standard keyboards as possible without completely breaking the bank. The 4 basic ISO keys are required for this.
Post by: lewisflude on Mon, 24 June 2019, 04:46:14
But why does a financial motivator have to be the only rational for any decision?
You did a great job of outlining how reasonable an idea financial motivation is in the bulk of your post actually.
I think you'll find there are very few who are seriously asking for ISO to be banned entirely, or anything of that sort; just for those who need that extra compatibility to pay for it. Personally id be fine if that was the case for alot of extra keys being included in the majority of sets nowadays. GMK sets in particular have become quite bloated. Its rare (and welcomed) when a set can fit into a single tray.
Combining ISO with 40's or Numpad is just as unfair to be honest. As in those cases you are still forcing other people to pay more for the sake of someone else's compatibility.
I agree with being inclusive and not shaming others for their layout choices, but its not a charity. Its actually rather entitled to try and justify asking everyone/anyone else to pony up more cash to help meet MOQs. Ultimately the companies making the keycaps are running a business, and the majority of buyers (who presumably work for their money) are tired of subsidizing other users for keys that are useless to them.Would you like it if you physically CAN'T put keycaps on your keyboard because they simply don't exist...?
Of course not, which is why I have no trouble paying more for any non-standard layouts I want to cover.
I also wouldnt expect other people to pay more for keys they cant use, just so I dont have to pay anything extra for my non-standard layout.
No one is arguing not to provide ISO coverage period - simply to move it to its own kit.
Everyone is paying for keys they won't end up using. There are other reasons to put keys in a base kit aside from financial efficiency too. As others have said, it'd be much more convenient for me if ANSI and F-keys were left out, but a base kit is meant to provide basic coverage. It's not any more unfair that people who don't use ISO have to pay for a few extra ISO keys than it's unfair that an ISO user has to pay for ANSI keys they won't use, or someone who doesn't use F keys has to pay for those.
I totally agree that set designers are running a business, but ethics and inclusive design choices do have a seat at the table. As a community we have a responsibility to think about minority use cases and make sure they're catered for. This means basic ISO in base kit at a bare minimum, and NorDeUk if it's at all possible.
If you optimise too much for the majority of users then the set becomes more homogenous, less inclusive and totally unusable for the entire ISO-using keyboard community. As mechanical keyboards grows as a hobby, it'll become more global and it'll become increasingly important to support ISO. When people are spending $100+ on a base kit, the least they can expect is for it to physically fit on their board.
ISO is often presented as a default option on most popular boards, which sort of reflects the 50/50% split of ISO vs ANSI in the non-mechanical keyboard world. To not provide coverage for something which is one of the default layout varieties is just bad design IMO. The benefits brought to the set designer and ANSI-only buyers (financially) surely doesn't outweigh alienating an entire community of keyboard users.
Do we really want ANSI-only keysets?
Do we really want to pretend like ISO is some weird esoteric layout instead of what many in the world consider to be "the standard"?
Do we really not want to enable people who are spending $150+ on plastic to have correct legends on their keyboards so that other people spending $150+ on plastic can save $2-3?
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 24 June 2019, 06:02:07
…
Earlier in the thread, Zambumon asked possibly the most poignant & obvious question that seems to be (purposely?) ignored by those who discount Drops gb numbers as legitimate data. Ill pose the same question to you: Why do you list VAT as an additional cost as if it wouldn't exist if buying from MyKeyboard.eu, or similar eu proxy?
You're actually right on this — extra VAT costs (or IVA, in my case, or plain "sales tax" in the USA's case in the near future) can't be part of the equation.
Additionally, as others have pointed out elsewhere in the thread: ISO isnt used exclusively in Europe. There are plenty of areas other than the EU where Drop is also a viable option to ISO users and yet despite this, the demand simply isnt there. Hell, the closest non-standard layout to the International Kit is Colevrak, which should give you some perspective as to how prevalent ISO is. Its also solid data in establishing the fact that while it may be arguably widespread in oem keyboards globally, ISO is obviously a non-standard layout in the custom keyboard community.
But here you are dead wrong (YMMV). ISO totally IS a standard in the custom keyboard community, even if "less popular" than ANSI; both, after all, predate this hobby itself. Also, I'll stress this, please let's stop the faulty argument of calling ISO a "layout", as it is NOT a "layout" any more than the stepped/non-stepped Caps Lock variants are. ANSI/ISO left Shift and ANSI/ISO(/BAE/TIE) Enter are variants within a same layout (be it battleship, TKL, 60% or 30% [†]).
In any case, regardless of the cost, the four additional extra keys to provide full ISO UK coverage in the base kit would have to be subsidized by the vastly overwhelming majority purchasers who have no use for them in the first place (in addition to the extra they are already paying for to have basic physical ISO coverage included.) If you cant see that, then this is a pointless debate. Its not the lack of EU sales that have designers considering dropping ISO support, its the lack of ISO sales globally, in general.
Lack of ISO sales is explained in part because of lack of support for it in the first place. The rest is, obviously, ANSI's higher popularity within the community.
A community that GROWS, as has been mentioned several times now. A community that at some point in the foreseeable future WILL have a substantial percentage of ISO users. It's not a smart strategy anymore to keep pushing ISO aside as if it were the plague (again, while much lesser used keys, like the 2.0U Shift key, get added to the base kit without any questioning), if only to preserve the inve$tm€nt a buyer makes on a kit (if a couple years from now he or she might want to sell it, only for his or her chances to be hurt by having only a part of the market to cater to).
[†] A 30% with a BAE. That is a mental image I did NOT want in my head...
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 24 June 2019, 06:17:12
1 - Basic ISO support for EU users is 4 keys, 1.25u Shift, 1uR4, 1uR3 and the ISO enter. ISO-US does not cover this as it uses full left shift and the ISO enter key with the 1uR3... small distinction but I do feel that this stuff is important.
US ISO is short left Shift and vertical Enter. What you describe (long left Shift and vertical Enter) is the ANSISO hybrid (just as ISANSI is the hybrid of short left Shift and horizontal Enter).
This isn't just "OCD" from my part (ok, it is, but there is a point to it): part of the heavy opposition to ISO support from ANSI users is that "ISO support" (4 keys) is often equated to "UK ISO support" (9 keys), so we need to be extra precise in what we talk about here, to avoid further problems down the line ("What do you mean, four keys? It's supposed to be TWO!").
Post by: Jae-3soteric on Mon, 24 June 2019, 06:17:20
You did a great job of outlining how reasonable an idea financial motivation is in the bulk of your post actually.
Yes, I know - my point was I appreciate the financial side - but why is that the ONLY consideration point to make a decision. You seem to have missed that.
Combining ISO with 40's or Numpad is just as unfair to be honest. As in those cases you are still forcing other people to pay more for the sake of someone else's compatibility.
We can all agree ISO won’t make it on its own to MOQ - which is actually partially the route cause we are experiencing here. The GMK MOQ for child kits is still usually 100 units.
I agree with being inclusive and not shaming others for their layout choices, but its not a charity. Its actually rather entitled to try and justify asking everyone/anyone else to pony up more cash to help meet MOQs. Ultimately the companies making the keycaps are running a business, and the majority of buyers (who presumably work for their money) are tired of subsidizing other users for keys that are useless to them.
I see this as a null argument tbh - we all get keys we don’t use in any kit. I rarely use ANSI keys for example but I have to purchase them. Saying that you only want keys you use in a base kit and nothing you won’t use as you don’t want to pay for em is kinda entitled tbh. We all have to make sure we are purchasing stuff to help others out sometimes.
And if buying two kits bundled together gets me the keys I need and helps someone else hit MOQ for the kit they need then I’m comfortable with that.
This comes back to my earlier point of everyone wanting to make this decisions solely based on financial motivation and not for any other reason.
You have to remember that this is something that was a standard inclusion and is now being phased out. That’s quite emotive for some. But it’s a double edged sword as we need to embrace change for the right reasons. I’m not sure saying “we can’t include a dollars worth of keys in the base set; so you now have to pay $50 to re-obtain them” is necessarily the right view to have. I must have over 100 ansi enters I’ll never use, but I never begrudged buying them. Same as numpads. I have one board they get used on, but I have no issue buying a set if it includes numpad.
And some sets manage to include a numpad and ISO at a competitive price point; and cheaper than some sets that don’t....
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Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 24 June 2019, 06:23:23
For keycaps personally I won't buy it unless it supports my layout with the correct legends, but I'm in the minority here (I think?). This hobby is a small one it would be nice if we weren't further fragmented by people refusing to offer coverage for everyone. I think GMK cafe is a good example of how kits can be done in such a way that minimizes overall the number of kits but also gets a good coverage of layouts which are likely to hit MOQ with people not having too many 'wasted' keys.
I'm gonna have to disagree here. GMK Café's proposed "sugar" kit is supposed to be "numpad + ISO", but instead is actually "numpad + UK ISO". If I were to consider this for my upcoming build, I'd have to buy a kit with 32 keys... to use exactly THREE of them. I won't say anything of the lack of numpad comma here, though, as that's another matter (oops, I just did).
Surprisingly, the 1.25U left Shift is already in the base kit... why is it there?
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 24 June 2019, 06:29:47
No one is arguing not to provide ISO coverage period - simply to move it to its own kit.
At some point, it'll become feasible to have a smaller base kit and a larger bunch of extra SMALL kits with 4-ish keys. When that happens, we'll be able to drop, for example, 1800 support (moved to the 1800 kit) and BOTH ISO and ANSI variants (each moved to their own extra kit). Heck, we'll be able to eliminate the base kit entirely and sell separately alphas from mods (different alpha packs for each language; different "ANSI/ISO agnostic" mod packs for iconists and legendists).
Until that happens, we need to reach a good compromise. Let's do that.
Post by: nguyenhimself on Mon, 24 June 2019, 06:45:46
We used to have kits for “exotic layouts” like Tsangan or Moggle.No one is arguing not to provide ISO coverage period - simply to move it to its own kit.
At some point, it'll become feasible to have a smaller base kit and a larger bunch of extra SMALL kits with 4-ish keys. When that happens, we'll be able to drop, for example, 1800 support (moved to the 1800 kit) and BOTH ISO and ANSI variants (each moved to their own extra kit). Heck, we'll be able to eliminate the base kit entirely and sell separately alphas from mods (different alpha packs for each language; different "ANSI/ISO agnostic" mod packs for iconists and legendists).
Until that happens, we need to reach a good compromise. Let's do that.
At some point, people noticed how popular those kits were, so they integrated them into the base kit.
Meanwhile, the one recent time we experimented with moving the ISO keys out, well:
(https://massdrop-s3.imgix.net/img_comment/LfIsu4kwR0ygI29ShcVW_GMKjamonStatus1902282332a.PNG?auto=format&fm=jpg&fit=max&w=796&h=425&dpr=2&q=35)
And at >800 base kits sold, you can’t say this was not a popular set.
Post by: Poesjuh on Mon, 24 June 2019, 06:52:06
Post by: lewisflude on Mon, 24 June 2019, 06:57:04
In Oblivion, 66 international kits out of 1767 base kits is about 4% of all orders.
Imagine if any other community alienated 4% of the hobbyists around the world so that the majority can save less than 1-2% off their order? All of us support keys we don't use, it's just par for the course with buying keysets. Removing ISO benefits many people a tiny bit (financially) at the cost of totally removing that set as an option for a large community of people. Not all Europeans want to use ANSI.
This is a clear example of how Jamon is a really bad example to cherrypick. This is especially surprising given how over 50% of all traffic to Drop comes from America/Canada alone. The site and it's userbase has a massive US bias that is not representative of the wider keyboard community.
Post by: jonowarren94 on Mon, 24 June 2019, 07:00:10
UK + NORDE kits = 122 ISO kits
Is that really that far off the other 'unusual' kits sold.
Post by: nguyenhimself on Mon, 24 June 2019, 07:05:24
(Attachment Link)Oblivion has 4 base kits, 3 if you (rightly) exclude the Assembly one.
In Oblivion, 66 international kits out of 788 base kits is over 8% of all orders.
Imagine if any other community alienated 8% of the hobbyists around the world so that the majority can save less than 1-2% off their order? All of us support keys we don't use, it's just par for the course with buying keysets. Removing ISO benefits many people a tiny bit (financially) at the cost of totally removing that set as an option for a large community of people. Not all Europeans want to use ANSI.
This is a clear example of how Jamon is a really bad example to cherrypick. This is especially surprising given how over 50% of all traffic to Drop comes from America/Canada alone. The site and it's userbase has a massive US bias that is not representative of the wider keyboard community.
That’s 68 out of 1615, or 4%.
And remember, Massdrop GBs don’t have international proxies, so those numbers include all the buyers from China and other Asian countries, all of whom use ANSI.
Post by: lewisflude on Mon, 24 June 2019, 07:06:58
(Attachment Link)Oblivion has 4 base kits, 3 if you (rightly) exclude the Assembly one.
In Oblivion, 66 international kits out of 788 base kits is over 8% of all orders.
Imagine if any other community alienated 8% of the hobbyists around the world so that the majority can save less than 1-2% off their order? All of us support keys we don't use, it's just par for the course with buying keysets. Removing ISO benefits many people a tiny bit (financially) at the cost of totally removing that set as an option for a large community of people. Not all Europeans want to use ANSI.
This is a clear example of how Jamon is a really bad example to cherrypick. This is especially surprising given how over 50% of all traffic to Drop comes from America/Canada alone. The site and it's userbase has a massive US bias that is not representative of the wider keyboard community.
That’s 68 out of 1615, or 4%.
Worked that out after I hit the submit button and have updated my post. I think the point still stands with 4% as it does 8%.
Post by: lewisflude on Mon, 24 June 2019, 07:13:09
(Attachment Link)Oblivion has 4 base kits, 3 if you (rightly) exclude the Assembly one.
In Oblivion, 66 international kits out of 788 base kits is over 8% of all orders.
Imagine if any other community alienated 8% of the hobbyists around the world so that the majority can save less than 1-2% off their order? All of us support keys we don't use, it's just par for the course with buying keysets. Removing ISO benefits many people a tiny bit (financially) at the cost of totally removing that set as an option for a large community of people. Not all Europeans want to use ANSI.
This is a clear example of how Jamon is a really bad example to cherrypick. This is especially surprising given how over 50% of all traffic to Drop comes from America/Canada alone. The site and it's userbase has a massive US bias that is not representative of the wider keyboard community.
That’s 68 out of 1615, or 4%.
And remember, Massdrop GBs don’t have international proxies, so those numbers include all the buyers from China and other Asian countries, all of whom use ANSI.
I’m aware that US, Canada, China primarily use ANSI, whereas the rest of the world uses ISO. It’s about a 50/50 split globally.
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 24 June 2019, 07:24:51
(Attachment Link)
In Oblivion, 66 international kits out of 1767 base kits is about 4% of all orders.
Note that ALL base kits (and the alternate alphas) in Oblivion already support US ISO, so that 4% is strictly for the international kit... which is NORDEUK with a different name.
Post by: Gouty on Mon, 24 June 2019, 07:25:58
From a survey I did a couple years ago (link here (https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=88851.0))
Raw data are all there if you want to do a breakdown of where the ISO users are. If I did this again I'd probably break it down into "do you use ISO/ANSI?" questions as there are probably many people that prefer ISO that use ANSI and vice versa.
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 24 June 2019, 07:27:30
…
We used to have kits for “exotic layouts” like Tsangan or Moggle.
At some point, people noticed how popular those kits were, so they integrated them into the base kit.
Meanwhile, the one recent time we experimented with moving the ISO keys out, well:Show Image(https://massdrop-s3.imgix.net/img_comment/LfIsu4kwR0ygI29ShcVW_GMKjamonStatus1902282332a.PNG?auto=format&fm=jpg&fit=max&w=796&h=425&dpr=2&q=35)
And at >800 base kits sold, you can’t say this was not a popular set.
Notice that that was a UK ISO set, not an ISO set. Sorry to be banging this particular drum so much, but let's please NOT confuse "ISO support" with "UK ISO support".
I'm gonna have to sell off my GMK Jamón set in protest (the eñe survival kits will stay with me, though).
Post by: lewisflude on Mon, 24 June 2019, 07:30:52
(Attachment Link)
In Oblivion, 66 international kits out of 1767 base kits is about 4% of all orders.
Note that ALL base kits (and the alternate alphas) in Oblivion already support US ISO, so that 4% is strictly for the international kit... which is NORDEUK with a different name.
Extremely important point, 4% of people wanted correct legends but actual ISO usage is likely higher.
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 24 June 2019, 07:31:17
Show Image(https://i.imgur.com/ovlZ8Mr.png)
From a survey I did a couple years ago (link here (https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=88851.0))
Raw data are all there if you want to do a breakdown of where the ISO users are. If I did this again I'd probably break it down into "do you use ISO/ANSI?" questions as there are probably many people that prefer ISO that use ANSI and vice versa.
Almost 20% ISO... not "two or three guys here and there". :thumb:
Post by: ideus on Mon, 24 June 2019, 07:56:17
Post by: lewisflude on Mon, 24 June 2019, 07:59:27
If you stick to beige and wob colors there have been GB that supports most EU localizations. I use SW layout that it is very hard to get, but using those basic color ways I am fine. Most international kits barely reach MoQ so it is really not fair for US ANSI users to be loaded with the extra cost, no matter if it is four, nine o any other amount of extra caps. It is just not fair for asking most people paying for keys that they will never use.
But ISO users also have to pay for caps they don’t use (ANSI keys are useless).
I’m not sure anyone can claim to use all of the caps they pay for, so I don’t think you’ve got a very good point! Does everyone always use 1800? 40s? F keys?
This discussion is primarily about ISO support, international keys to get correct legends is a plus. ISO in the base kit is the bare minimum I expect to see.
Post by: Poesjuh on Mon, 24 June 2019, 08:19:35
If you stick to beige and wob colors there have been GB that supports most EU localizations. I use SW layout that it is very hard to get, but using those basic color ways I am fine. Most international kits barely reach MoQ so it is really not fair for US ANSI users to be loaded with the extra cost, no matter if it is four, nine o any other amount of extra caps. It is just not fair for asking most people paying for keys that they will never use.
But ISO users also have to pay for caps they don’t use (ANSI keys are useless).
I’m not sure anyone can claim to use all of the caps they pay for, so I don’t think you’ve got a very good point! Does everyone always use 1800? 40s? F keys?
This discussion is primarily about ISO support, international keys to get correct legends is a plus. ISO in the base kit is the bare minimum I expect to see.
This.
But it's ok, I think it's totally fair that I keep paying for F keys even though I don't use keyboards that actually have them. Talking about that regular capslock, no need only used stepped.
Can we drop the whole "it's not fair that ansi users have to pay for iso keys argument", I think it's a kinda childish argument, no offence ment.
Small edit; we all have to pay for keys we don’t use for the greater good, iso keys are a part of that / should be.
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 24 June 2019, 09:09:49
How about we get some fresh data and make a poll about this, open to all geekhackers instead of just the ones participating in this thread, to assess the general opinion of the community on this issue and whether the US ISO compromise would be acceptable?
FIRST DRAFT of the questions to be asked (with my own answers, both as an example and so you can spot a possible bias):
- What is your country of residence? (Chile)
- What is your main language? (Spanish)
- If applicable, what is a secondary language you frequently use? (English)
- On your keyboard(s), what is(are) the main physical layout(s) you use? (full-size, battleship, TKL, 75%)
- What kind of Enter key do you prefer? (ISO)
- What kind of Enter key do you use? (ISO and ANSI)
- Do you think of "ISO" as a separate layout, or as a variant, in the same way non-stepped and stepped Caps Lock keys are? (variant)
- When "ISO support in the base kit" is talked about in an upcoming keyset, what do you actually think it means? {image of a single Enter key} {image of the four keys of US ISO} {image of the nine keys in UK ISO} (US ISO)
- If it came only TO YOU, what would you rather have in the base kit (this besides every other variation in layout support)? {no ISO support whatsoever} {physical ISO only - meaning just the 1.25U left Shift and the ISO Enter key} {US ISO support - meaning 4 keys: left Shift, Enter, R3 and R4 \| keys} {UK ISO support - meaning nine keys: the four above plus `¬ 2" 3£ '€ #~ } {whatever ISO support, but in a separate kit only} (US ISO)
- The US ISO compromise (see below) has been proposed as a compromise solution to the complaints about ISO support. Would you accept it? {Yes} {No} (yes)
- Would adding a BAE Enter key (plus a 1U Backspace key) to the base kit be an acceptable addition to this compromise? {yes, put them in the base kit always} {write it into the compromise, but make BAE optional} {no, base kits should never be expected to have a BAE} (make it optional)
The US ISO compromise suggests the following:
- Base kits should continue to have full US English ANSI support, as has been the case since "always".
- Base kits should contain four more keys, to ensure US English ISO support: (mod-colored) 1.25U R4 left Shift, (mod-colored) ISO Enter, alpha-colored R3 and R4 \| keys.
- A set designer may ADD accent-colored ISO Enter keys if he or she wants to. An (alpha-colored) R4 <> key may also be added.
- Alpha legends for country/languages others than US English should NOT be part of a base kit. UK English support, for example (meaning in this the five keys `¬ 2" 3£ '€ #~) should be part of an international kit.
- An international kit for whatever language or group of languages (NORDE, NORDEUK, LAPTES, BEFRIT, etc.) should be composed of the necessary alpha keys, PLUS the AltGr key(s). The AltGr keys included in an international kit should be in the same numbers, shapes and legends (¿or "legends and icons"?) as to replace all the Alt keys in the base kit that are meant to be placed in the RALT position.
- Key legends for modifier keys in the base kit are expected to remain in English; legends in other languages ("Strg", "Mayús", etc.), if present, should be in the relevant international kit (NORDEUK and LAPTES in the examples above).
Ok, guys and gals. Review the draft and suggest changes.
Post by: nguyenhimself on Mon, 24 June 2019, 12:37:56
You’re one of those people who think Asia is just China and Japan, huh?(Attachment Link)Oblivion has 4 base kits, 3 if you (rightly) exclude the Assembly one.
In Oblivion, 66 international kits out of 788 base kits is over 8% of all orders.
Imagine if any other community alienated 8% of the hobbyists around the world so that the majority can save less than 1-2% off their order? All of us support keys we don't use, it's just par for the course with buying keysets. Removing ISO benefits many people a tiny bit (financially) at the cost of totally removing that set as an option for a large community of people. Not all Europeans want to use ANSI.
This is a clear example of how Jamon is a really bad example to cherrypick. This is especially surprising given how over 50% of all traffic to Drop comes from America/Canada alone. The site and it's userbase has a massive US bias that is not representative of the wider keyboard community.
That’s 68 out of 1615, or 4%.
And remember, Massdrop GBs don’t have international proxies, so those numbers include all the buyers from China and other Asian countries, all of whom use ANSI.
I’m aware that US, Canada, China primarily use ANSI, whereas the rest of the world uses ISO. It’s about a 50/50 split globally.
(https://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/a4QLzZm_700b.jpg)
Post by: lewisflude on Mon, 24 June 2019, 12:41:35
You’re one of those people who think Asia is just China and Japan, huh?(Attachment Link)Oblivion has 4 base kits, 3 if you (rightly) exclude the Assembly one.
In Oblivion, 66 international kits out of 788 base kits is over 8% of all orders.
Imagine if any other community alienated 8% of the hobbyists around the world so that the majority can save less than 1-2% off their order? All of us support keys we don't use, it's just par for the course with buying keysets. Removing ISO benefits many people a tiny bit (financially) at the cost of totally removing that set as an option for a large community of people. Not all Europeans want to use ANSI.
This is a clear example of how Jamon is a really bad example to cherrypick. This is especially surprising given how over 50% of all traffic to Drop comes from America/Canada alone. The site and it's userbase has a massive US bias that is not representative of the wider keyboard community.
That’s 68 out of 1615, or 4%.
And remember, Massdrop GBs don’t have international proxies, so those numbers include all the buyers from China and other Asian countries, all of whom use ANSI.
I’m aware that US, Canada, China primarily use ANSI, whereas the rest of the world uses ISO. It’s about a 50/50 split globally.Show Image(https://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/a4QLzZm_700b.jpg)
There’s plenty of countries I didn’t list, no need to be pedantic. You seemed to have totally ignored my point. ISO vs ANSI usage around the world is roughly 50/50.
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 24 June 2019, 13:07:56
…
You’re one of those people who think Asia is just China and Japan, huh?Show Image(https://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/a4QLzZm_700b.jpg)
EDIT: damn, I'm blind. There it was all along.
Post by: jonowarren94 on Mon, 24 June 2019, 14:05:24
How about we get some fresh data and make a poll about this, open to all geekhackers instead of just the ones participating in this thread, to assess the general opinion of the community on this issue and whether the US ISO compromise would be acceptable?
I know its semantics but maybe just call it ISO? ISO-US is kind of confusing as almost no-one uses it :))
But good idea, maybe open open to other keyboard communities also?
Post by: tobiasvl on Mon, 24 June 2019, 14:15:16
For keycaps personally I won't buy it unless it supports my layout with the correct legends, but I'm in the minority here (I think?).
You definitely are, but you're not alone! It works both ways too: If a set has an international/NorDe kit, I'm much more likely to buy it almost regardless of how much I like it. OK, I don't buy sets I totally hate, but having correct legends on the keys is a very important aesthetic aspect of a keycap set to me and I give it more weight than many other considerations when buying a set.
But the most important part is still, of course, physical ISO compatibility. If I literally can't put it on my keyboard, then I'm not going to buy an otherwise perfect set, even without the correct legends. I have used ISO my entire life, I prefer ISO (although I also like HHKB, since it solves the "wide alpha" problem of ANSI, it needs a split left shift!), and I have a couple hotswap boards with fixed ISO layouts.
To me, the perfect solution is definitely the aforementioned "US-ISO in base kit + extra NorDeUK kit". Someone already mentioned it's wasteful to throw away the extra ISO caps in the base set, but in this case I think it's best to lump the legended NorDeUK caps together for a higher change to MOQ. Personally, I'm much more willing to throw money at a set if it includes a NorDe kit, and I know going in that I always have to pay extra to get ISO compat anyway, let alone my esoteric legends. Nordic and German is already "always" grouped together; throw UK in there as well.
There's an interesting thread on DT where someone tried to put together the smallest possible NorDeUK kit: https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=14983&start=
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 24 June 2019, 14:21:46
How about we get some fresh data and make a poll about this, open to all geekhackers instead of just the ones participating in this thread, to assess the general opinion of the community on this issue and whether the US ISO compromise would be acceptable?
I know its semantics but maybe just call it ISO? ISO-US is kind of confusing as almost no-one uses it :))
Of course it's semantics. :D
The reason I'm insisting on talking about "US ISO" is precisely because many people think that "ISO support" and "UK ISO support" are the same thing, and that mental block is an important part of the problem — therefore, breaking it is an important part of the solution.
But good idea, maybe open open to other keyboard communities also?
Hell, YES! But first, let's agree on the questions (and answering options) this poll should have, THEN post it on DT, reddit, KeebTalk and wherever else.
Post by: jonowarren94 on Mon, 24 June 2019, 14:42:10
Hell, YES! But first, let's agree on the questions (and answering options) this poll should have, THEN post it on DT, reddit, KeebTalk and wherever else.
I think so long as it asks:
- Country
- Language
- Preferred layout (mainly size: 40/60/65/75/full/ergo)?
- Most used layout
- Layout variants you use: hhkb, stepped caps/control, iso, minilla, split space, I said ergo! ect - maybe have the ability to select multiple here!
This would be a good amount of data to collect without being tedious to fill in, and if it can inform people the approximate ratio of users out there in the community, as at the moment we really don't know. With layout ambiguous kits like XDA Canvas probably being our best estimate (at least for those that joined the GB).
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 24 June 2019, 15:06:15
Hell, YES! But first, let's agree on the questions (and answering options) this poll should have, THEN post it on DT, reddit, KeebTalk and wherever else.
I think so long as it asks:
- Country
- Language
- Preferred layout (mainly size: 40/60/65/75/full/ergo)?
- Most used layout
- Layout variants you use: hhkb, stepped caps/control, iso, minilla, split space, I said ergo! ect - maybe have the ability to select multiple here!
This would be a good amount of data to collect without being tedious to fill in, and if it can inform people the approximate ratio of users out there in the community, as at the moment we really don't know. With layout ambiguous kits like XDA Canvas probably being our best estimate (at least for those that joined the GB).
I think we can split the questions into three groups (there's not that many of them, anyway): "about yourself", "what is your take on the ISO problem" and "what do you think of this solution to the ISO problem".
I'm unsure about adding questions about other variants (Caps Lock, HHKB-style backspace, etc.), but the debate in this thread should help settle that.
Post by: ideus on Mon, 24 June 2019, 15:15:29
If you stick to beige and wob colors there have been GB that supports most EU localizations. I use SW layout that it is very hard to get, but using those basic color ways I am fine. Most international kits barely reach MoQ so it is really not fair for US ANSI users to be loaded with the extra cost, no matter if it is four, nine o any other amount of extra caps. It is just not fair for asking most people paying for keys that they will never use.
But ISO users also have to pay for caps they don’t use (ANSI keys are useless).
I’m not sure anyone can claim to use all of the caps they pay for, so I don’t think you’ve got a very good point! Does everyone always use 1800? 40s? F keys?
This discussion is primarily about ISO support, international keys to get correct legends is a plus. ISO in the base kit is the bare minimum I expect to see.
This.
But it's ok, I think it's totally fair that I keep paying for F keys even though I don't use keyboards that actually have them. Talking about that regular capslock, no need only used stepped.
Can we drop the whole "it's not fair that ansi users have to pay for iso keys argument", I think it's a kinda childish argument, no offence ment.
Small edit; we all have to pay for keys we don’t use for the greater good, iso keys are a part of that / should be.
I agree with you guys. I misunderstood the question. But, it should be rephrase for On availability of ISO UK Eng in GB.
For ISO I understand the full locale that I use, my bad.
Post by: lewisflude on Mon, 24 June 2019, 15:19:44
If you stick to beige and wob colors there have been GB that supports most EU localizations. I use SW layout that it is very hard to get, but using those basic color ways I am fine. Most international kits barely reach MoQ so it is really not fair for US ANSI users to be loaded with the extra cost, no matter if it is four, nine o any other amount of extra caps. It is just not fair for asking most people paying for keys that they will never use.
But ISO users also have to pay for caps they don’t use (ANSI keys are useless).
I’m not sure anyone can claim to use all of the caps they pay for, so I don’t think you’ve got a very good point! Does everyone always use 1800? 40s? F keys?
This discussion is primarily about ISO support, international keys to get correct legends is a plus. ISO in the base kit is the bare minimum I expect to see.
This.
But it's ok, I think it's totally fair that I keep paying for F keys even though I don't use keyboards that actually have them. Talking about that regular capslock, no need only used stepped.
Can we drop the whole "it's not fair that ansi users have to pay for iso keys argument", I think it's a kinda childish argument, no offence ment.
Small edit; we all have to pay for keys we don’t use for the greater good, iso keys are a part of that / should be.
I agree with you guys. I misunderstood the question. But, it should be rephrase for On availability of ISO UK Eng in GB.
For ISO I understand the full locale that I use, my bad.
It’s an easy mistake to make! I can totally see how it’d get confusing.
What we’re saying is that:
ISO (4 keys) should always be in base kit. This is the minimum that’s expected from ISO users.
Optionally a NorDeUk kit can be offered if it’s likely MOQ will be reached. This contains all other keys needed for correct legends including the extra 5 keys needed for UK-ISO.
Post by: Myoth on Thu, 27 June 2019, 13:19:45
And well ... the pcb argument .... the pcb problem is a dumb one brought by lazy pcb makers, not going to lie lol. The "swiss cheese effect" for the ISO keys, but they're fine with having 10000000 bottom rows ? miss me with that ****, if PCB makers really cared about the "swiss cheese effect", we'd only have tsangan and poker supported, for a TKL at least.
For the board mentioned, I can see effort has been put to make the cleanest PCB possible, but at the same time, I don't think putting ISO would have hurt the thing.
You're missing the point here. I can put ISO on a PCB, it's not particularly hard, I'm not "lazy", I designed Zeal60 which had ANSI and ISO and in-switch RGB, and I did it just to prove one could do both, some things are sub-optimal but it works. It was designed to fit in 60% tray cases, not as part of a custom keyboard "kit" (case + PCB), so it makes sense.
The arms race to put as many layouts as possible on a PCB has led to the "swiss cheese". Now, people who don't want "swiss cheese" create a demand for "cleaner" PCBs, single-layout or minimal layout PCBs, the custom case designers choose this, and I make it. Other case designers favour compatibility and choose to add more layouts on the PCB and/or plates. That's their choice, too. There are no right or wrong answers, just choices and diversity.
I don't think ISO is the biggest problem on many PCBs, while I do agree with what you say, for the sake of the argument, I can't really play devil's advocate. Else everything is subjective and there isn't any argument. Maybe lazy was too much of a buzzword, but come on, I HIGHLY doubt 8 pads are the end of the world. Clean PCBs and are nice, and I respect it, but I don't think adding ISO support dirties them or whatever, and if I were to make PCBs, ISO + tsangan would be the least they would be, on any of them. But I don't make any. So eh ?
The thing is that what you feel doesn't matter. When someone designs a custom keyboard they have a choice to make, design wise. The choice to remove iso compatibility obviously disappoints people who like iso, but most people who prefer ansi prefer to have their expensive high end customs not have cheese pcb/plate. The beauty of this hobby is you absolutely have that freedom. Make your own boards, or support the designers who add iso compatibility to their projects even if they don't need to.
Interesting discussion though about Iso. Personally, I think it's an unfortunate situation not sure what's to be done about it. I empathize with the frustration of not being able to use the keysets you're interested in on the boards you buy. I recognize that's unfortunate for a hobby designed around making the perfect board for yourself. On the other hand though 100% of these arguments proposed here can work for any odd layout. I'm making a keyboard with 2x r3 1.25u keys. If that gets popular can I start demanding those? It's only 2 keys! What about the high amount of 40s users, why can't they demand we include 1.25u r3 tab key and a 1.75u r3 enter key in base kits. I understand it's annoying but regardless of whatever percentage of the globe supports ISO, it's absolutely a small minority in custom mechanical keyboards, period.
What is the point of arguing if you're going to say "well, it's the choice of the maker !!!!!!" like cool bro, that means only what they think is necessary, which is pretty counter-productive if you're trying to appeal to a larger mass. Anyway ...
You didn't read my original post did you ? plates should always be fixed, as I said, and like I said I do not think 8 pads are the end of the world, my KMAC2 has very limited pcb layouts, and it's not better or worse than a run of the mill H87 or whatever the standard is. If you indeed think that you ABOSLUTELY need not these 8 pads, then reconsider split backspace and split rshift on a TKL, or if you want to take the thing even further, take a look at the XD60, 8pads when they are like 200 on it.... come on man
and I agree that it's a minority, but it's not small enough to be overlooked, the lack of ISO is only going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby, I remember when I was looking for custom options and there was no ISO keycaps, and you god damn know how important keycaps are to a keyboard, and no you really don't understand what the lack of keycaps mean, you don't live for decades using a layout, getting into a hobby and seeing there are absolutely NO options for it, that's how using AZERTY in the hobby feels like, and I don't even use AZERTY. ISO is necessary, those 4 caps are totally necessary as they mean you can *at least* learn how to touch-type to still use your layout. And, optionally, open your keyset to 1/5th of the market :)
Post by: Acereconkeys on Thu, 27 June 2019, 13:31:51
What is the point of arguing if you're going to say "well, it's the choice of the maker !!!!!!" like cool bro, that means only what they think is necessary, which is pretty counter-productive if you're trying to appeal to a larger mass. Anyway ...
You didn't read my original post did you ? plates should always be fixed, as I said, and like I said I do not think 8 pads are the end of the world, my KMAC2 has very limited pcb layouts, and it's not better or worse than a run of the mill H87 or whatever the standard is. If you indeed think that you ABOSLUTELY need not these 8 pads, then reconsider split backspace and split rshift on a TKL, or if you want to take the thing even further, take a look at the XD60, 8pads when they are like 200 on it.... come on man
and I agree that it's a minority, but it's not small enough to be overlooked, the lack of ISO is only going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby, I remember when I was looking for custom options and there was no ISO keycaps, and you god damn know how important keycaps are to a keyboard, and no you really don't understand what the lack of keycaps mean, you don't live for decades using a layout, getting into a hobby and seeing there are absolutely NO options for it, that's how using AZERTY in the hobby feels like, and I don't even use AZERTY. ISO is necessary, those 4 caps are totally necessary as they mean you can *at least* learn how to touch-type to still use your layout. And, optionally, open your keyset to 1/5th of the market :)
We must have both missed each others points.
My point is Iso is not special compared to other unpopular layouts like 40%, 1800, or 60% with arrows (lol). Everyone wants the hobby to cater to their interests and make keysets that work for the boards they have/want.
You say "the lack of ISO is only going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby". But isn't it also true the lack of 40% keycap support also going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby? There's no difference.
I'm trying to be empathatic and understand how frustrating it is that you don't have your layout of choice supported in base kits, but neither do I.
Post by: lewisflude on Thu, 27 June 2019, 14:02:54
What is the point of arguing if you're going to say "well, it's the choice of the maker !!!!!!" like cool bro, that means only what they think is necessary, which is pretty counter-productive if you're trying to appeal to a larger mass. Anyway ...
You didn't read my original post did you ? plates should always be fixed, as I said, and like I said I do not think 8 pads are the end of the world, my KMAC2 has very limited pcb layouts, and it's not better or worse than a run of the mill H87 or whatever the standard is. If you indeed think that you ABOSLUTELY need not these 8 pads, then reconsider split backspace and split rshift on a TKL, or if you want to take the thing even further, take a look at the XD60, 8pads when they are like 200 on it.... come on man
and I agree that it's a minority, but it's not small enough to be overlooked, the lack of ISO is only going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby, I remember when I was looking for custom options and there was no ISO keycaps, and you god damn know how important keycaps are to a keyboard, and no you really don't understand what the lack of keycaps mean, you don't live for decades using a layout, getting into a hobby and seeing there are absolutely NO options for it, that's how using AZERTY in the hobby feels like, and I don't even use AZERTY. ISO is necessary, those 4 caps are totally necessary as they mean you can *at least* learn how to touch-type to still use your layout. And, optionally, open your keyset to 1/5th of the market :)
We must have both missed each others points.
My point is Iso is not special compared to other unpopular layouts like 40%, 1800, or 60% with arrows (lol). Everyone wants the hobby to cater to their interests and make keysets that work for the boards they have/want.
You say "the lack of ISO is only going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby". But isn't it also true the lack of 40% keycap support also going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby? There's no difference.
I'm trying to be empathatic and understand how frustrating it is that you don't have your layout of choice supported in base kits, but neither do I.
ISO isn’t a layout, it’s a variant that 50% of the world and 20% of the mechanical keyboard community use.
There is ISO 40%, ISO 60%, ISO 1800 etc.
Many (most?) boards offer ISO and ANSI variants out of the box. It’s one of the two defaults available to people.
I totally understand from a financial perspective how the numbers sometimes work out, but the need for ISO in mechanical keyboards is there and for a huge part of the global community it really matters.
It might not be as visible from within the ANSI-using community, but it’s mostly definitely there.
People getting into this hobby want a keyboard that fits their preference, and for a significant and growing part of the global mechanical keyboards community they want ISO.
Post by: Acereconkeys on Thu, 27 June 2019, 14:11:34
What is the point of arguing if you're going to say "well, it's the choice of the maker !!!!!!" like cool bro, that means only what they think is necessary, which is pretty counter-productive if you're trying to appeal to a larger mass. Anyway ...
You didn't read my original post did you ? plates should always be fixed, as I said, and like I said I do not think 8 pads are the end of the world, my KMAC2 has very limited pcb layouts, and it's not better or worse than a run of the mill H87 or whatever the standard is. If you indeed think that you ABOSLUTELY need not these 8 pads, then reconsider split backspace and split rshift on a TKL, or if you want to take the thing even further, take a look at the XD60, 8pads when they are like 200 on it.... come on man
and I agree that it's a minority, but it's not small enough to be overlooked, the lack of ISO is only going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby, I remember when I was looking for custom options and there was no ISO keycaps, and you god damn know how important keycaps are to a keyboard, and no you really don't understand what the lack of keycaps mean, you don't live for decades using a layout, getting into a hobby and seeing there are absolutely NO options for it, that's how using AZERTY in the hobby feels like, and I don't even use AZERTY. ISO is necessary, those 4 caps are totally necessary as they mean you can *at least* learn how to touch-type to still use your layout. And, optionally, open your keyset to 1/5th of the market :)
We must have both missed each others points.
My point is Iso is not special compared to other unpopular layouts like 40%, 1800, or 60% with arrows (lol). Everyone wants the hobby to cater to their interests and make keysets that work for the boards they have/want.
You say "the lack of ISO is only going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby". But isn't it also true the lack of 40% keycap support also going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby? There's no difference.
I'm trying to be empathatic and understand how frustrating it is that you don't have your layout of choice supported in base kits, but neither do I.
ISO isn’t a layout, it’s a variant that 50% of the world and 20% of the mechanical keyboard community use.
There is ISO 40%, ISO 60%, ISO 1800 etc.
Many (most?) boards offer ISO and ANSI variants out of the box. It’s one of the two defaults available to people.
I totally understand from a financial perspective how the numbers sometimes work out, but the need for ISO in mechanical keyboards is there and for a huge part of the global community it really matters.
It might not be as visible from within the ANSI-using community, but it’s mostly definitely there.
People getting into this hobby want a keyboard that fits their preference, and for a significant and growing part of the global mechanical keyboards community they want ISO.
As i've discussed multiple times earlier, for the purposes of a gb runner choosing keycap compatibility, Iso is a layout just like any other one. You're not somehow more important than other users just because your preference comes from existing keyboards and can work with other layouts. That's unfair. When iso is not included in a gb you don't get to use that keycap set on your favorite keyboard. When 40% compatibility is not included in a gb I don't get to use it on my keyboard. It's 100% exactly the same.
Post by: lewisflude on Thu, 27 June 2019, 14:16:47
What is the point of arguing if you're going to say "well, it's the choice of the maker !!!!!!" like cool bro, that means only what they think is necessary, which is pretty counter-productive if you're trying to appeal to a larger mass. Anyway ...
You didn't read my original post did you ? plates should always be fixed, as I said, and like I said I do not think 8 pads are the end of the world, my KMAC2 has very limited pcb layouts, and it's not better or worse than a run of the mill H87 or whatever the standard is. If you indeed think that you ABOSLUTELY need not these 8 pads, then reconsider split backspace and split rshift on a TKL, or if you want to take the thing even further, take a look at the XD60, 8pads when they are like 200 on it.... come on man
and I agree that it's a minority, but it's not small enough to be overlooked, the lack of ISO is only going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby, I remember when I was looking for custom options and there was no ISO keycaps, and you god damn know how important keycaps are to a keyboard, and no you really don't understand what the lack of keycaps mean, you don't live for decades using a layout, getting into a hobby and seeing there are absolutely NO options for it, that's how using AZERTY in the hobby feels like, and I don't even use AZERTY. ISO is necessary, those 4 caps are totally necessary as they mean you can *at least* learn how to touch-type to still use your layout. And, optionally, open your keyset to 1/5th of the market :)
We must have both missed each others points.
My point is Iso is not special compared to other unpopular layouts like 40%, 1800, or 60% with arrows (lol). Everyone wants the hobby to cater to their interests and make keysets that work for the boards they have/want.
You say "the lack of ISO is only going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby". But isn't it also true the lack of 40% keycap support also going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby? There's no difference.
I'm trying to be empathatic and understand how frustrating it is that you don't have your layout of choice supported in base kits, but neither do I.
ISO isn’t a layout, it’s a variant that 50% of the world and 20% of the mechanical keyboard community use.
There is ISO 40%, ISO 60%, ISO 1800 etc.
Many (most?) boards offer ISO and ANSI variants out of the box. It’s one of the two defaults available to people.
I totally understand from a financial perspective how the numbers sometimes work out, but the need for ISO in mechanical keyboards is there and for a huge part of the global community it really matters.
It might not be as visible from within the ANSI-using community, but it’s mostly definitely there.
People getting into this hobby want a keyboard that fits their preference, and for a significant and growing part of the global mechanical keyboards community they want ISO.
As i've discussed multiple times earlier, for the purposes of a gb runner choosing keycap compatibility, Iso is a layout just like any other one. You're not somehow more important than other users just because your preference comes from existing keyboards and can work with other layouts. That's unfair. When iso is not included in a gb you don't get to use that keycap set on your favorite keyboard. When 40% compatibility is not included in a gb I don't get to use it on my keyboard. It's 100% exactly the same.
You can get 40s coverage quite easily without a dedicated 40s kit, you just end up with incorrect legends so in that respect a 40s kit is more similar to a NorDeUk kit.
I don’t mind having incorrect legends (that much) as long as they keys physically fit on the board.
Post by: Acereconkeys on Thu, 27 June 2019, 14:22:35
ISO isn’t a layout, it’s a variant that 50% of the world and 20% of the mechanical keyboard community use.
There is ISO 40%, ISO 60%, ISO 1800 etc.
Many (most?) boards offer ISO and ANSI variants out of the box. It’s one of the two defaults available to people.
I totally understand from a financial perspective how the numbers sometimes work out, but the need for ISO in mechanical keyboards is there and for a huge part of the global community it really matters.
It might not be as visible from within the ANSI-using community, but it’s mostly definitely there.
People getting into this hobby want a keyboard that fits their preference, and for a significant and growing part of the global mechanical keyboards community they want ISO.
As i've discussed multiple times earlier, for the purposes of a gb runner choosing keycap compatibility, Iso is a layout just like any other one. You're not somehow more important than other users just because your preference comes from existing keyboards and can work with other layouts. That's unfair. When iso is not included in a gb you don't get to use that keycap set on your favorite keyboard. When 40% compatibility is not included in a gb I don't get to use it on my keyboard. It's 100% exactly the same.
You can get 40s coverage quite easily without a dedicated 40s kit, you just end up with incorrect legends so in that respect a 40s kit is more similar to a NorDeUk kit.
I don’t mind having incorrect legends (that much) as long as they keys physically fit on the board.
Where do I get a 1.75u r3 key? or a 1.25u r3 key? These are not just in the perfect legend but not given keycaps.
Post by: Poesjuh on Thu, 27 June 2019, 17:15:09
Post by: depletedvespene on Thu, 27 June 2019, 17:34:22
1.75 is the shift, 1.25 is the ISO left shift :P
But those are R3++. :-\
Post by: Acereconkeys on Thu, 27 June 2019, 19:13:26
1.75 is the shift, 1.25 is the ISO left shift :P
Both shifts are R4 not R3 though.
Post by: Poesjuh on Fri, 28 June 2019, 04:20:02
1.75 is the shift, 1.25 is the ISO left shift :P
Both shifts are R4 not R3 though.
O lol true, I'm stupid :P Well, R3 caps/control could work. But yeah not the correct legends.
Post by: Acereconkeys on Fri, 28 June 2019, 11:34:04
1.75 is the shift, 1.25 is the ISO left shift :P
Both shifts are R4 not R3 though.
O lol true, I'm stupid :P Well, R3 caps/control could work. But yeah not the correct legends.
Yup i'm with ya that's why my whole agenda/objective is to just get people to include 1 1.25u r3 key. Fn, Tab, Enter, Ctrl whatever legend i don't give a hoot just any 1.25u r3 key :) Then I can use 1.75u ctrl and 1.25u whatever to atleast cover my 40%.
Post by: Myoth on Mon, 01 July 2019, 10:01:46
What is the point of arguing if you're going to say "well, it's the choice of the maker !!!!!!" like cool bro, that means only what they think is necessary, which is pretty counter-productive if you're trying to appeal to a larger mass. Anyway ...
You didn't read my original post did you ? plates should always be fixed, as I said, and like I said I do not think 8 pads are the end of the world, my KMAC2 has very limited pcb layouts, and it's not better or worse than a run of the mill H87 or whatever the standard is. If you indeed think that you ABOSLUTELY need not these 8 pads, then reconsider split backspace and split rshift on a TKL, or if you want to take the thing even further, take a look at the XD60, 8pads when they are like 200 on it.... come on man
and I agree that it's a minority, but it's not small enough to be overlooked, the lack of ISO is only going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby, I remember when I was looking for custom options and there was no ISO keycaps, and you god damn know how important keycaps are to a keyboard, and no you really don't understand what the lack of keycaps mean, you don't live for decades using a layout, getting into a hobby and seeing there are absolutely NO options for it, that's how using AZERTY in the hobby feels like, and I don't even use AZERTY. ISO is necessary, those 4 caps are totally necessary as they mean you can *at least* learn how to touch-type to still use your layout. And, optionally, open your keyset to 1/5th of the market :)
We must have both missed each others points.
My point is Iso is not special compared to other unpopular layouts like 40%, 1800, or 60% with arrows (lol). Everyone wants the hobby to cater to their interests and make keysets that work for the boards they have/want.
You say "the lack of ISO is only going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby". But isn't it also true the lack of 40% keycap support also going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby? There's no difference.
I'm trying to be empathatic and understand how frustrating it is that you don't have your layout of choice supported in base kits, but neither do I.
"You say "the lack of ISO is only going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby". But isn't it also true the lack of 40% keycap support also going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby? There's no difference."
You couldn't have chosen a more stupid exemple, 40% is not a standard, it's not seen anywhere apart from this exact hobby, you can't compare 40% to ISO.
I have my layout of choice in base kits, I use ANSI, I said so in my first message. I could just not care about this situation, I'm into vintage ****, I have plenty of keysets to satisfy my needs, and they're fulfilled, I have nothing to win from this argument. I just think it's stupid to exclude ISO for 4 ****ing keys, 4.
If you want to compare to 40%, then I should say "well, you see, 40% is so small that nobody is using the same layout, one might prefer X over Y because of the space you're given, whereas with ISO, if you don't have these 4 keys, you can't do anything that look like it".
I'm surprised no one made an ANSISO. Add a 1.25u shift and a 1u in r4. Same number of keys as ISO, and the support of ANSI. (Sorry if it has been mentioned already)
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 01 July 2019, 11:00:03
…
I'm surprised no one made an ANSISO. Add a 1.25u shift and a 1u in r4. Same number of keys as ISO, and the support of ANSI. (Sorry if it has been mentioned already)
A quibble here: what you describe is an ISANSI hybrid keyboard (ISO left Shift, horizontal Enter key). An ANSISO unit has a 2.25U left Shift and a vertical Enter, like the keycap set in this drop from (m)(ass)drop (https://drop.com/buy/wianxp-soft-breeze-dye-subbed-keycap-set/talk?mode=guest_open).
While we're at this, let's take a look at the BADLY done "ISO support" in that set.
1) It has an ISO Enter key, but no 1.25u Shift key... meaning that it's not actually ISO support but just ANSISO instead.
2) It has TWO of the keys required for UK ISO support... but not the rest. The #~ key goes to the left of the ISO Enter (okay so far), then we have '@ (to replace '")... and nothing else. No R4 or R3 \| key anywhere, and the rest of the replacement keys ( `¬ 2" 3£ ) is missing as well.
With such a poor effort, why even bother? It would have been cheaper to put just R3 \| in the set get rid of the #~ and '@ keycaps.
Post by: tobiasvl on Wed, 03 July 2019, 14:51:16
My point is Iso is not special compared to other unpopular layouts like 40%, 1800, or 60% with arrows (lol). Everyone wants the hobby to cater to their interests and make keysets that work for the boards they have/want.
You say "the lack of ISO is only going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby". But isn't it also true the lack of 40% keycap support also going to make less people get into the more extreme part of the hobby? There's no difference.
I'm trying to be empathatic and understand how frustrating it is that you don't have your layout of choice supported in base kits, but neither do I.
But ISO is special compared to the other layouts you listed, because hundreds of millions of people grow up using it before they even enter the hobby (let alone the "extreme parts" of it). For us, ISO is not a "layout of choice", it's all we know. I'm 32 and work in IT, and I had never, ever seen an ANSI keyboard IRL until I met a colleague who was into mechanical keyboards; he bought an ANSI keyboard because he gave up on ISO due to the lack of options.
40%, 1800, or 60% with arrows (roflmao) are layouts in the "more extreme parts of the hobby" that people choose to embrace. They are the extreme parts of the hobby; they do not exist outside the extreme. It is bad that there's also limited support for those layouts, but at least you know that going in.
The only thing that makes ISO a "layout of choice" for us, is that we can "choose" to give it up when we get into the "more extreme parts of the hobby". And those parts aren't especially extreme: If you want almost any keycap set you have to give up the legends (which isn't that bad); if you want a hotswap board (which is a good entry point for the hobby, not an "extreme part"), or can't shell out hundreds of dollars for more esoteric keycap sets (which makes keycap sets that aren't "extreme parts" of the hobby pretty extreme for ISO users), you might just have to give up physical ISO as well.
Now, it's not a big problem to give up ISO for ANSI. The difference is only 4 keycaps, after all, as has been mentioned several times in this thread. But I definitely believe it stops people from entering the hobby. If there are people out there who have grown up using 40% on stock, chiclet keyboard keyboards, they're probably dismayed by the offerings in GB keycap sets as well.
Post by: e11i0t23 on Wed, 24 July 2019, 17:12:07
To me refusing to add that and therefore excluding a growing group of people in the market for the reason of cost seems selfish as well as a bizarre choice considering this opens your set to a larger amount of clientele therefore allowing a set maker to benefit more or help to achieve the price breaks which is around 5€ less at iso-uk 250MOQ than even no iso so everyone still saves money.
Finally as a PCB designer i would like to touch on the design of them. Yes grated cheese pcbs are not pretty but most PCBs support multiple bottom row configurations. Adding iso additionaly to that is just 2 extra footprints. This doesn't harm aesthetics to me and is a no brainer to be added, even if plate support isnt in group buy as people can easily get a custom plate from a service like laserboost. The only exception is for hotswap, this is near impossible to fit iso and ansi on a single PCB therefore separate pcbs would be needed but that is up to a groupbuy runners discretion how that should be formatted.
Post by: the pokemon kid on Wed, 24 July 2019, 17:21:14
I know im late replying however, to spread some light on the cost argument using a recent quote i collected from GMK of including iso support and in this case full iso-uk support. For 150MOQ of base it adds arround 4€/set reducing to 2€/set for 500MOQ.
To me refusing to add that and therefore excluding a growing group of people in the market for the reason of cost seems selfish as well as a bizarre choice considering this opens your set to a larger amount of clientele therefore allowing a set maker to benefit more or help to achieve the price breaks which is around 5€ less at iso-uk 250MOQ than even no iso so everyone still saves money.
Finally as a PCB designer i would like to touch on the design of them. Yes grated cheese pcbs are not pretty but most PCBs support multiple bottom row configurations. Adding iso additionaly to that is just 2 extra footprints. This doesn't harm aesthetics to me and is a no brainer to be added, even if plate support isnt in group buy as people can easily get a custom plate from a service like laserboost. The only exception is for hotswap, this is near impossible to fit iso and ansi on a single PCB therefore separate pcbs would be needed but that is up to a groupbuy runners discretion how that should be formatted.
The addition of having ISO UK in a base set for an extra 4 euros is much less than I thought it would cost, I was expecting something more on the lines of $20-30. I am suprised that GB runners are choosing to remove it for such a small amount extra!
I have said this before, I am running a plate GB from Laserboost myself. Along with eight other people we are getting ISO Plates cut. If UPAS didnt have ISO Support on his PCB I would of straight passed on the Satisfaction75. I think quite a few people in the UK/ EU communities have a similar sentiment when it comes to choosing what boards/ keysets to pickup.
Post by: lewisflude on Wed, 24 July 2019, 17:24:37
I know im late replying however, to spread some light on the cost argument using a recent quote i collected from GMK of including iso support and in this case full iso-uk support. For 150MOQ of base it adds arround 4€/set reducing to 2€/set for 500MOQ.
To me refusing to add that and therefore excluding a growing group of people in the market for the reason of cost seems selfish as well as a bizarre choice considering this opens your set to a larger amount of clientele therefore allowing a set maker to benefit more or help to achieve the price breaks which is around 5€ less at iso-uk 250MOQ than even no iso so everyone still saves money.
Finally as a PCB designer i would like to touch on the design of them. Yes grated cheese pcbs are not pretty but most PCBs support multiple bottom row configurations. Adding iso additionaly to that is just 2 extra footprints. This doesn't harm aesthetics to me and is a no brainer to be added, even if plate support isnt in group buy as people can easily get a custom plate from a service like laserboost. The only exception is for hotswap, this is near impossible to fit iso and ansi on a single PCB therefore separate pcbs would be needed but that is up to a groupbuy runners discretion how that should be formatted.
These numbers are much lower than I'd assumed. If this is the case, then there really isn't an excuse.
I'd be interested to hear if other set designers quotes match up to this, so if anyone does have some more information on how ISO/UK-ISO/NorDeUk pricing tends to affect a GB then I'd be interested to hear.
Post by: depletedvespene on Wed, 24 July 2019, 19:12:20
I know im late replying however, to spread some light on the cost argument using a recent quote i collected from GMK of including iso support and in this case full iso-uk support. For 150MOQ of base it adds arround 4€/set reducing to 2€/set for 500MOQ.
To me refusing to add that and therefore excluding a growing group of people in the market for the reason of cost seems selfish as well as a bizarre choice considering this opens your set to a larger amount of clientele therefore allowing a set maker to benefit more or help to achieve the price breaks which is around 5€ less at iso-uk 250MOQ than even no iso so everyone still saves money.
Finally as a PCB designer i would like to touch on the design of them. Yes grated cheese pcbs are not pretty but most PCBs support multiple bottom row configurations. Adding iso additionaly to that is just 2 extra footprints. This doesn't harm aesthetics to me and is a no brainer to be added, even if plate support isnt in group buy as people can easily get a custom plate from a service like laserboost. The only exception is for hotswap, this is near impossible to fit iso and ansi on a single PCB therefore separate pcbs would be needed but that is up to a groupbuy runners discretion how that should be formatted.
These numbers are much lower than I'd assumed. If this is the case, then there really isn't an excuse.
Indeed! I'd have thought that US ISO support (four keys) would be 4 euros, not the eight keys that UK ISO requires!
The only reason I find feasible at this point is that somewhen in the distant past, the price difference was (proportionally) much higher, and that "image" of "expensiveness" has not disappeared from the minds of some designers. That, or that they really prefer ANSI Enter and they're rationalizing their preference with an spurious argument (which, infuriatingly, isn't carried over to other variants, like stepped/non-stepped Caps Lock).
Post by: the pokemon kid on Wed, 24 July 2019, 19:25:55
I know im late replying however, to spread some light on the cost argument using a recent quote i collected from GMK of including iso support and in this case full iso-uk support. For 150MOQ of base it adds arround 4€/set reducing to 2€/set for 500MOQ.
To me refusing to add that and therefore excluding a growing group of people in the market for the reason of cost seems selfish as well as a bizarre choice considering this opens your set to a larger amount of clientele therefore allowing a set maker to benefit more or help to achieve the price breaks which is around 5€ less at iso-uk 250MOQ than even no iso so everyone still saves money.
Finally as a PCB designer i would like to touch on the design of them. Yes grated cheese pcbs are not pretty but most PCBs support multiple bottom row configurations. Adding iso additionaly to that is just 2 extra footprints. This doesn't harm aesthetics to me and is a no brainer to be added, even if plate support isnt in group buy as people can easily get a custom plate from a service like laserboost. The only exception is for hotswap, this is near impossible to fit iso and ansi on a single PCB therefore separate pcbs would be needed but that is up to a groupbuy runners discretion how that should be formatted.
These numbers are much lower than I'd assumed. If this is the case, then there really isn't an excuse.
Indeed! I'd have thought that US ISO support (four keys) would be 4 euros, not the eight keys that UK ISO requires!
The only reason I find feasible at this point is that somewhen in the distant past, the price difference was (proportionally) much higher, and that "image" of "expensiveness" has not disappeared from the minds of some designers. That, or that they really prefer ANSI Enter and they're rationalizing their preference with an spurious argument (which, infuriatingly, isn't carried over to other variants, like stepped/non-stepped Caps Lock).
I think you may be right with this. Before I knew it was 4 Euros, I expected it to be $20-30 because of what GB runners and other members had been saying. I think that this idea it was expensive was thrown around without any hard evidence or old information to back it up!
Post by: depletedvespene on Wed, 24 July 2019, 19:51:22
Several newer sets (not naming any names here!) are supporting a version of ISO that is neither here nor there: ISO Enter, short left Shift, R4 \| (okay so far), but... instead of an R3 \| key (actually more important than the R4 one), they sport an R3 #~ key!
With this, US ISO support on ISO (and ANSISO) keyboards is incomplete and without any options other than forcing a keyboard to present TWO number signs and TWO tilde symbols to the user (and no backlash or pipe symbols!) or covering the spot with a modifier (even worse). UK ISO support is inexcusably incomplete as well, as the other keys it uses (`¬ 2" 3# '@) are absent.
It simply makes no sense whatsoever to make a keycap set that is halfway to either side of the pond — I'm biting my tongue real hard here to avoid calling this, with derision, "Atlantis ISO".
Post by: rxc92 on Wed, 24 July 2019, 20:32:00
Perhaps I'm biased, but it honestly objectively seems that ISO is a less ergonomic and functional layout. The UK layout being by far the worst offender, shortening the enter for no discernible reason.
Post by: depletedvespene on Wed, 24 July 2019, 21:56:54
Maybe more people should convert to ANSI? It's a hassle because so many European countries insist on having their own additions or modifications to a standard layout; which is totally justified for them, but not justified for the rest of the world which has to spend extra money on something that really only a handful of people will use. I for one would not want to spend an extra $5 on kits (as the extra keys need different legends etc), because it would be maybe 6-7 people paying $5 extra for a base kit for 1 person to get what they need versus 1 person paying an extra $20 for an ISO kit.
Perhaps I'm biased, but it honestly objectively seems that ISO is a less ergonomic and functional layout. The UK layout being by far the worst offender, shortening the enter for no discernible reason.
Maybe more people should convert to ISO? It's a hassle because so many American countries (¿) insist on having just the one standard layout that barely serves their own needs and does not provide for additions or modifications for other languages and typographical customs; which is
Perhaps I'm biased, but it honestly objectively seems that ANSI is a less ergonomic and functional layout. The US layout being by far the worst offender, lengthening horizontally and shortening vertically the Enter key for no discernible reason and making an alpha key be 1.5U and in a comparatively hard to reach place as collateral damage... to say nothing of the complete failure of using the AltGr layer to actually place symbols that are commonly used in US English, like ¢ (cent sign), — (em dash), – (en dash) , § and ¶ (section and paragraph signs), and ¼, ½ and ¾ (commonly used fractions). And that's not counting accents for foreign words that have been imported unaltered into English, like 'é' in "fiancée" or "née", 'ñ' in "piñata", 'ç' in "façade", or even 'ö' in (the admittedly high-nosing style of The New Yorker) "coöperation".
"Cooperation". Interesting word, with or without the diaeresis... is it not?
Post by: rxc92 on Wed, 24 July 2019, 22:18:13
i am angry because iso good ansi bad :(That's a lot of straws in your hand.
Post by: depletedvespene on Wed, 24 July 2019, 22:26:04
i am angry because iso good ansi bad :(That's a lot of straws in your hand.
I just took your own straws and wrote them again from the opposite side. Don't dish it if you can't take it... and, better yet, present actual arguments, as your previous post DOES boil down to "ansi good iso bad".
Post by: lewisflude on Thu, 25 July 2019, 00:27:31
I’ll also say again that outside of the US, ISO is an extremely common standard for keyboards. Roughly half of the world, and 20% of the keyboard community. People coming into this hobby shouldn’t have to conform to some American standard just because it’s what the majority want.
Diversity and inclusion should be at the centre of this hobby and excluding a big portion of the world because of ignorance or lack of foresight is just bad design.
Post by: HotRoderX on Thu, 25 July 2019, 00:32:40
Post by: Acereconkeys on Thu, 25 July 2019, 00:34:31
I am just going to throw this out there, ISO is so important to some people, why don't they team up and just offer to buy outstanding iso kits. They need 150 to meet MOQ and only 3 sales.. then these people are agreeing to pick up the other 147 kits. I mean sure its expensive but hey money where you mouth is otherwise don't complain. I don't complain about the total lack of topre sets why cause money where my mouth is.
Because, as has been stated a million times, there are not enough iso users in the custom mechanical keyboard community.
Post by: HotRoderX on Thu, 25 July 2019, 00:54:09
Thats what I am saying sure it cost them arm and a leg but if it means so much to them. Then shelling out 400-500 dollars for that set they want won't be a issue. That's what this boils down to. They expect others GB runner or other people participating to pick up the difference.I am just going to throw this out there, ISO is so important to some people, why don't they team up and just offer to buy outstanding iso kits. They need 150 to meet MOQ and only 3 sales.. then these people are agreeing to pick up the other 147 kits. I mean sure its expensive but hey money where you mouth is otherwise don't complain. I don't complain about the total lack of topre sets why cause money where my mouth is.
Because, as has been stated a million times, there are not enough iso users in the custom mechanical keyboard community.
Post by: lewisflude on Thu, 25 July 2019, 00:56:46
I am just going to throw this out there, ISO is so important to some people, why don't they team up and just offer to buy outstanding iso kits. They need 150 to meet MOQ and only 3 sales.. then these people are agreeing to pick up the other 147 kits. I mean sure its expensive but hey money where you mouth is otherwise don't complain. I don't complain about the total lack of topre sets why cause money where my mouth is.
In what situation is basic ISO being run in its own kit and only making 3 sales?
The numbers I typically see for a full-blown NorDeUk kit are 8-12%, and those include way more than the €4 of keys you need for basic ISO.
I do see your logic though, and I think the put your money where your mouth is argument has a tonne of merit. I hope that as the community grows, so does the spending power of ISO users.
What I’m basically saying is that because of ISOs prevalence in the real world (where a lot of people may grow up never seeing an ANSI keyboard), the custom keyboard community should take extra care to make sure base kits reflect that standard.
Imagine if it was the other way around, and ANSI was being removed from base kits? If we just stamp out minority/edge cases we end up with a very homogenous and uninclusive hobby.
This idea of settling on ANSI as some sort of standard is terrible, because ISO exists, and half the world grew up using it.
Post by: lewisflude on Thu, 25 July 2019, 00:59:09
Thats what I am saying sure it cost them arm and a leg but if it means so much to them. Then shelling out 400-500 dollars for that set they want won't be a issue. That's what this boils down to. They expect others GB runner or other people participating to pick up the difference.I am just going to throw this out there, ISO is so important to some people, why don't they team up and just offer to buy outstanding iso kits. They need 150 to meet MOQ and only 3 sales.. then these people are agreeing to pick up the other 147 kits. I mean sure its expensive but hey money where you mouth is otherwise don't complain. I don't complain about the total lack of topre sets why cause money where my mouth is.
Because, as has been stated a million times, there are not enough iso users in the custom mechanical keyboard community.
We are all paying for keys we don’t want, whether it’s an ISO user with useless ANSI keys, modifiers we don’t intend to use, non-stepped caps lock or an extra B.
A base kit should cover all standard layouts, and ISO is one of two default options you’ll find in the wider world.
Post by: HotRoderX on Thu, 25 July 2019, 01:56:41
Thats what I am saying sure it cost them arm and a leg but if it means so much to them. Then shelling out 400-500 dollars for that set they want won't be a issue. That's what this boils down to. They expect others GB runner or other people participating to pick up the difference.I am just going to throw this out there, ISO is so important to some people, why don't they team up and just offer to buy outstanding iso kits. They need 150 to meet MOQ and only 3 sales.. then these people are agreeing to pick up the other 147 kits. I mean sure its expensive but hey money where you mouth is otherwise don't complain. I don't complain about the total lack of topre sets why cause money where my mouth is.
Because, as has been stated a million times, there are not enough iso users in the custom mechanical keyboard community.
We are all paying for keys we don’t want, whether it’s an ISO user with useless ANSI keys, modifiers we don’t intend to use, non-stepped caps lock or an extra B.
A base kit should cover all standard layouts, and ISO is one of two default options you’ll find in the wider world.
Since you want to argue this, I present another solution. Create your own design, then go and find a company GMK or who ever thats willing to produce it. Then take and find someone willing to host the buy. Then place it up for sale. I mean to be blunt and kinda a jerk, but yea. No one has any obligation to support the ISO users of the community. I mean there not enough of you to stop something from hitting MOQ. There is enough ANSI users. Sadly this is how the real world works. The majority get what they want. Sadly the people on the fringe there left out. Tis life.
Post by: e11i0t23 on Thu, 25 July 2019, 02:23:06
Thats what I am saying sure it cost them arm and a leg but if it means so much to them. Then shelling out 400-500 dollars for that set they want won't be a issue. That's what this boils down to. They expect others GB runner or other people participating to pick up the difference.I am just going to throw this out there, ISO is so important to some people, why don't they team up and just offer to buy outstanding iso kits. They need 150 to meet MOQ and only 3 sales.. then these people are agreeing to pick up the other 147 kits. I mean sure its expensive but hey money where you mouth is otherwise don't complain. I don't complain about the total lack of topre sets why cause money where my mouth is.
Because, as has been stated a million times, there are not enough iso users in the custom mechanical keyboard community.
I wouldn't expect them to if the set was only ansi 104 with no support for any other layout e.g 40% however the fact the majority of sets already make you pick up the difference of including additional keys for boards like the tgr alice and multiple bottom rows meaning the majority of us are going to be paying for keys we won't use. Are you really that stingy you cant afford to pay the price of a Starbucks coffee extra. But have the opportunity to save the cost of 2 by opening upto more people making it more likely to hit price breaks.
Post by: HotRoderX on Thu, 25 July 2019, 03:07:01
Thats what I am saying sure it cost them arm and a leg but if it means so much to them. Then shelling out 400-500 dollars for that set they want won't be a issue. That's what this boils down to. They expect others GB runner or other people participating to pick up the difference.I am just going to throw this out there, ISO is so important to some people, why don't they team up and just offer to buy outstanding iso kits. They need 150 to meet MOQ and only 3 sales.. then these people are agreeing to pick up the other 147 kits. I mean sure its expensive but hey money where you mouth is otherwise don't complain. I don't complain about the total lack of topre sets why cause money where my mouth is.
Because, as has been stated a million times, there are not enough iso users in the custom mechanical keyboard community.
I wouldn't expect them to if the set was only ansi 104 with no support for any other layout e.g 40% however the fact the majority of sets already make you pick up the difference of including additional keys for boards like the tgr alice and multiple bottom rows meaning the majority of us are going to be paying for keys we won't use. Are you really that stingy you cant afford to pay the price of a Starbucks coffee extra. But have the opportunity to save the cost of 2 by opening upto more people making it more likely to hit price breaks.
One thing your missing is that those 40% kits and what not are typically run separately and hit MOQ. Then you talk about a few bucks and yes it can make or break a set. There so many key sets run at the same time, that pricing can affect which one someone picks. Plus something new we are seeing is the trend to break kits up more specially with GMK making them more price effective. Base kit will just be the TKL with the most common, Uncommon keys included. This will cover the majority of board's and bring in the highest number of entries. Then we see everything else as a addon. Why should those kits be raised in price for what amounts to maybe 2-5% of the total buyers.
Post by: lewisflude on Thu, 25 July 2019, 03:14:44
Thats what I am saying sure it cost them arm and a leg but if it means so much to them. Then shelling out 400-500 dollars for that set they want won't be a issue. That's what this boils down to. They expect others GB runner or other people participating to pick up the difference.I am just going to throw this out there, ISO is so important to some people, why don't they team up and just offer to buy outstanding iso kits. They need 150 to meet MOQ and only 3 sales.. then these people are agreeing to pick up the other 147 kits. I mean sure its expensive but hey money where you mouth is otherwise don't complain. I don't complain about the total lack of topre sets why cause money where my mouth is.
Because, as has been stated a million times, there are not enough iso users in the custom mechanical keyboard community.
I wouldn't expect them to if the set was only ansi 104 with no support for any other layout e.g 40% however the fact the majority of sets already make you pick up the difference of including additional keys for boards like the tgr alice and multiple bottom rows meaning the majority of us are going to be paying for keys we won't use. Are you really that stingy you cant afford to pay the price of a Starbucks coffee extra. But have the opportunity to save the cost of 2 by opening upto more people making it more likely to hit price breaks.
One thing your missing is that those 40% kits and what not are typically run separately and hit MOQ. Then you talk about a few bucks and yes it can make or break a set. There so many key sets run at the same time, that pricing can affect which one someone picks. Plus something new we are seeing is the trend to break kits up more specially with GMK making them more price effective. Base kit will just be the TKL with the most common, Uncommon keys included. This will cover the majority of board's and bring in the highest number of entries. Then we see everything else as a addon. Why should those kits be raised in price for what amounts to maybe 2-5% of the total buyers.
Again, people who buy ISO kits are more typically 8-12% of all kits sold. Not to mention the 40s/alt layout kits are way bigger than the €4 it costs to add full UK-ISO.
If you can’t afford a tiny price hike like that, you probably shouldn’t be buying keysets IMO! We’ve seen arguments like people saying they want to remove ISO to make a set $5 cheaper so they can buy two sets, which is absolutely ridiculous.
However you are right about one thing, in a world where we have many ICs every month, sometimes the tiny price differences do matter and splitting kits had been one of the most successful ways to bring the cost of base kit down. If a bunch of caps like 40s are popular enough to hold their own, then splitting off is a good idea, it’s also a good idea to run a NorDeUk kit. But physical ISO should always be in base kit.
Post by: Surefoot on Thu, 25 July 2019, 03:25:28
This fragmentation results in a bias the keeps the community divided and creates a roadblock towards adoption in ISO countries. I'll give an example. At least two of my current colleagues are quite interested in getting a custom after having tried the keyboards i bring at work (my current workplaces allows this...). So i show them the various options, OEM and custom, and invariably the answer is "how do i get an ISO qwertz keyset for it ?". Brought an ANSI keeb for them to try for a few days, they all rejected it saying qwertz ISO is superior (and i can understand their reasoning). None of them heard of GH.
So yeah it's a self sustaining circular problem... Also internal polls are biased by the very nature of this community.
One side note, i noticed that big meetups that are well advertised will bring up a lot of fresh blood, which are usually owners of OEM mechs, and all of these are ISO in our markets. Quite a few of them are pleased with their keyboard case and switches, and just want a better keyset...
Post by: HotRoderX on Thu, 25 July 2019, 03:29:05
Thats what I am saying sure it cost them arm and a leg but if it means so much to them. Then shelling out 400-500 dollars for that set they want won't be a issue. That's what this boils down to. They expect others GB runner or other people participating to pick up the difference.I am just going to throw this out there, ISO is so important to some people, why don't they team up and just offer to buy outstanding iso kits. They need 150 to meet MOQ and only 3 sales.. then these people are agreeing to pick up the other 147 kits. I mean sure its expensive but hey money where you mouth is otherwise don't complain. I don't complain about the total lack of topre sets why cause money where my mouth is.
Because, as has been stated a million times, there are not enough iso users in the custom mechanical keyboard community.
I wouldn't expect them to if the set was only ansi 104 with no support for any other layout e.g 40% however the fact the majority of sets already make you pick up the difference of including additional keys for boards like the tgr alice and multiple bottom rows meaning the majority of us are going to be paying for keys we won't use. Are you really that stingy you cant afford to pay the price of a Starbucks coffee extra. But have the opportunity to save the cost of 2 by opening upto more people making it more likely to hit price breaks.
One thing your missing is that those 40% kits and what not are typically run separately and hit MOQ. Then you talk about a few bucks and yes it can make or break a set. There so many key sets run at the same time, that pricing can affect which one someone picks. Plus something new we are seeing is the trend to break kits up more specially with GMK making them more price effective. Base kit will just be the TKL with the most common, Uncommon keys included. This will cover the majority of board's and bring in the highest number of entries. Then we see everything else as a addon. Why should those kits be raised in price for what amounts to maybe 2-5% of the total buyers.
Again, people who buy ISO kits are more typically 8-12% of all kits sold. Not to mention the 40s/alt layout kits are way bigger than the €4 it costs to add full UK-ISO.
If you can’t afford a tiny price hike like that, you probably shouldn’t be buying keysets IMO! We’ve seen arguments like people saying they want to remove ISO to make a set $5 cheaper so they can buy two sets, which is absolutely ridiculous.
However you are right about one thing, in a world where we have many ICs every month, sometimes the tiny price differences do matter and splitting kits had been one of the most successful ways to bring the cost of base kit down. If a bunch of caps like 40s are popular enough to hold their own, then splitting off is a good idea, it’s also a good idea to run a NorDeUk kit. But physical ISO should always be in base kit.
One thing to point out, Is just because someone can doesn't mean they will. Also the way some people act which is very entitled. Makes me not want to help support those kits. I was a designer and planning to run a kit. Threads like this would make me completely drop ISO support. That ends up saving the majority 4-5 bucks then I am saving them 4 or 5 bucks. in some cases more then that, since not everything hits MOQ and some of the store fronts running these eat the cost. buying the extra 40-50 sets does add up quick for them. Most of them are smaller operations and yea extra 160-200 dollars on top of shelling out 5,560 - 6950 dollars or more to make sure the main kits hit MOQ. That's a lot of money for them to throw around. Specially since it will be months before they make that back possibly year's. As they have to sit on the extra's that don't sale during the initial hype. There is a lot more that goes into things. People miss that its not just simply "Add this I want it" Like said previously if people don't like what the current designers and runners are doing. Then do it your self. The old saying why let others do what you can do better. Thats what some people in this thread are saying. They can do it better.
Post by: lewisflude on Thu, 25 July 2019, 04:20:12
Thats what I am saying sure it cost them arm and a leg but if it means so much to them. Then shelling out 400-500 dollars for that set they want won't be a issue. That's what this boils down to. They expect others GB runner or other people participating to pick up the difference.I am just going to throw this out there, ISO is so important to some people, why don't they team up and just offer to buy outstanding iso kits. They need 150 to meet MOQ and only 3 sales.. then these people are agreeing to pick up the other 147 kits. I mean sure its expensive but hey money where you mouth is otherwise don't complain. I don't complain about the total lack of topre sets why cause money where my mouth is.
Because, as has been stated a million times, there are not enough iso users in the custom mechanical keyboard community.
I wouldn't expect them to if the set was only ansi 104 with no support for any other layout e.g 40% however the fact the majority of sets already make you pick up the difference of including additional keys for boards like the tgr alice and multiple bottom rows meaning the majority of us are going to be paying for keys we won't use. Are you really that stingy you cant afford to pay the price of a Starbucks coffee extra. But have the opportunity to save the cost of 2 by opening upto more people making it more likely to hit price breaks.
One thing your missing is that those 40% kits and what not are typically run separately and hit MOQ. Then you talk about a few bucks and yes it can make or break a set. There so many key sets run at the same time, that pricing can affect which one someone picks. Plus something new we are seeing is the trend to break kits up more specially with GMK making them more price effective. Base kit will just be the TKL with the most common, Uncommon keys included. This will cover the majority of board's and bring in the highest number of entries. Then we see everything else as a addon. Why should those kits be raised in price for what amounts to maybe 2-5% of the total buyers.
Again, people who buy ISO kits are more typically 8-12% of all kits sold. Not to mention the 40s/alt layout kits are way bigger than the €4 it costs to add full UK-ISO.
If you can’t afford a tiny price hike like that, you probably shouldn’t be buying keysets IMO! We’ve seen arguments like people saying they want to remove ISO to make a set $5 cheaper so they can buy two sets, which is absolutely ridiculous.
However you are right about one thing, in a world where we have many ICs every month, sometimes the tiny price differences do matter and splitting kits had been one of the most successful ways to bring the cost of base kit down. If a bunch of caps like 40s are popular enough to hold their own, then splitting off is a good idea, it’s also a good idea to run a NorDeUk kit. But physical ISO should always be in base kit.
One thing to point out, Is just because someone can doesn't mean they will. Also the way some people act which is very entitled. Makes me not want to help support those kits. I was a designer and planning to run a kit. Threads like this would make me completely drop ISO support. That ends up saving the majority 4-5 bucks then I am saving them 4 or 5 bucks. in some cases more then that, since not everything hits MOQ and some of the store fronts running these eat the cost. buying the extra 40-50 sets does add up quick for them. Most of them are smaller operations and yea extra 160-200 dollars on top of shelling out 5,560 - 6950 dollars or more to make sure the main kits hit MOQ. That's a lot of money for them to throw around. Specially since it will be months before they make that back possibly year's. As they have to sit on the extra's that don't sale during the initial hype. There is a lot more that goes into things. People miss that its not just simply "Add this I want it" Like said previously if people don't like what the current designers and runners are doing. Then do it your self. The old saying why let others do what you can do better. Thats what some people in this thread are saying. They can do it better.
I think it's also a bit entitled to feel like you should get a $5 discount on something which is already $150+ at the expense of 8-12% of everyone who buys the base kit.
The community is splintered enough as it is, part of the whole point in talking about ISO is so people who didn't grow up using it (Americans) can get some sense of why it's important to keep ISO in base kit. I can also echo Surefoot's comment above, I see a lot of people who don't go on GH, or Drop, who use ISO mechanical keyboards and don't want to make the switch.
Post by: depletedvespene on Thu, 25 July 2019, 05:07:04
……
One thing to point out, Is just because someone can doesn't mean they will. Also the way some people act which is very entitled. Makes me not want to help support those kits. I was a designer and planning to run a kit. Threads like this would make me completely drop ISO support. That ends up saving the majority 4-5 bucks then I am saving them 4 or 5 bucks. in some cases more then that, since not everything hits MOQ and some of the store fronts running these eat the cost. buying the extra 40-50 sets does add up quick for them. Most of them are smaller operations and yea extra 160-200 dollars on top of shelling out 5,560 - 6950 dollars or more to make sure the main kits hit MOQ. That's a lot of money for them to throw around. Specially since it will be months before they make that back possibly year's. As they have to sit on the extra's that don't sale during the initial hype. There is a lot more that goes into things. People miss that its not just simply "Add this I want it" Like said previously if people don't like what the current designers and runners are doing. Then do it your self. The old saying why let others do what you can do better. Thats what some people in this thread are saying. They can do it better.
And yet...
EVERYTHING in your paragraph can be applied to other keys in the base kit, yet there aren't complaints about having them around to support some form factors that are unequivocally used in much lower numbers than either ISO users in total or the ISO users of any of the more common form factors. Look, as mentioned earlier in the thread, at the 2.0U Shift key for the clearest example of this phenomenon, or look at the extra B key that is making its way in, unimpeded, for TGR Alice users.
What's especially irritating, as mentioned earliear in the thread, is that ISO support is singled out and treated like the plague, while the concept of "base kit" grows without fuss to support some rather exotic stuff.
And... if you're gonna talk about "expense", think of it as a form of "insurance" for those who buy kits to use for a while and sell them later on. Further growth of the enthusiast community IS going to have a much higher percentage of ISO users, so ANSI-only kits for sale will have a tougher time competing on the used keyset market against proper kits.
Post by: Poesjuh on Thu, 25 July 2019, 05:29:42
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Post by: typischt on Thu, 25 July 2019, 05:46:02
While I do love the ISO return, the physical layout is much more important to me and this probably would be a nice compromise for both sides.
I also want to add that I don‘t often see sets that don‘t have ISO in any form (either in the base kit or i.e. the numb pad kit). So is this discussion really that important? I can only remember GMK Striker as a set run recently that didn‘t have any ISO whatsoever. So I‘m doubting a bit the trend of leaving it out completely.
And one last thing: If there is only one ISO return in the set even tho there are accented key for the ansi return, do you prefere the accented one or the regular mod colored one? I know it does depend on the color way, but I usually would rather have the regular mod colored one. (example: GMK Olive only has the accented ISO return)
Post by: lewisflude on Thu, 25 July 2019, 05:58:09
I don‘t want to add more to the on going back and forth about whether 4 keys are too much to add to a base set or not, but rather ask iso users: Would you like having the already mentioned solution of only adding the short left shift and the extra R4 key right next to it to the base set?
While I do love the ISO return, the physical layout is much more important to me and this probably would be a nice compromise for both sides.
I also want to add that I don‘t often see sets that don‘t have ISO in any form (either in the base kit or i.e. the numb pad kit). So is this discussion really that important? I can only remember GMK Striker as a set run recently that didn‘t have any ISO whatsoever. So I‘m doubting a bit the trend of leaving it out completely.
And one last thing: If there is only one ISO return in the set even tho there are accented key for the ansi return, do you prefere the accented one or the regular mod colored one? I know it does depend on the color way, but I usually would rather have the regular mod colored one. (example: GMK Olive only has the accented ISO return)
I appreciate where you're coming from but anything short of parity with whatever the ANSI return gets (aside from maybe a novelty version) is unacceptable.
For example, in the latest 9009 IC, if they had red and green accents for ANSI enter but not ISO enter it really wouldn't do the trick. Likewise, I think the ANSI/ISO hybrid you described would still alienate anyone who uses ISO. Again on the numbers, it's 50% of people in the wider world, 20% who use mechanical keyboards and about 8-15% of sales when compared to base kit.
Post by: Poesjuh on Thu, 25 July 2019, 06:09:53
I don‘t want to add more to the on going back and forth about whether 4 keys are too much to add to a base set or not, but rather ask iso users: Would you like having the already mentioned solution of only adding the short left shift and the extra R4 key right next to it to the base set?
While I do love the ISO return, the physical layout is much more important to me and this probably would be a nice compromise for both sides.
I also want to add that I don‘t often see sets that don‘t have ISO in any form (either in the base kit or i.e. the numb pad kit). So is this discussion really that important? I can only remember GMK Striker as a set run recently that didn‘t have any ISO whatsoever. So I‘m doubting a bit the trend of leaving it out completely.
And one last thing: If there is only one ISO return in the set even tho there are accented key for the ansi return, do you prefere the accented one or the regular mod colored one? I know it does depend on the color way, but I usually would rather have the regular mod colored one. (example: GMK Olive only has the accented ISO return)
I appreciate where you're coming from but anything short of parity with whatever the ANSI return gets (aside from maybe a novelty version) is unacceptable.
For example, in the latest 9009 IC, if they had red and green accents for ANSI enter but not ISO enter it really wouldn't do the trick. Likewise, I think the ANSI/ISO hybrid you described would still alienate anyone who uses ISO. Again on the numbers, it's 50% of people in the wider world, 20% who use mechanical keyboards and about 8-15% of sales when compared to base kit.
That last part (8-15% of sales) is perhaps because in this case we're talking about full NorDeUk kits that cost $60 easily.
Post by: typischt on Thu, 25 July 2019, 07:01:26
I see what you mean, but in the end, whether you (or rather we) like it or not, the designer has the las word on the set. And if they are not interested in adding 4 keys, they might rather just include those 2 (which maybe could be used by other layouts too? not sure if this is true). And in the case of GMK Olive, maybe it would be nice for a designer to know, whether ISO user would like the accent color or not. (because obviously, they don‘t really care for themselves or otherwise they would include both).I don‘t want to add more to the on going back and forth about whether 4 keys are too much to add to a base set or not, but rather ask iso users: Would you like having the already mentioned solution of only adding the short left shift and the extra R4 key right next to it to the base set?
While I do love the ISO return, the physical layout is much more important to me and this probably would be a nice compromise for both sides.
I also want to add that I don‘t often see sets that don‘t have ISO in any form (either in the base kit or i.e. the numb pad kit). So is this discussion really that important? I can only remember GMK Striker as a set run recently that didn‘t have any ISO whatsoever. So I‘m doubting a bit the trend of leaving it out completely.
And one last thing: If there is only one ISO return in the set even tho there are accented key for the ansi return, do you prefere the accented one or the regular mod colored one? I know it does depend on the color way, but I usually would rather have the regular mod colored one. (example: GMK Olive only has the accented ISO return)
I appreciate where you're coming from but anything short of parity with whatever the ANSI return gets (aside from maybe a novelty version) is unacceptable.
For example, in the latest 9009 IC, if they had red and green accents for ANSI enter but not ISO enter it really wouldn't do the trick. Likewise, I think the ANSI/ISO hybrid you described would still alienate anyone who uses ISO. Again on the numbers, it's 50% of people in the wider world, 20% who use mechanical keyboards and about 8-15% of sales when compared to base kit.
Post by: depletedvespene on Thu, 25 July 2019, 07:23:52
I don‘t want to add more to the on going back and forth about whether 4 keys are too much to add to a base set or not, but rather ask iso users: Would you like having the already mentioned solution of only adding the short left shift and the extra R4 key right next to it to the base set?
That would be an ISANSI hybrid (ISO left Shift, ANSI Enter) keyboard, and it's not good, either. On a UK English keyboard, it's no biggie to have a R2 1.5U \| key instead of the "proper" R3 1.0U key, but in layouts for other languages, this physical change does have a larger and more undesirable effect. For example, in the Spanish (Latin America) layout, the braces ('{' and '}') are placed next to each other, and if going ANSI Enter on it, they become uncomfortably separated. The Spanish (Spain) layout gets it even worse, as that one key has an alpha ('Ç') on it.
While I do love the ISO return, the physical layout is much more important to me and this probably would be a nice compromise for both sides.
I also want to add that I don‘t often see sets that don‘t have ISO in any form (either in the base kit or i.e. the numb pad kit). So is this discussion really that important? I can only remember GMK Striker as a set run recently that didn‘t have any ISO whatsoever. So I‘m doubting a bit the trend of leaving it out completely.
It actually is important precisely because we're getting to see more support now, and several sets are doing it in ways that are... less than stellar (YMMV): some sets have ISO support on an extra kit (bad) or even inside the numpad kit (worse), some sets do UK ISO instead of US ISO, some sets do "Atlantis ISO" (the worst of all options); even some sets are mostly fine, but put a <> key in R4 instead of the \| key.
So, yeah, this is indeed the time to have this discussion, reach an agreement, and squash some lingering erroneous ideas that are still floating around ("ISO == UK ISO", "ISO support is expeeeensive" and "no one uses ISO anyway" being the three main ones).
And one last thing: If there is only one ISO return in the set even tho there are accented key for the ansi return, do you prefere the accented one or the regular mod colored one? I know it does depend on the color way, but I usually would rather have the regular mod colored one. (example: GMK Olive only has the accented ISO return)
See my post above in the thread. I proposed that the base kit MUST have one mod-colored ISO Enter key; accent-colored Enter keys MAY be added at the designer's discretion (ideally, in the same number and within the same kit as the accented ANSI Enter keys). In this regard, GMK Olive got it wrong, sadly.
Post by: Surefoot on Thu, 25 July 2019, 09:12:34
Post by: Acereconkeys on Thu, 25 July 2019, 12:01:55
My view is it's reasonable to expect UK ISO as in r1 `¬, r1 2", r1 3£, r3 '@, r3 #~, r4 \|, the proper left shift and enter keys. That's 8 keys total, and are necessary to avoid the duplication and wrong legends that occur with incomplete kits. It's also interesting as a layout as Windows gives natively a ISO UK international layout that gives easy access to accentuated characters (and other systems do too). The NorDe and others add a substantial amount of extra keys and can be argued that they are costly overall especially if multiple color schemes are available (thinking of MiTo sets for instance). Grouping with the numpad is not such a terrible idea overall as it guarantees reaching MOQ for those and doesnt change the costs for these extras we have to pay for in most cases anyway..
This is quite selfish in my opinion. You're asking other people to pay for 8 keys for approximately 5-10% (that's a liberal estimate too) of the hobby...
Another point people aren't saying enough, though it has been said before in this thread, is I may in the future change my taste on alternative layouts like 40% or 1800 or something. That's why i personally like paying for bigger base kits that have a wide range of boards supported. However, I know i'll never use iso. Makes the cost benefit discussion different.
Also I thought we'd come to a sort of agreement on the way to do this. Minimum layout support (4 keys) in base kits, and a big "NordeUk" esque side kit with 123 UK legends and all the other language specific keys if you really want to fork over the dough. There's really no other way to do this fairly.
Post by: lewisflude on Thu, 25 July 2019, 12:22:35
What are “123 UK legends”?My view is it's reasonable to expect UK ISO as in r1 `¬, r1 2", r1 3£, r3 '@, r3 #~, r4 \|, the proper left shift and enter keys. That's 8 keys total, and are necessary to avoid the duplication and wrong legends that occur with incomplete kits. It's also interesting as a layout as Windows gives natively a ISO UK international layout that gives easy access to accentuated characters (and other systems do too). The NorDe and others add a substantial amount of extra keys and can be argued that they are costly overall especially if multiple color schemes are available (thinking of MiTo sets for instance). Grouping with the numpad is not such a terrible idea overall as it guarantees reaching MOQ for those and doesnt change the costs for these extras we have to pay for in most cases anyway..
This is quite selfish in my opinion. You're asking other people to pay for 8 keys for approximately 5-10% (that's a liberal estimate too) of the hobby...
Another point people aren't saying enough, though it has been said before in this thread, is I may in the future change my taste on alternative layouts like 40% or 1800 or something. That's why i personally like paying for bigger base kits that have a wide range of boards supported. However, I know i'll never use iso. Makes the cost benefit discussion different.
Also I thought we'd come to a sort of agreement on the way to do this. Minimum layout support (4 keys) in base kits, and a big "NordeUk" esque side kit with 123 UK legends and all the other language specific keys if you really want to fork over the dough. There's really no other way to do this fairly.
Post by: Signature on Thu, 25 July 2019, 12:25:19
Special legends for the keys ¬ 2 and 3 in UK ISO.What are “123 UK legends”?My view is it's reasonable to expect UK ISO as in r1 `¬, r1 2", r1 3£, r3 '@, r3 #~, r4 \|, the proper left shift and enter keys. That's 8 keys total, and are necessary to avoid the duplication and wrong legends that occur with incomplete kits. It's also interesting as a layout as Windows gives natively a ISO UK international layout that gives easy access to accentuated characters (and other systems do too). The NorDe and others add a substantial amount of extra keys and can be argued that they are costly overall especially if multiple color schemes are available (thinking of MiTo sets for instance). Grouping with the numpad is not such a terrible idea overall as it guarantees reaching MOQ for those and doesnt change the costs for these extras we have to pay for in most cases anyway..
This is quite selfish in my opinion. You're asking other people to pay for 8 keys for approximately 5-10% (that's a liberal estimate too) of the hobby...
Another point people aren't saying enough, though it has been said before in this thread, is I may in the future change my taste on alternative layouts like 40% or 1800 or something. That's why i personally like paying for bigger base kits that have a wide range of boards supported. However, I know i'll never use iso. Makes the cost benefit discussion different.
Also I thought we'd come to a sort of agreement on the way to do this. Minimum layout support (4 keys) in base kits, and a big "NordeUk" esque side kit with 123 UK legends and all the other language specific keys if you really want to fork over the dough. There's really no other way to do this fairly.
UK-ISO:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/KB_United_Kingdom.svg/400px-KB_United_Kingdom.svg.png)
ANSI:
(http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/blank.png)
Post by: HotRoderX on Thu, 25 July 2019, 13:31:59
Post by: spyruf on Thu, 25 July 2019, 14:06:33
Post by: Gampela on Thu, 25 July 2019, 14:24:21
But I am a Nordic user. I guess ANSI + 4 additional keys would give UK users close enough match so that additional international kit doesn't seem as necessary.
Not that my opinion is particularly important. I don't own a single GMK set, just couple of ePBT sets. I also happen to prefer ANSI over ISO albet with finnish layout.
Post by: rxc92 on Thu, 25 July 2019, 14:43:48
My view is it's reasonable to expect UK ISO as in r1 `¬, r1 2", r1 3£, r3 '@, r3 #~, r4 \|, the proper left shift and enter keys. That's 8 keys total, and are necessary to avoid the duplication and wrong legends that occur with incomplete kits. It's also interesting as a layout as Windows gives natively a ISO UK international layout that gives easy access to accentuated characters (and other systems do too). The NorDe and others add a substantial amount of extra keys and can be argued that they are costly overall especially if multiple color schemes are available (thinking of MiTo sets for instance). Grouping with the numpad is not such a terrible idea overall as it guarantees reaching MOQ for those and doesnt change the costs for these extras we have to pay for in most cases anyway..
8 keys is a lot of keys, man. You make it sound like 'it's just 8 keys', when full base kits often come with about 100 keys, and cost $100-150; that's more than a dollar and as much as nearly $1.50 per key. So when you say 'just 8 keys', you could also translate that to 'just $8-12', which actually is quite a lot of money, especially when 98% of keyboard hobbyists are not from the UK. I understand it sounds dismissive, but expecting the rest of the world (including every EU country even) to pay an extra 10% so a tiny fraction of UK users can get a few keys that are almost the exact same as ANSI (are you telling me that you're actually going to suffer because the keycap doesn't have a GBP sign or ¬ sign and can't just remember the location?) is untenable.
ANSI layout is the global standard, and the fact that base kits often include ISO and ANSI kits is already unnecessary; it would save the ANSI buyers (read, most all of them) a significant chunk of money if ISO were simply separated into an alternate set. If ISO is really so common, then there should be no issue in getting a MOQ, and ISO users clearly don't need ANSI, so they wouldn't need to pay for an extra bunch of keys they don't use.
Post by: tobiasvl on Thu, 25 July 2019, 14:48:01
Post by: Poesjuh on Thu, 25 July 2019, 14:48:33
And put left shift, ansi enter, and pipe key in an add-on kit.
And for the sake of argument, let’s put it with a numpad kit and make the price $60.
Would you buy it or look towards a different keycap set that includes the keys you need without paying a 50% upmark?
(Also, can we please remove from the base kits;
Non stepped caps | F keys | Scroll lock | Pause | 2.75u shift | alpha colored pipe.
I never use those, that’s easily $30 less. Thank you.)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Post by: Acereconkeys on Thu, 25 July 2019, 15:34:37
Let’s say that ISO is the global standard layout.
And put left shift, ansi enter, and pipe key in an add-on kit.
And for the sake of argument, let’s put it with a numpad kit and make the price $60.
Would you buy it or look towards a different keycap set that includes the keys you need without paying a 50% upmark?
(Also, can we please remove from the base kits;
Non stepped caps | F keys | Scroll lock | Pause | 2.75u shift | alpha colored pipe.
I never use those, that’s easily $30 less. Thank you.)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I recognize you're being sarcastic but this argument is exactly why this is a really simple debate.
It's 100% a numbers game. The more users you support, the more likely the set is to exist, but the more it costs. The less users you support, the more you benefit the people who want the caps included, but the less likely it is to exist. The only things that matter are the number of people who buy GMK keycaps and the number of caps that is required to support those people.
That is why all arguments about iso boil down to this: either convince more of your friends who use iso keyboards to join the hobby, or switch to ansi. At the moment it is a smaller minority of users than all of the layouts you mentioned above so it is prioritized lower. Period. That's really all there is to say.
Post by: tobiasvl on Thu, 25 July 2019, 15:41:44
Post by: depletedvespene on Thu, 25 July 2019, 15:50:34
My view is it's reasonable to expect UK ISO as in r1 `¬, r1 2", r1 3£, r3 '@, r3 #~, r4 \|, the proper left shift and enter keys. That's 8 keys total, and are necessary to avoid the duplication and wrong legends that occur with incomplete kits. It's also interesting as a layout as Windows gives natively a ISO UK international layout that gives easy access to accentuated characters (and other systems do too). The NorDe and others add a substantial amount of extra keys and can be argued that they are costly overall especially if multiple color schemes are available (thinking of MiTo sets for instance). Grouping with the numpad is not such a terrible idea overall as it guarantees reaching MOQ for those and doesnt change the costs for these extras we have to pay for in most cases anyway..
8 keys is a lot of keys, man. You make it sound like 'it's just 8 keys', when full base kits often come with about 100 keys, and cost $100-150; that's more than a dollar and as much as nearly $1.50 per key. So when you say 'just 8 keys', you could also translate that to 'just $8-12', which actually is quite a lot of money, especially when 98% of keyboard hobbyists are not from the UK. I understand it sounds dismissive, but expecting the rest of the world (including every EU country even) to pay an extra 10% so a tiny fraction of UK users can get a few keys that are almost the exact same as ANSI (are you telling me that you're actually going to suffer because the keycap doesn't have a GBP sign or ¬ sign and can't just remember the location?) is untenable.
So far so good...
ANSI layout is the global standard
Sorry, this isn't true. ANSI physical layout is the standard in USA. Every other country in the American continent (with the possible exceptions of Jamaica and Belize, but NOT Canada) and every country in Europe uses the ISO physical layout. Not to say anything of JIS (Japan) and who knows how things go in the rest of Asia, and the entire continents of Africa and Oceania.
… , and the fact that base kits often include ISO and ANSI kits is already unnecessary; it would save the ANSI buyers (read, most all of them) a significant chunk of money if ISO were simply separated into an alternate set. If ISO is really so common, then there should be no issue in getting a MOQ, and ISO users clearly don't need ANSI, so they wouldn't need to pay for an extra bunch of keys they don't use.
One day we'll be able to pick and choose with quite more granularity the keys we want from a given set. That day, we'll not only be able to pick ONLY an ISO Enter or an ANSI Enter, we'll also be able to have a kit with, say, ONLY a R2 PgUp key and an R3 PgDn key, and not bother with the multiple copies of those two keys in particular that come with every single set nowadays (see above in the thread).
Until that day comes, some compromises need to be made. And since no one actually denies that, indeed, this is what happens with the multiple copies of keys for the nav cluster, the right Shift key, the Caps Lock key, etcetera... it begs the question (already answered, see above in the thread) of why on Earth ISO support is singled out like this.
Post by: HotRoderX on Thu, 25 July 2019, 17:10:52
Let’s say that ISO is the global standard layout.
And put left shift, ansi enter, and pipe key in an add-on kit.
And for the sake of argument, let’s put it with a numpad kit and make the price $60.
Would you buy it or look towards a different keycap set that includes the keys you need without paying a 50% upmark?
(Also, can we please remove from the base kits;
Non stepped caps | F keys | Scroll lock | Pause | 2.75u shift | alpha colored pipe.
I never use those, that’s easily $30 less. Thank you.)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I recognize you're being sarcastic but this argument is exactly why this is a really simple debate.
It's 100% a numbers game. The more users you support, the more likely the set is to exist, but the more it costs. The less users you support, the more you benefit the people who want the caps included, but the less likely it is to exist. The only things that matter are the number of people who buy GMK keycaps and the number of caps that is required to support those people.
That is why all arguments about iso boil down to this: either convince more of your friends who use iso keyboards to join the hobby, or switch to ansi. At the moment it is a smaller minority of users than all of the layouts you mentioned above so it is prioritized lower. Period. That's really all there is to say.
This pretty much sums it up completely, sadly social media has tainted peoples views and opinions. They think if they complain loudly enough or enough in general. They can get what they want.
Post by: depletedvespene on Thu, 25 July 2019, 18:07:43
…
This pretty much sums it up completely, sadly social media has tainted peoples views and opinions. They think if they complain loudly enough or enough in general. They can get what they want.
So, are you accusing ISOlovers of complaining loudly and expecting this to be enough to have ISO support added to the base kit OR are you accusing ANSIboyes of complaining loudly and expecting this to be enough to keep ISO support excluded from the base kit?
Post by: HotRoderX on Thu, 25 July 2019, 18:27:49
…
This pretty much sums it up completely, sadly social media has tainted peoples views and opinions. They think if they complain loudly enough or enough in general. They can get what they want.
So, are you accusing ISOlovers of complaining loudly and expecting this to be enough to have ISO support added to the base kit OR are you accusing ANSIboyes of complaining loudly and expecting this to be enough to keep ISO support excluded from the base kit?
Neither simply stating the market will dictate what happens. Regardless of how much ISO users complain. Until they put money were there mouth is nothing will change. This entire argument while entertaining isn't going to anything but blustering and bolstering on a forum.
Post by: rxc92 on Thu, 25 July 2019, 18:33:07
Post by: depletedvespene on Thu, 25 July 2019, 20:13:24
ISO is the standard in all of Asia outside of Japan, the USA, Canada, probably most other countries South America and Australia. I recognize the fact that you're grasping at straws yet again, but you really need to recognize that you're wrong. Far, far more people use ANSI than ISO, the single country of China outweighing the entirety of the EU, let alone the US/Brazil/other Asian countries.
Please edit your comment again, as it's not clear whether you're either dissing or supporting ISO and it's not clear, either, who are you answering to. Please also note that USA and Canada aren't in Asia.
(By the way: all countries in South America have ISO as the standard)
Post by: fr08 on Thu, 25 July 2019, 21:00:06
I would never buy an expensive set without the proper legends on it. For something cheap sure - then I'm happy if I just have the correct key sizes, but if we are talking about anything over like ~$60 dollars, no way.
Frankly the attitude of some makers scare me. Like the AltGr argument people tried to have with me with the Oblivion kit (duuh there are no tertiary legends in the characters set so what would you do with the AltGr key? Lol what..). Jesus Christ. I'm still not sure if they were trolling or just dense.
And just to echo some sentiments - yes it is outright offensive to include lots of exotic layouts in the base kit and then not even offer a standard iso kit.
Post by: lewisflude on Fri, 26 July 2019, 00:43:41
Sorry if this is stupid but you guys are talking about having ISO-UK as some sort of standard. Wouldn't ISO-DE make much more sense? Because it shares more similarities to other iso versions. Also, wouldn't blank keys be way better?
I would never buy an expensive set without the proper legends on it. For something cheap sure - then I'm happy if I just have the correct key sizes, but if we are talking about anything over like ~$60 dollars, no way.
Frankly the attitude of some makers scare me. Like the AltGr argument people tried to have with me with the Oblivion kit (duuh there are no tertiary legends in the characters set so what would you do with the AltGr key? Lol what..). Jesus Christ. I'm still not sure if they were trolling or just dense.
And just to echo some sentiments - yes it is outright offensive to include lots of exotic layouts in the base kit and then not even offer a standard iso kit.
There’s two levels to this.
1. It’s wrong to exclude an important minority just so ANSI-users can save €4. It’s also hypocritical for people to get salty that ISO is in base kit, when we’re all paying for things that are far more esoteric (65 keys, 40s, extra B for the literally dozens of TGR Alice users out there). What we’re talking about is physical ISO, so that as someone who uses ISO keyboards the keys can physically fit on the board.
50% of the world use ISO, about 20% of the mechanical keyboard community and about 8-12% of base kit buyers usually buy a NorDeUk kit. It’s not some niche layout that’s dying out, it’s a core part of what a keyboard is for half the people who use keyboards on the planet.
2. Correct legends. When paying $150+ on keycaps it’s nice to have the option for correct legends. This is a distinct next level from physical ISO support. For a while we saw UK-ISO included as standard and so that’s the norm that’s being challenged recently. Many set designers don’t even bother running a NorDeUk kit anymore just because at 8-12% of sales compared to base kit, and with its own MOQ it can often be a hassle.
To be clear, I think splitting up kits into lots of smaller kits and letting people pick and choose is a great idea in theory, but because MOQ exits we need to find clever ways of finding compromises so that significant minorities won’t be stamped out of this hobby and will get the caps I need.
That means that every person won’t get the optimal/best value they possibly could, but through compromise more people are supported and the hobby is more diverse/inclusive. I think often when you’re in the majority it’s difficult to empathise with the needs of others, and that’s definitely the impression I’m getting from people in this thread.
Although there are a couple, the vast majority of ISO users I know wouldn’t switch to ANSI so this issue isn’t going away anytime soon.
Post by: Acereconkeys on Fri, 26 July 2019, 02:06:20
That means that every person won’t get the optimal/best value they possibly could, but through compromise more people are supported and the hobby is more diverse/inclusive. I think often when you’re in the majority it’s difficult to empathise with the needs of others, and that’s definitely the impression I’m getting from people in this thread.
Going to deliberately ignore the entire rest of your comment because it's kind of the same argument we've had a million times but i do think this point is worth addressing.
This is just selfish and not accepting of people that have a different preference than you. Why do you feel like you get to be special enough everyone else should be empathetic and compromise for you? I'm sorry but look at this thread. How many times have iso users been frustrated at having to buy stepped caps, an extra b, extra options for 65%, or 40% users? Why don't we compromise for everyone and have everyone get all the keys they could ever want? Let's have a base kit that's 200 keys wide, custom legends for whoever requests em! That's silly of course.
Compromises. Must. Be. Made.
I am empathetic it doesn't feel great to be on the side that isn't worth compromising for, but it's basically not a disputed fact that there are more users that use alternative layouts (65%, 1800, etc) than iso (Note: IN THE CUSTOM MECHANICAL KEYBOARD HOBBY ALONE, NOT GLOBAL AVERAGES).
Post by: Surefoot on Fri, 26 July 2019, 02:52:38
I understand it sounds dismissive, but expecting the rest of the world (including every EU country even) to pay an extra 10% so a tiny fraction of UK users can get a few keys that are almost the exact same as ANSI (are you telling me that you're actually going to suffer because the keycap doesn't have a GBP sign or ¬ sign and can't just remember the location?) is untenable.Yes it is dismissive, yes it's untenable to pay $200+ on just keycaps and have duplicates and non-matching legends, while completely extreme layouts like 40% do get support with the same amount of extra keys (give or take) (*). And no, $8-$12 is nothing compared to the overall costs for a custom keyboard.
ANSI layout is the global standardNo it's not, technically it's ISO and so is metric system by the way... ANSI is purely north american standard.
If ISO is really so common, then there should be no issue in getting a MOQ, and ISO users clearly don't need ANSI, so they wouldn't need to pay for an extra bunch of keys they don't use.You didnt read one line of my previous post did you... Confirmation bias..
(*) and before some people start with "then just dont buy them" well that's why you have so few ISO buyers to start with. Gatekeeping at its best.
Post by: Surefoot on Fri, 26 July 2019, 03:07:28
This is quite selfish in my opinion. You're asking other people to pay for 8 keys for approximately 5-10% (that's a liberal estimate too) of the hobby...No one i know cares about 40% or other exotic layouts. The vast majority of the market is full-size with a marginal portion of WKL. People want keys for their Razer / Corsair / Ducky / etc. They all have ISO keyboards outside of North America.
Another point people aren't saying enough, though it has been said before in this thread, is I may in the future change my taste on alternative layouts like 40% or 1800 or something. That's why i personally like paying for bigger base kits that have a wide range of boards supported. However, I know i'll never use iso. Makes the cost benefit discussion different.
Also I thought we'd come to a sort of agreement on the way to do this. Minimum layout support (4 keys) in base kits, and a big "NordeUk" esque side kit with 123 UK legends and all the other language specific keys if you really want to fork over the dough. There's really no other way to do this fairly.
Also you are being hypocritical here. I'll never use the extra keys for 40% and such. I am paying significant extra dough for those to sit in plastic bags. I am also paying significant extra for ISO support, pushing keycap sets costs over the $200 mark, all the while ignoring all these extra keys that i dont need, including ANSI specific keys. See how i can reverse your argument entirely ?
As long as people sustain this catch-22 loop, potential ISO market will stay untapped and buyers are turned away from this hobby.
Post by: HotRoderX on Fri, 26 July 2019, 03:32:03
Post by: lewisflude on Fri, 26 July 2019, 03:36:49
I think people are also missing the bigger picture.. I see market and blah blah thrown around. Keep in mind the market is those willing to pay for a particular product.. you might know 300 people... only 2 of them are willing to even buy the product in question. The other 298 are not part of the target market. There just 298 people you randomly know. Sorta like when someone mentioned china using ISO.. and most likely 80% of china's population doesn't have a computer or access to a computer. Much less the desire or ability to buy a keyboard then buy custom key's for it.
Again, just to be clear, people buying a full NorDeUk kit is typically 8-12% of base kit. That’s FULL NORDEUK, many many more use ISO but don’t mind incorrect legends.
So if there were 300 sales that’d be about 30-60 ISO users with about 20-30 of them buying the NorDeUk kit for correct legends, and no, they’re not insignificant.
Post by: depletedvespene on Fri, 26 July 2019, 07:36:34
…
This is just selfish and not accepting of people that have a different preference than you. Why do you feel like you get to be special enough everyone else should be empathetic and compromise for you? I'm sorry but look at this thread. How many times have iso users been frustrated at having to buy stepped caps, an extra b, extra options for 65%, or 40% users? Why don't we compromise for everyone and have everyone get all the keys they could ever want? Let's have a base kit that's 200 keys wide, custom legends for whoever requests em! That's silly of course.
Compromises. Must. Be. Made.
Yes, indeed. AND erroneous concepts must be cleared out. That is why I spelled out earlier in the thread what exactly "ISO support" entails and what it does NOT. Yet some people (not you!) keep banging the "ISO BAD!" drum here while still keeping a nebulous idea of what ISO means in the first place in this context.
I am empathetic it doesn't feel great to be on the side that isn't worth compromising for, but it's basically not a disputed fact that there are more users that use alternative layouts (65%, 1800, etc) than iso (Note: IN THE CUSTOM MECHANICAL KEYBOARD HOBBY ALONE, NOT GLOBAL AVERAGES).
I'm not sure you're right here. Different extant extra keys in the base kit fill in the extra needs of different alternative form factors, so I think meaningless to compare the number of "users that use alternative layouts (65%, 1800, etc)" against the number of "users that use iso".
Are there more 60% users in the custom mechanical keyboard hobby than ISO users in the custom mechanical keyboard hobby? Quite probably, yes.
Are there more 1800 users in the custom mechanical keyboard hobby than ISO users in the custom mechanical keyboard hobby? I'm not sure about that. I think not.
Are there more TGR Alice users in the custom mechanical keyboard hobby than ISO users in the custom mechanical keyboard hobby? Most definitely not.
Assuming the above are correct, R3 PgUp and R4 PgDn quite probably more important to include than the ISO Enter keys, R1 PgDn and R1 End are probably not more important, and that extra B is definitely much less important.
Post by: Poesjuh on Fri, 26 July 2019, 09:25:36
Post by: Acereconkeys on Fri, 26 July 2019, 11:45:52
This is quite selfish in my opinion. You're asking other people to pay for 8 keys for approximately 5-10% (that's a liberal estimate too) of the hobby...No one i know cares about 40% or other exotic layouts. The vast majority of the market is full-size with a marginal portion of WKL. People want keys for their Razer / Corsair / Ducky / etc. They all have ISO keyboards outside of North America.
Another point people aren't saying enough, though it has been said before in this thread, is I may in the future change my taste on alternative layouts like 40% or 1800 or something. That's why i personally like paying for bigger base kits that have a wide range of boards supported. However, I know i'll never use iso. Makes the cost benefit discussion different.
Also I thought we'd come to a sort of agreement on the way to do this. Minimum layout support (4 keys) in base kits, and a big "NordeUk" esque side kit with 123 UK legends and all the other language specific keys if you really want to fork over the dough. There's really no other way to do this fairly.
Also you are being hypocritical here. I'll never use the extra keys for 40% and such. I am paying significant extra dough for those to sit in plastic bags. I am also paying significant extra for ISO support, pushing keycap sets costs over the $200 mark, all the while ignoring all these extra keys that i dont need, including ANSI specific keys. See how i can reverse your argument entirely ?
As long as people sustain this catch-22 loop, potential ISO market will stay untapped and buyers are turned away from this hobby.
You're like so close to getting it. The reaosn the argument doesn't work looped back on me versus the one made for you is that regardless of whoever you know who doesn't care about "exotic" layouts the people you know must not be buying GMK because like a majority of times there are side kits like NordeUK or UKiso in a side kit, they don't reach MoQ.
Also, you'll never find me complaining to 40% compatibility to a base kit, instead i'll be happy if its offered as an option as a side kit that has a chance to make MoQ. This is the only way to fairly do compatibility for non standard layouts (like iso or 40%). If there was enough support you'd have enough people to buy out side kits like 40% users do, but you don't.
...
Are there more 60% users in the custom mechanical keyboard hobby than ISO users in the custom mechanical keyboard hobby? Quite probably, yes.
Are there more 1800 users in the custom mechanical keyboard hobby than ISO users in the custom mechanical keyboard hobby? I'm not sure about that. I think not.
Are there more TGR Alice users in the custom mechanical keyboard hobby than ISO users in the custom mechanical keyboard hobby? Most definitely not.
Assuming the above are correct, R3 PgUp and R4 PgDn quite probably more important to include than the ISO Enter keys, R1 PgDn and R1 End are probably not more important, and that extra B is definitely much less important.
Probably going to be a controversial statement but I do believe there are more people who buy high end custom keycaps woh have an alice inspired layout than who use iso. Remember Alice isn't the only board to have that split but not split style layout. See: Lubrigante (acrylic version of alice), nunu, PC Rukia, soon to be UHMW Rukia, and probably many more. The layout is rather popular.
Also, another note you're missing is that the raw number of users is not the only consideration. The important metric is this: Number of users accomidated / number of keys required to accomodate those users, with a consideration for what other options they have. As far as supporting alice type layouts goes it's 1 extra key, and there aren't really any other options since an alice type board without an alpha colored key in that location looks very bad.
That said, I think you/I are in agreement that basic row profile compatibility for iso in base kit is worth it.
And all if this is assuming that the majority of the keycap set buyers actually use custom keyboards and not your every day poker, anne pro, cooler master of whatever other type or "gaming" mechanical keyboard.
No, none of this assumes that. It does assume that less people use iso of any layout variant. A fact I believe has been pretty clearly backed up by the lackluster support for iso kits in the past.
Post by: rxc92 on Fri, 26 July 2019, 12:07:35
Post by: lewisflude on Fri, 26 July 2019, 12:20:37
It's weird how rabid ISO users are about insisting everyone else adapt and pay extra for them rather than ponying up extra cash for their own kit. It's a lot of entitlement. The numbers speak for themselves clearly, and raging at people who want to use the global standard kit (ANSI) is not really helping their cause. It seems kind of pointless to respond further, some people cannot be helped.
So the A in ANSI stands for American, and the I in ISO stands for international.
ANSI never was and never will be the global standard, it’s a purely North American creation.
Again, ISO users aren’t some insignificant minority. It’s a bit entitled to try and stamp out anything that isn’t super mainstream so people can save $5 on $200 of plastic.
Post by: nguyenhimself on Fri, 26 July 2019, 12:28:00
I think people are also missing the bigger picture.. I see market and blah blah thrown around. Keep in mind the market is those willing to pay for a particular product.. you might know 300 people... only 2 of them are willing to even buy the product in question. The other 298 are not part of the target market. There just 298 people you randomly know. Sorta like when someone mentioned china using ISO.. and most likely 80% of china's population doesn't have a computer or access to a computer. Much less the desire or ability to buy a keyboard then buy custom key's for it.Oh god, I stopped reading this thread for a couple of weeks and now the “Nobody outside of America uses ANSI” people are here spreading fake news and made-up statistics.
In the process of increasing inclusion for ISO, you are actually elevating yourself to the #1 spot and dismissing everyone else.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/china-is-now-the-worlds-largest-pc-market/
Just ****ing vote with your wallet. Band together and buy tons of ISO kits and make everyone else be aware of your existence. Until then, if ISO kits still barely manage to reach MOQ, the status quo will stay.
Post by: depletedvespene on Fri, 26 July 2019, 12:43:38
It's weird how rabid ISO users are about insisting everyone else adapt and pay extra for them rather than ponying up extra cash for their own kit. It's a lot of entitlement.
It's not entitlement - it's pretty justified irritation at the behaviour of some ANSI users that treat ISO like the plague while being happy to accomodate exotic form factors without any fuss.
The numbers speak for themselves clearly, and raging at people who want to use the global standard kit (ANSI) is not really helping their cause. It seems kind of pointless to respond further, some people cannot be helped.
Please stop repeating that ANSI is the "global standard kit", as this is patently and undeniably FALSE.
That said, entitlement does begin with the refusal to accept inconvenient facts...
Post by: depletedvespene on Fri, 26 July 2019, 12:50:27
I think people are also missing the bigger picture.. I see market and blah blah thrown around. Keep in mind the market is those willing to pay for a particular product.. you might know 300 people... only 2 of them are willing to even buy the product in question. The other 298 are not part of the target market. There just 298 people you randomly know. Sorta like when someone mentioned china using ISO.. and most likely 80% of china's population doesn't have a computer or access to a computer. Much less the desire or ability to buy a keyboard then buy custom key's for it.Oh god, I stopped reading this thread for a couple of weeks and now the “Nobody outside of America uses ANSI” people are here spreading fake news and made-up statistics.
It is NOT appropriate to dismiss the detractor in an argument by accusing him or her of a false stance. Re-read the thread, and you'll see that the people on the "ISO side" have NOT made the ludicrous statement of "Nobody outside of America uses ANSI" (on the other hand, there ARE several people here that have flat-out stated the (factually false) assertion that "ANSI is the global standard").
Please, you and everyone else, keep the FACTS straight. And re-read the earlier posts in this thread so you can appreciate the nuances some of us have put into this (look up the word "compromise", for starters).
Post by: nguyenhimself on Fri, 26 July 2019, 12:58:16
The post I quoted literally pushed freaking China aside as non-significant. China, whose ANSI keyboard users are so numerous the ABS keycap factories over there never bother to make ISO molds.I think people are also missing the bigger picture.. I see market and blah blah thrown around. Keep in mind the market is those willing to pay for a particular product.. you might know 300 people... only 2 of them are willing to even buy the product in question. The other 298 are not part of the target market. There just 298 people you randomly know. Sorta like when someone mentioned china using ISO.. and most likely 80% of china's population doesn't have a computer or access to a computer. Much less the desire or ability to buy a keyboard then buy custom key's for it.Oh god, I stopped reading this thread for a couple of weeks and now the “Nobody outside of America uses ANSI” people are here spreading fake news and made-up statistics.
It is NOT appropriate to dismiss the detractor in an argument by accusing him or her of a false stance. Re-read the thread, and you'll see that the people on the "ISO side" have NOT made the ludicrous statement of "Nobody outside of America uses ANSI" (on the other hand, there ARE several people here that have flat-out stated the (factually false) assertion that "ANSI is the global standard").
Please, you and everyone else, keep the FACTS straight. And re-read the earlier posts in this thread so you can appreciate the nuances some of us have put into this (look up the word "compromise", for starters).
And don’t gaslight me now. The same “ISO is the global standard “ argument has been made back in the instigator “PBT Sanctuary“ thread that later spawned this one.
Post by: depletedvespene on Fri, 26 July 2019, 13:04:32
…The post I quoted literally pushed freaking China aside as non-significant. China, whose ANSI keyboard users are so numerous the ABS keycap factories never bother to make ISO molds.
It is NOT appropriate to dismiss the detractor in an argument by accusing him or her of a false stance. Re-read the thread, and you'll see that the people on the "ISO side" have NOT made the ludicrous statement of "Nobody outside of America uses ANSI" (on the other hand, there ARE several people here that have flat-out stated the (factually false) assertion that "ANSI is the global standard").
Please, you and everyone else, keep the FACTS straight. And re-read the earlier posts in this thread so you can appreciate the nuances some of us have put into this (look up the word "compromise", for starters).
And don’t gaslight me now. The same “ISO is the global standard “ argument has been made back in the instigator “PBT Sanctuary“ thread that later spawned this one.
Don't accuse me of gaslighting (while trying to gaslight me yourself). I have NOT said that, and every post of mine in this entire thread shows it clearly.
If you don't like ISO, that's fine. If you'd rather see no ISO keys whatsoever in any kit you're interested in, that's fine. What's NOT fine is engaging in dishonest tactics to derail this thread. Stop it.
Post by: nguyenhimself on Fri, 26 July 2019, 13:05:50
Earlier in the thread, I already said I’m OK with paying a bit more so that basic UK ISO keys can be included in the base kits. Fine, win some, lose some.…The post I quoted literally pushed freaking China aside as non-significant. China, whose ANSI keyboard users are so numerous the ABS keycap factories never bother to make ISO molds.
It is NOT appropriate to dismiss the detractor in an argument by accusing him or her of a false stance. Re-read the thread, and you'll see that the people on the "ISO side" have NOT made the ludicrous statement of "Nobody outside of America uses ANSI" (on the other hand, there ARE several people here that have flat-out stated the (factually false) assertion that "ANSI is the global standard").
Please, you and everyone else, keep the FACTS straight. And re-read the earlier posts in this thread so you can appreciate the nuances some of us have put into this (look up the word "compromise", for starters).
And don’t gaslight me now. The same “ISO is the global standard “ argument has been made back in the instigator “PBT Sanctuary“ thread that later spawned this one.
Don't accuse me of gaslighting (while trying to gaslight me yourself). I have NOT said that, and every post of mine in this entire thread shows it clearly.
If you don't like ISO, that's fine. If you'd rather see no ISO keys whatsoever in any kit you're interested in, that's fine. What's NOT fine is engaging in dishonest tactics to derail this thread. Stop it.
But this kind of escalation for more and more from ISO users is just crazy. Especially when you guys haven’t been able to prove with real kit purchase numbers that you are more than just a vocal minority.
Post by: depletedvespene on Fri, 26 July 2019, 13:13:54
…
Earlier in the thread, I already said I’m OK with paying a bit more so that basic UK ISO keys can be included in the base kits. Fine, win some, lose some.
But this kind of escalation for more and more from ISO users is just crazy. Especially when you guys haven’t been able to prove with real kit purchase numbers that you are more than just a vocal minority.
WHAT escalation? We've been proposing practically from the start of this thread for the addition of exactly FOUR keys in the base kit, with everything else either optional (accented keys, R4 <> key) or moved to an international kit (the UK-only keys, which definitely do NOT belong in the base kit).
And, frankly, the specious argument of the "kit purchase numbers" needs to be buried once and for all. The base kit in the recent ICs have all included more and more keys for very specific needs on very limited numbers (2.0U Shift key, extra B, etc.) and that doesn't make anyone blink a single eye. And yet, even for the "numbers of sales" that you don't dispute, those additions serve less of a global need than ISO support. So why keep beating on that not just dead, but rotten to the bones, horse?
Post by: lewisflude on Fri, 26 July 2019, 13:19:35
The post I quoted literally pushed freaking China aside as non-significant. China, whose ANSI keyboard users are so numerous the ABS keycap factories over there never bother to make ISO molds.I think people are also missing the bigger picture.. I see market and blah blah thrown around. Keep in mind the market is those willing to pay for a particular product.. you might know 300 people... only 2 of them are willing to even buy the product in question. The other 298 are not part of the target market. There just 298 people you randomly know. Sorta like when someone mentioned china using ISO.. and most likely 80% of china's population doesn't have a computer or access to a computer. Much less the desire or ability to buy a keyboard then buy custom key's for it.Oh god, I stopped reading this thread for a couple of weeks and now the “Nobody outside of America uses ANSI” people are here spreading fake news and made-up statistics.
It is NOT appropriate to dismiss the detractor in an argument by accusing him or her of a false stance. Re-read the thread, and you'll see that the people on the "ISO side" have NOT made the ludicrous statement of "Nobody outside of America uses ANSI" (on the other hand, there ARE several people here that have flat-out stated the (factually false) assertion that "ANSI is the global standard").
Please, you and everyone else, keep the FACTS straight. And re-read the earlier posts in this thread so you can appreciate the nuances some of us have put into this (look up the word "compromise", for starters).
And don’t gaslight me now. The same “ISO is the global standard “ argument has been made back in the instigator “PBT Sanctuary“ thread that later spawned this one.
ISO isn’t the global standard, but neither is ANSI. About 50/50 use in wider world and 80/20 in mechanical keyboards.
Post by: the pokemon kid on Fri, 26 July 2019, 15:43:43
As far as I can see it, we (EU Crowd) are a growing market which is calling out for more keycap sets, however we are being shut down for what is the cost of a coffee. I understand that an extra $5 for the extra caps which an ANSI user wont use is a bit of a liberty. However the extra price breaks which the base set might get because of the Extra ISO support surely is worth while.
Surely a 3% price increase at the lowest MOQ is worth it for the 10-12% (and growing) community?
Post by: rxc92 on Fri, 26 July 2019, 18:19:22
ISO isn’t the global standard, but neither is ANSI. About 50/50 use in wider world and 80/20 in mechanical keyboards.
You can't possibly think that after realizing that China exists and dwarfs the entirety of the EU, and South Korea is a bigger ANSI user than UK is for ISO, as well as the US/Canada/Australia all using ANSI.
Also, the UK kit is different than every other ISO kit. It would be absolutely foolish to include a UK-specific kit when there are many more ISO users in other European countries. UK really isn't significant in terms of numbers; it would make more sense to include a Korean kit than an ISO GB one, but UK ISO seem really really vocal about this compared to other ISO users.
Post by: Surefoot on Fri, 26 July 2019, 19:14:17
the people you know must not be buying GMK because like a majority of times there are side kits like NordeUK or UKiso in a side kit, they don't reach MoQ.Read again what i said - potential buyers are turned off right away from here due to the elitism and gatekeeping and wont even come back. Not to mention that NorDeUK support is quite thin actually, or even non existent on most interesting sets.
This is the only way to fairly do compatibility for non standard layouts (like iso or 40%).... ISO is actually *the* standard, it's even in the name.
No, none of this assumes that. It does assume that less people use iso of any layout variant. A fact I believe has been pretty clearly backed up by the lackluster support for iso kits in the past.And circular argument, here we go again for the catch-22..
Post by: depletedvespene on Fri, 26 July 2019, 19:34:29
ISO isn’t the global standard, but neither is ANSI. About 50/50 use in wider world and 80/20 in mechanical keyboards.
You can't possibly think that after realizing that China exists and dwarfs the entirety of the EU, and South Korea is a bigger ANSI user than UK is for ISO, as well as the US/Canada/Australia all using ANSI.
Can you PLEASE both get your facts straight and NOT cherry-pick data? First, the standard Canadian keyboard is ISO, not ANSI (of course, not few Canadians away from the French areas use the US English keyboard). But even if Canada were a strictly ANSI country... your rant lists: China, EU, South Korea, UK (still part of the EU), USA, Canada and Australia... and based on that, you assert that the 50/50 divide is wrong.
This might come off as a surprise to you, but there are more countries in the world! ALL of Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking America uses ISO keyboards. Europe and the EU are not the same. Africa seems to have sunk into the sea, and so seems to have all of non-China, non-Korea Asia, and with it has gone New Zealand and the (admittedly marginal) rest of Oceania.
If you tally actual numbers, the results of the global ANSI/ISO divide are, indeed, close to 50/50.
Also, the UK kit is different than every other ISO kit. It would be absolutely foolish to include a UK-specific kit when there are many more ISO users in other European countries. UK really isn't significant in terms of numbers; it would make more sense to include a Korean kit than an ISO GB one, but UK ISO seem really really vocal about this compared to other ISO users.
If you take a few minutes and actually read what has been proposed in this thread, you'll see we've taken pains to ask specifically for US ISO support (4 keys) in the base kit, not UK ISO support (9 keys) and made explicit that the latter should be taken into an international kit. Please answer to what we're actually saying, not to what you believe we're saying.
Post by: Acereconkeys on Fri, 26 July 2019, 19:39:39
Post by: depletedvespene on Fri, 26 July 2019, 19:47:31
Welp what a degradation of interaction quality on this thread. At the beginning it felt like people were generally being pretty accomodating/understanding now you got people saying dumb **** like how iso is somehow special just because it's a standard. That's crazy and just as rude/dismissive to users of alternative layouts as you're accusing people of being towards iso users. And you wonder why people are so strong against their dislike of iso? It's because y'all won't shut up about it and won't stop thinking yourself some special group of endangered keyboard users that deserves special treatment.
All actual arguments in this discussion were presented in the first three pages and now the thread is, indeed, degrading. Then again, those of us (like you and me) that CAN present arguments and understand what the other is saying *and* refrain from entitlement (or of, in the case of a couple of users, underhanded tactics or outright lies) need to be above that low-hanging crap and at least reach an agreement on what the problem actually IS (even if the solution is being lost right now, thanks to the noisy jerks).
Post by: nguyenhimself on Fri, 26 July 2019, 21:22:07
Welp what a degradation of interaction quality on this thread. At the beginning it felt like people were generally being pretty accomodating/understanding now you got people saying dumb **** like how iso is somehow special just because it's a standard. That's crazy and just as rude/dismissive to users of alternative layouts as you're accusing people of being towards iso users. And you wonder why people are so strong against their dislike of iso? It's because y'all won't shut up about it and won't stop thinking yourself some special group of endangered keyboard users that deserves special treatment.This thread has turned from “Let’s put a few ISO keys in the base kit for the sake of inclusivity” into “ISO is the #1 global standard and nobody outside of America uses ANSI wait China and the rest of Asia what’s that”.
I came in support of ISO keys in the base kit (I really did), and now I’m so turned off by the ISO elitist attitude here I don’t even care anymore. Let this be the containment thread for all ISO complaints and leave the rest of us be.
(https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/056/730/597.jpg)
Post by: depletedvespene on Fri, 26 July 2019, 22:37:20
This thread has turned from “Let’s put a few ISO keys in the base kit for the sake of inclusivity” into “ISO is the #1 global standard and nobody outside of America uses ANSI wait China and the rest of Asia what’s that”.
While the level of discourse has undeniably gone down, it was to be expected. After all, EVERY main argument was made in the first half of the thread, and the rest has gone down hill, as is wont to happen with ANY thorny issue in any forum. And is not just a couple of idiots on the "ISO side" - look at the thread for the exact same bad behaviour from some others on the ANSI side as well.
(I guess we should be thankful BAE fans haven't showed up... yet?)
I came in support of ISO keys in the base kit (I really did), and now I’m so turned off by the ISO elitist attitude here I don’t even care anymore. Let this be the containment thread for all ISO complaints and leave the rest of us be.
Now you're making a blatantly false accusation. While it IS true that some people in the latter part of the thread have had what could be called "ISO elitist attitude", some of us have insisted on keeping the discussion focused on what it is supposed to be. And you can NOT deny that some people have had what can be called "ANSI elitist attitude" as well, stooping as low as to making patently false assertions to present the "clear" and "undeniable" fact that ANSI is "best".
Heck, the “ISO is the #1 global standard and nobody outside of America uses ANSI wait China and the rest of Asia what’s that” paraphrasing you've done... actually describes better the attitude of the posts of some people on the ANSI side (see rxc92's post for the clearest example of this: cherry-picking countries to stack numbers in "his side"'s favor).
Let this thread show that the ISO issue is, indeed, THORNY and a solution NEEDS to be found, and leave the elitist idiots of either side away.
Or should we start another thread, where we block those on either side that have shown an elitist attitude?
Post by: lewisflude on Sat, 27 July 2019, 01:51:35
Welp what a degradation of interaction quality on this thread. At the beginning it felt like people were generally being pretty accomodating/understanding now you got people saying dumb **** like how iso is somehow special just because it's a standard. That's crazy and just as rude/dismissive to users of alternative layouts as you're accusing people of being towards iso users. And you wonder why people are so strong against their dislike of iso? It's because y'all won't shut up about it and won't stop thinking yourself some special group of endangered keyboard users that deserves special treatment.This thread has turned from “Let’s put a few ISO keys in the base kit for the sake of inclusivity” into “ISO is the #1 global standard and nobody outside of America uses ANSI wait China and the rest of Asia what’s that”.
I came in support of ISO keys in the base kit (I really did), and now I’m so turned off by the ISO elitist attitude here I don’t even care anymore. Let this be the containment thread for all ISO complaints and leave the rest of us be.Show Image(https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/056/730/597.jpg)
Where has anyone said ISO is the #1 global standard? Again, it’s more like 50/50 in the wider world.
ANSI is important too, the main argument here is making a set 3% cheaper while cutting out 10-12% of buyers isn’t a good idea, isn’t forward thinking, and cuts out a significant portion of this community.
Again, there’s a big enough chunk of ISO users that this is a real issue that we need to find a solution to. “Just use ANSI” or “just don’t buy sets” is not really the preferred option for a lot of people.
I get from a sort of capitalistic point of view why optimising does the majority does seem fair, and does make sense. I can also see why people find this issue annoying or don’t quite agree with some of the arguments made.
It all comes down to “is ISO special”, and in my opinion it is, being one of the two default keyboard layouts that exist in the wider world, I absolutely think the mech community needs to continue to support that.
This hobby was built on preference and it’s becoming more and more international every day with thriving meet-ups and events happening outside of the US and China.
Post by: tobiasvl on Sat, 27 July 2019, 04:50:15
For that reason, bad ISO support is a large threshold for ISO users entering this hobby. In addition to all the other stuff people need to get used to to get bit by the mech bug, they also have to settle for boring keycaps (with ISO support), learn to touch type (because even if there's ISO support there's likely incorrect legends), or learn a different layout (ANSI). They're not dealbreakers for many of us, but they are significant hurdles for general adoption of mechanical keyboards in ISO countries and a self-fulfilling prophecy for the low GB support.
Is ISO special to those who don't use it? Is it special when you're first within the inner circle of mechanical keyboards? Well, not really. Well, not really. But should changing layouts be a de facto prerequisite to joining the hobby?
I think I made a similar comment earlier in the thread but it's hard to recall since it devolved into a cess pool. I was happy to see the light hearted IC thread though!
Post by: rxc92 on Sat, 27 July 2019, 10:36:33
Where has anyone said ISO is the #1 global standard? Again, it’s more like 50/50 in the wider world.
ANSI is important too, the main argument here is making a set 3% cheaper while cutting out 10-12% of buyers isn’t a good idea, isn’t forward thinking, and cuts out a significant portion of this community.
Just repeating lies at this point. 90/10 or higher gap, making a set 10% more expensive or cutting out 2-3% of the buyers, as those using other ISO kits can't buy the proposed one. No thanks.
Post by: lewisflude on Sat, 27 July 2019, 10:40:34
Where has anyone said ISO is the #1 global standard? Again, it’s more like 50/50 in the wider world.
ANSI is important too, the main argument here is making a set 3% cheaper while cutting out 10-12% of buyers isn’t a good idea, isn’t forward thinking, and cuts out a significant portion of this community.
Just repeating lies at this point. 90/10 or higher gap, making a set 10% more expensive or cutting out 2-3% of the buyers, as those using other ISO kits can't buy the proposed one. No thanks.
Where are you getting your 2-3% number from? Typically we see 8-12% of sales of base kit in NorDeUk sales. Many more ISO users than those who buy NorDeUk kit.
Post by: depletedvespene on Sat, 27 July 2019, 11:21:54
Where are you getting your 2-3% number from? Typically we see 8-12% of sales of base kit in NorDeUk sales. Many more ISO users than those who buy NorDeUk kit.
Dude, don't reply to rxc92 — he's just spreading false data while accusing "the other side" of doing so (and I already called him out for it, and once is enough). We NEED to stop the derailment of this discussion if we want to get anywhere.
Post by: lewisflude on Mon, 29 July 2019, 02:38:07
Where are you getting your 2-3% number from? Typically we see 8-12% of sales of base kit in NorDeUk sales. Many more ISO users than those who buy NorDeUk kit.
Dude, don't reply to rxc92 — he's just spreading false data while accusing "the other side" of doing so (and I already called him out for it, and once is enough). We NEED to stop the derailment of this discussion if we want to get anywhere.
Like you've said before, I think this discussion is about.
* Why basic ISO should be in base kits (5 caps)
* What is basic ISO, and what are the next steps (UK-ISO, NorDeUk, Colevrak)
* Why optimising for the majority is a bad idea for this community
* What ISO users think about the recent trend of sets not including good ISO support
* What the mechanical keyboard community looks like in places other than North America/China
Post by: Acereconkeys on Mon, 29 July 2019, 14:54:53
Where are you getting your 2-3% number from? Typically we see 8-12% of sales of base kit in NorDeUk sales. Many more ISO users than those who buy NorDeUk kit.
Dude, don't reply to rxc92 — he's just spreading false data while accusing "the other side" of doing so (and I already called him out for it, and once is enough). We NEED to stop the derailment of this discussion if we want to get anywhere.
Like you've said before, I think this discussion is about.
* Why basic ISO should be in base kits (5 caps)
* What is basic ISO, and what are the next steps (UK-ISO, NorDeUk, Colevrak)
* Why optimising for the majority is a bad idea for this community
* What ISO users think about the recent trend of sets not including good ISO support
* What the mechanical keyboard community looks like in places other than North America/China
Agreed on 1,2, 4 and 5. Though I think having iso in a side kit is also a valid choice not only base. Also i thought it was only 4 caps? (1.25u r4 shift, r4 \|, r3 #~ and iso enter?)
Regarding 3, most people are aligned only so far as supporting minimum level iso compatibility. However, as even this thread provides evidence for, many iso users invite vitriol by demanding more.
Personally, what I hope people get out of this thread is an alignment /agreement among users of iso to demand only basic level of compatibility in base kits, and to act less entitled in the way they demand it (Because as i've said earlier in the thread regardless of global adoption to me iso isn't any more special/deserving of special treatment than any other alternative layout).
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 29 July 2019, 15:18:04
Where are you getting your 2-3% number from? Typically we see 8-12% of sales of base kit in NorDeUk sales. Many more ISO users than those who buy NorDeUk kit.
Dude, don't reply to rxc92 — he's just spreading false data while accusing "the other side" of doing so (and I already called him out for it, and once is enough). We NEED to stop the derailment of this discussion if we want to get anywhere.
Like you've said before, I think this discussion is about.
* Why basic ISO should be in base kits (5 caps)
* What is basic ISO, and what are the next steps (UK-ISO, NorDeUk, Colevrak)
* Why optimising for the majority is a bad idea for this community
* What ISO users think about the recent trend of sets not including good ISO support
* What the mechanical keyboard community looks like in places other than North America/China
Agreed on 1,2, 4 and 5. Though I think having iso in a side kit is also a valid choice not only base. Also i thought it was only 4 caps? (1.25u r4 shift, r4 \|, r3 #~ and iso enter?)
Yes, it IS supposed to be four caps (but the R3 key is \| —— #~ is part of the UK layout). More caps MAY be OPTIONALLY added (namely R4 <> and accented ISO Enter keys), but four caps is the "standardized minimum".
This is, of course, subject to further discussion, but the numbers shown earlier in the thread tell us that getting these four keys in a separate kit (whether they're on a kit by themselves or in an agglomerate of several form factors, like GMK 9009 R3 is doing now) isn't the best solution.
Regarding 3, most people are aligned only so far as supporting minimum level iso compatibility. However, as even this thread provides evidence for, many iso users invite vitriol by demanding more.
Regarding 3, I actually disagre with lewisfldude, albeit it's more of a nuance: kits NEED to be made by optimizing for the majority in their core BUT then accomodations must be made for minorities that are generally regarded as worthwhile additions (insert complaint about how certain relatively obscure form factors get added to the base without fuss while ISO support is treated like the plague and resisted).
Personally, what I hope people get out of this thread is an alignment /agreement among users of iso to demand only basic level of compatibility in base kits, and to act less entitled in the way they demand it (Because as i've said earlier in the thread regardless of global adoption to me iso isn't any more special/deserving of special treatment than any other alternative layout).
Yes, this is what the goal is: agree on a compromise (starting off the one I wrote down earlier), have everyone satisfied with it (or at least have everyone mildly dis-satisfied with it), get everyone to calm the f*ck down, and have later complaints from either side referred to this page. :thumb:
By the way, I am heavily tempted to write down an article detailing what ISO *is* (and *isn't*) to try and dispel some myths and erroneous concepts about it.
Post by: Acereconkeys on Mon, 29 July 2019, 15:36:59
Regarding the r4 \| and r3 \| wouldn't it be annoying to have the same legend on the keyboard twice?
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 29 July 2019, 15:41:19
Agreed! We're on the same page :)
Regarding the r4 \| and r3 \| wouldn't it be annoying to have the same legend on the keyboard twice?
Yes... especially since that key is also present in R1 (and in R2 as a 1.5U key), but there IS a good reason for it — maximum flexibility for (ANSI and) ISO layouts AND both the ISANSI and ANSISO hybrids. As shocking as it may look, this is no different than, say, the End key, which is in present in R2, R4 and R1 in most base kits (and even in R3 sometimes).
Post by: HoffmanMyster on Mon, 29 July 2019, 16:19:16
I really don't understand all the hatred and "entitlement" claims that ISO-haters are throwing around. On the one hand, I can see why it appears that way, but I disagree based on the context of our hobby.
It used to be the case that EU and other ISO users were grossly under-represented on geekhack in particular, and most likely in the hobby as a whole too (though perhaps they were all just in other communities that we weren't aware of - however, with many keysets coming from this side of the pond, it makes sense to consider the vocal community here). Naturally, a very ANSI-centric viewpoint took hold, and almost all keysets were ANSI only or offered very minimal ISO support. The ISO users were vocal, but ultimately the numbers won out and ISO was more of an afterthought. Not amazing, but it makes sense.
Now, the hobby has absolutely exploded and more and more ISO users are popping up and asking for some ISO support. It is not unreasonable to start this discussion again. Hobbies ebb and flow as trends grow and die, as does the userbase. We've seen increased support for ISO addon packs lately. Yes, ultimately the bottom line comes down to the economics of it (vote with your wallet, etc), but there is nothing wrong with users creating a thread to garner support for what they want.
I don't see anyone asking for any more support than the other handful of obscure layouts get, and no one calls foul when we decide a new layout has enough traction to add to a base kit. The whole idea of starting an argument on the internet about this is just absurd. If you don't want to support ISO layouts, don't buy the kits and ignore this thread. It really is that simple.
Post by: lewisflude on Tue, 30 July 2019, 04:21:18
Where are you getting your 2-3% number from? Typically we see 8-12% of sales of base kit in NorDeUk sales. Many more ISO users than those who buy NorDeUk kit.
Dude, don't reply to rxc92 — he's just spreading false data while accusing "the other side" of doing so (and I already called him out for it, and once is enough). We NEED to stop the derailment of this discussion if we want to get anywhere.
Like you've said before, I think this discussion is about.
* Why basic ISO should be in base kits (5 caps)
* What is basic ISO, and what are the next steps (UK-ISO, NorDeUk, Colevrak)
* Why optimising for the majority is a bad idea for this community
* What ISO users think about the recent trend of sets not including good ISO support
* What the mechanical keyboard community looks like in places other than North America/China
Agreed on 1,2, 4 and 5. Though I think having iso in a side kit is also a valid choice not only base. Also i thought it was only 4 caps? (1.25u r4 shift, r4 \|, r3 #~ and iso enter?)
Regarding 3, most people are aligned only so far as supporting minimum level iso compatibility. However, as even this thread provides evidence for, many iso users invite vitriol by demanding more.
Personally, what I hope people get out of this thread is an alignment /agreement among users of iso to demand only basic level of compatibility in base kits, and to act less entitled in the way they demand it (Because as i've said earlier in the thread regardless of global adoption to me iso isn't any more special/deserving of special treatment than any other alternative layout).
You know what, I agree with you there. Basic ISO is enough I think. I would expect to see the accents in there personally, but anything more than that is really a bonus. With some sets like 9009 where the accents really make the set what it is, I think it would make sense to include them (especially as numpad return get's accented versions).
As long as the keys physically fit on the board, I'm happy! I don't mean to seem entitled or anything, I think this is just quite a contentious issue. Some people feel passionately about one side, and some feel passionate about the other. It sort of makes it difficult to talk about at times!
Post by: depletedvespene on Sat, 03 August 2019, 09:24:00
1) Base kits, by default, support US ANSI.
2) US ISO support requires adding 4 keys: ISO Enter, R4 1.25U left Shift, R3 \| and R4 \|.
3) UK ISO support requires adding 8 keys: ISO Enter, R4 1.25U left Shift, R1 `¬, R1 2", R1 3£, R3 '@, R3 #~ and R4 \|.
Turns out that if you take the eight keys required for UK ISO support and add one single key (R3 \|), you can have full support for UK+US ISO!
Now, I am NOT saying this should become the new default — I still think that the US ISO compromise (four keys into the base kit, and UK support on a separate one) is the best solution. BUT if a kit designer should choose for whatever reason to include full UK ISO support on the base kit, the addition of one single key, to complete US ISO support as well, should be trivial and highly recommendable.
Post by: HotRoderX on Sat, 03 August 2019, 16:13:44
I just realized something. Part of the discussion has focused so much on whether a base kit should support US ISO versus UK ISO, that we've forgotten one thing. Basic facts first:
1) Base kits, by default, support US ANSI.
2) US ISO support requires adding 4 keys: ISO Enter, R4 1.25U left Shift, R3 \| and R4 \|.
3) UK ISO support requires adding 8 keys: ISO Enter, R4 1.25U left Shift, R1 `¬, R1 2", R1 3£, R3 '@, R3 #~ and R4 \|.
Turns out that if you take the eight keys required for UK ISO support and add one single key (R3 \|), you can have full support for UK+US ISO!
Now, I am NOT saying this should become the new default — I still think that the US ISO compromise (four keys into the base kit, and UK support on a separate one) is the best solution. BUT if a kit designer should choose for whatever reason to include full UK ISO support on the base kit, the addition of one single key, to complete US ISO support as well, should be trivial and highly recommendable.
That still doesn't really work because the Majority of consumers doesn't want/need ISO and the amount of kits coming out means that 10-15 dollar differences is enough for someone to go with the competition. Until ISO has the support and numbers to eat the cost. This will continue to be a a poor choice for group buy runners. Regardless of how upset or bad people want it. Group Buy runners are trying to move/sale as much product as they can. I made that point several times, and if people really think ISO has the support. Then go make a ISO only set and see if it hits MOQ, if it does then you have so much more wiggle and argument room as to why ISO should be included.
Post by: depletedvespene on Sat, 03 August 2019, 20:16:59
That still doesn't really work because the Majority of consumers doesn't want/need ISO and the amount of kits coming out means that 10-15 dollar differences is enough for someone to go with the competition.
The lingering myth of the "10-15 dollar difference" in price for ISO support in the base kit was dispelled earlier in the thread. I'll quote e11i0t23's comment about this:
I know im late replying however, to spread some light on the cost argument using a recent quote i collected from GMK of including iso support and in this case full iso-uk support. For 150MOQ of base it adds arround 4€/set reducing to 2€/set for 500MOQ. This is less than the cost of a coffee out.
Four euros per set for UK ISO support!
What is being asked here is even less: four keys for US ISO support instead of eight (for UK ISO support) or nine (for UK+US ISO support). Assuming this might imply three euros per set (instead of two), this is a quite lower price hike, and well within the bounds of what's reasonable to add. As stated earlier in the thread, too, things have changed and what in the custom keycaps' days of yore (2016) was or may have been true in regards to the price difference, today it is not. So let's not keep considering as correct "general knowledge" that has been proven to not be so.
Post by: HotRoderX on Sun, 04 August 2019, 01:15:40
That still doesn't really work because the Majority of consumers doesn't want/need ISO and the amount of kits coming out means that 10-15 dollar differences is enough for someone to go with the competition.
The lingering myth of the "10-15 dollar difference" in price for ISO support in the base kit was dispelled earlier in the thread. I'll quote e11i0t23's comment about this:I know im late replying however, to spread some light on the cost argument using a recent quote i collected from GMK of including iso support and in this case full iso-uk support. For 150MOQ of base it adds arround 4€/set reducing to 2€/set for 500MOQ. This is less than the cost of a coffee out.
Four euros per set for UK ISO support!
What is being asked here is even less: four keys for US ISO support instead of eight (for UK ISO support) or nine (for UK+US ISO support). Assuming this might imply three euros per set (instead of two), this is a quite lower price hike, and well within the bounds of what's reasonable to add. As stated earlier in the thread, too, things have changed and what in the custom keycaps' days of yore (2016) was or may have been true in regards to the price difference, today it is not. So let's not keep considering as correct "general knowledge" that has been proven to not be so.
They really don't dispel anything since GMK quotes prices based on colors chosen and if there custom. I mean if they ran a basic set with just white keys black modifiers then sure it might have been 4 bucks.. but if you run a custom color set which 99.9% of people do then suddenly cost goes way up.
Post by: nappis on Sun, 04 August 2019, 14:09:01
That still doesn't really work because the Majority of consumers doesn't want/need ISO and the amount of kits coming out means that 10-15 dollar differences is enough for someone to go with the competition. Until ISO has the support and numbers to eat the cost. This will continue to be a a poor choice for group buy runners. Regardless of how upset or bad people want it. Group Buy runners are trying to move/sale as much product as they can. I made that point several times, and if people really think ISO has the support. Then go make a ISO only set and see if it hits MOQ, if it does then you have so much more wiggle and argument room as to why ISO should be included.
This guy Trumps
People praise base kits with good compatibility. But somehow including few keys for standard layout that is used on multiple continents is somehow bad idea. What the hell?!
Post by: depletedvespene on Sun, 04 August 2019, 14:15:20
That still doesn't really work because the Majority of consumers doesn't want/need ISO and the amount of kits coming out means that 10-15 dollar differences is enough for someone to go with the competition. Until ISO has the support and numbers to eat the cost. This will continue to be a a poor choice for group buy runners. Regardless of how upset or bad people want it. Group Buy runners are trying to move/sale as much product as they can. I made that point several times, and if people really think ISO has the support. Then go make a ISO only set and see if it hits MOQ, if it does then you have so much more wiggle and argument room as to why ISO should be included.
This guy Trumps
People praise base kits with good compatibility. But somehow including few keys for standard layout that is used on multiple continents is somehow bad idea. What the hell?!
And if we ISO users have the nerve of making a complaint about being targeted this unfairly, out comes the "You're so entitled!" accusation. Yeah.
Post by: nappis on Sun, 04 August 2019, 14:37:17
Gatekeeping is real.This guy Trumps
People praise base kits with good compatibility. But somehow including few keys for standard layout that is used on multiple continents is somehow bad idea. What the hell?!
And if we ISO users have the nerve of making a complaint about being targeted this unfairly, out comes the "You're so entitled!" accusation. Yeah.
Post by: HotRoderX on Sun, 04 August 2019, 16:25:01
Post by: depletedvespene on Sun, 04 August 2019, 17:11:58
i don't know how many times I can mention this, run a ISO only kit see how it does...
It's been stated FROM THE START that ISO is, indeed, currently a minority, yet nowhere as small as some make it to be, nowhere as small as some niche form factors that are supported in the base kit without fuss, and for whom actual support in a base kit is nowhere as expensive as it's made to be.
"Run an X-only kit and see how it does." is a disingenious argument that would be quickly shot down if X were, for example, "65%" instead of "ISO". So why is it considered valid here? As per "picking up the slack", please read the early posts in the thread about how many differing form factors are supported in a base kit, and note that this is generally considered in the best interests of the whole hobby (except for some people who still insist on treating ISO like the plague... for reasons that are, in the best case, obsolete).
Post by: nguyenhimself on Sun, 04 August 2019, 22:52:08
I just realized something. Part of the discussion has focused so much on whether a base kit should support US ISO versus UK ISO, that we've forgotten one thing. Basic facts first:And people wonder why I said “this kind of escalation for more and more from ISO users is just crazy”.
1) Base kits, by default, support US ANSI.
2) US ISO support requires adding 4 keys: ISO Enter, R4 1.25U left Shift, R3 \| and R4 \|.
3) UK ISO support requires adding 8 keys: ISO Enter, R4 1.25U left Shift, R1 `¬, R1 2", R1 3£, R3 '@, R3 #~ and R4 \|.
Turns out that if you take the eight keys required for UK ISO support and add one single key (R3 \|), you can have full support for UK+US ISO!
Now, I am NOT saying this should become the new default — I still think that the US ISO compromise (four keys into the base kit, and UK support on a separate one) is the best solution. BUT if a kit designer should choose for whatever reason to include full UK ISO support on the base kit, the addition of one single key, to complete US ISO support as well, should be trivial and highly recommendable.
See how we’ve moved the goalpost from “4 extra US-ISO keys in the base kit” to “8 extra UK-ISO keys” and now freaking NINE keys.
Give it a couple more days and I bet people will start asking to add NorDe kit into the base one too. Let’s make $200 base kit the new normal, why not?
Post by: nguyenhimself on Sun, 04 August 2019, 22:56:51
GMK Paperwork was a 40%-only set that ran and reached MOQ and shipped.i don't know how many times I can mention this, run a ISO only kit see how it does...
It's been stated FROM THE START that ISO is, indeed, currently a minority, yet nowhere as small as some make it to be, nowhere as small as some niche form factors that are supported in the base kit without fuss, and for whom actual support in a base kit is nowhere as expensive as it's made to be.
"Run an X-only kit and see how it does." is a disingenious argument that would be quickly shot down if X were, for example, "65%" instead of "ISO". So why is it considered valid here? As per "picking up the slack", please read the early posts in the thread about how many differing form factors are supported in a base kit, and note that this is generally considered in the best interests of the whole hobby (except for some people who still insist on treating ISO like the plague... for reasons that are, in the best case, obsolete).
And you don’t see people complain about separate 40% kits, do you?
“Run an ISO-only GMK set (not kit) to prove the user base size” is a great idea that nobody will do because it’s more work than just typing “ISO users are huge believe me. Huge!”.
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 05 August 2019, 00:16:57
I just realized something. Part of the discussion has focused so much on whether a base kit should support US ISO versus UK ISO, that we've forgotten one thing. Basic facts first:And people wonder why I said “this kind of escalation for more and more from ISO users is just crazy”.
1) Base kits, by default, support US ANSI.
2) US ISO support requires adding 4 keys: ISO Enter, R4 1.25U left Shift, R3 \| and R4 \|.
3) UK ISO support requires adding 8 keys: ISO Enter, R4 1.25U left Shift, R1 `¬, R1 2", R1 3£, R3 '@, R3 #~ and R4 \|.
Turns out that if you take the eight keys required for UK ISO support and add one single key (R3 \|), you can have full support for UK+US ISO!
Now, I am NOT saying this should become the new default — I still think that the US ISO compromise (four keys into the base kit, and UK support on a separate one) is the best solution. BUT if a kit designer should choose for whatever reason to include full UK ISO support on the base kit, the addition of one single key, to complete US ISO support as well, should be trivial and highly recommendable.
See how we’ve moved the goalpost from “4 extra US-ISO keys in the base kit” to “8 extra UK-ISO keys” and now freaking NINE keys.
Give it a couple more days and I bet people will start asking to add NorDe kit into the base one too. Let’s make $200 base kit the new normal, why not?
Kindly READ WHAT IS WRITTEN instead of reading what you want to read. I clearly said: I am NOT saying this should become the new default — I still think that the US ISO compromise is the best solution.
Some entitled gatekeepers really stoop low to defend their position when they (presumably) see it has become untenable. :( :( :(
Post by: nappis on Mon, 05 August 2019, 00:29:08
i don't know how many times I can mention this, run a ISO only kit see how it does... Prove me and everyone else wrong. PLEASE prove us wrong otherwise let it go. I am not trying to be rude but this seems to be how some people think society works. Complain complain complain, and expect everyone else to pick up the slack. I promise if you make a ISO only kit and run it. I won't be in the thread complaining about Lack of Ansi. I will in fact wish you the best of luck with the set.
Yes but you probably would complain if every non-US designer creates ISO-only group buys of hot keyset designs. Oblivion would be ISO-DE and Dracula would ISO-SWE/FI...
GMK Paperwork was a 40%-only set that ran and reached MOQ and shipped.
And you don’t see people complain about separate 40% kits, do you?
“Run an ISO-only GMK set (not kit) to prove the user base size” is a great idea that nobody will do because it’s more work than just typing “ISO users are huge believe me. Huge!”.
Are you comparing minimum ISO support to 40% keyset? That's like saying Alice users should have their own gb if they want extra b key.
So what next? You going to compare ergodox support to minimum ISO support? Goalposts....
Post by: lewisflude on Mon, 05 August 2019, 00:29:34
GMK Paperwork was a 40%-only set that ran and reached MOQ and shipped.i don't know how many times I can mention this, run a ISO only kit see how it does...
It's been stated FROM THE START that ISO is, indeed, currently a minority, yet nowhere as small as some make it to be, nowhere as small as some niche form factors that are supported in the base kit without fuss, and for whom actual support in a base kit is nowhere as expensive as it's made to be.
"Run an X-only kit and see how it does." is a disingenious argument that would be quickly shot down if X were, for example, "65%" instead of "ISO". So why is it considered valid here? As per "picking up the slack", please read the early posts in the thread about how many differing form factors are supported in a base kit, and note that this is generally considered in the best interests of the whole hobby (except for some people who still insist on treating ISO like the plague... for reasons that are, in the best case, obsolete).
And you don’t see people complain about separate 40% kits, do you?
“Run an ISO-only GMK set (not kit) to prove the user base size” is a great idea that nobody will do because it’s more work than just typing “ISO users are huge believe me. Huge!”.
I’d love to see numbers on GMK Paperwork. Not saying you’re wrong, but I was under the impression it failed to reach MOQ but evansgs bought a bunch to put on the MiniVan store! I’ve got Paperwork, it’s a weird esoteric set and I’m not sure I agree with the philosophy behind it.
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 05 August 2019, 00:30:27
GMK Paperwork was a 40%-only set that ran and reached MOQ and shipped.i don't know how many times I can mention this, run a ISO only kit see how it does...
It's been stated FROM THE START that ISO is, indeed, currently a minority, yet nowhere as small as some make it to be, nowhere as small as some niche form factors that are supported in the base kit without fuss, and for whom actual support in a base kit is nowhere as expensive as it's made to be.
"Run an X-only kit and see how it does." is a disingenious argument that would be quickly shot down if X were, for example, "65%" instead of "ISO". So why is it considered valid here? As per "picking up the slack", please read the early posts in the thread about how many differing form factors are supported in a base kit, and note that this is generally considered in the best interests of the whole hobby (except for some people who still insist on treating ISO like the plague... for reasons that are, in the best case, obsolete).
And you don’t see people complain about separate 40% kits, do you?
“Run an ISO-only GMK set (not kit) to prove the user base size” is a great idea that nobody will do because it’s more work than just typing “ISO users are huge believe me. Huge!”.
One kit, out of... how many, back in January? The IC thread (https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=99079.0;all) does have several posts questioning the decision of going 40% only and even about which 40% layouts are or are not covered. It's even pointed out explicitly, using the same central argument about covering ISO in the base kit:
…
I mean, you're arguing for smaller boards but this doesn't actually cover any other staggered 40%, just the minivan. Expanding it to do so would be trivial and would expand the user base substantially.
The disingenous argument of running an "ISO only kit" to see "how it goes" is still disingenous — GMK Paperwork was one single GB, and did not take place within an attitude of "40% support is eeeeeevil!" from some people. And even if running an ISO kit were to be done, the simple factor of adding ANSI support (in the form of three keys at minimum: 2.25U R4 Shift, R4 2.25U Enter and R2 1.5U \| key) would expand the user base substantially.
Post by: HotRoderX on Mon, 05 August 2019, 00:31:02
i don't know how many times I can mention this, run a ISO only kit see how it does...
It's been stated FROM THE START that ISO is, indeed, currently a minority, yet nowhere as small as some make it to be, nowhere as small as some niche form factors that are supported in the base kit without fuss, and for whom actual support in a base kit is nowhere as expensive as it's made to be.
"Run an X-only kit and see how it does." is a disingenious argument that would be quickly shot down if X were, for example, "65%" instead of "ISO". So why is it considered valid here? As per "picking up the slack", please read the early posts in the thread about how many differing form factors are supported in a base kit, and note that this is generally considered in the best interests of the whole hobby (except for some people who still insist on treating ISO like the plague... for reasons that are, in the best case, obsolete).
Then you shouldn't have issue getting least 100 people willing to buy in. I mean thats 5th of what a normal set can reach, and a 10th of what some popular sets have hit. Anything else you have to say is invalid and just comes off as lazy. There is nothing that will change my opinion on that. I am typically a very open minded person but you are unwilling to prove me wrong. Instead you just want to throw up what ever to distract from the fact you most likely can't find 100 people willing to buy a ISO only set. In a community that supposedly got enough ISO users to support raising the cost for everyone.
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 05 August 2019, 00:38:00
i don't know how many times I can mention this, run a ISO only kit see how it does...
It's been stated FROM THE START that ISO is, indeed, currently a minority, yet nowhere as small as some make it to be, nowhere as small as some niche form factors that are supported in the base kit without fuss, and for whom actual support in a base kit is nowhere as expensive as it's made to be.
"Run an X-only kit and see how it does." is a disingenious argument that would be quickly shot down if X were, for example, "65%" instead of "ISO". So why is it considered valid here? As per "picking up the slack", please read the early posts in the thread about how many differing form factors are supported in a base kit, and note that this is generally considered in the best interests of the whole hobby (except for some people who still insist on treating ISO like the plague... for reasons that are, in the best case, obsolete).
Then you shouldn't have issue getting least 100 people willing to buy in.
Because the presence of the ISO Enter key is the only deciding factor? Nope.
If GMK HELLOKITTYHASBREAKFASTWITHBARBIE were to come in, with perfect US ISO support (plus an R2 Back Tab key, a second R1 Home key, and even a numpad with an R1 = key), I wouldn't buy it, because I don't like Hello Kitty and I don't like Barbie, either.
…
I am typically a very open minded person but you are unwilling to prove me wrong.
We're gonna have to agree to disagree on that.
Instead you just want to throw up what ever to distract from the fact you most likely can't find 100 people willing to buy a ISO only set. In a community that supposedly got enough ISO users to support raising the cost for everyone.
Disingineous argument still disingineous. Let's see you pulling the same in IC threads, asking the extra B for TGR Alice keyboards to be dropped.
Post by: nappis on Mon, 05 August 2019, 00:47:31
Then you shouldn't have issue getting least 100 people willing to buy in. I mean thats 5th of what a normal set can reach, and a 10th of what some popular sets have hit. Anything else you have to say is invalid and just comes off as lazy. There is nothing that will change my opinion on that. I am typically a very open minded person but you are unwilling to prove me wrong. Instead you just want to throw up what ever to distract from the fact you most likely can't find 100 people willing to buy a ISO only set. In a community that supposedly got enough ISO users to support raising the cost for everyone.
I'm sure you have never joined a group buy.
1) Do you know how group buys work? More people join and price goes lower. Either that or you get extra keys/novelties. Or price is set low for high MOQ.
You need lots of people to join for good prices. How you do that? Good compatibility.
2) Have seen what is currently in the base kits? Don't f*cking tell me you use every single key cap of the base kit and pay for them gladly.
Post by: lewisflude on Mon, 05 August 2019, 01:03:34
Then you shouldn't have issue getting least 100 people willing to buy in. I mean thats 5th of what a normal set can reach, and a 10th of what some popular sets have hit. Anything else you have to say is invalid and just comes off as lazy. There is nothing that will change my opinion on that. I am typically a very open minded person but you are unwilling to prove me wrong. Instead you just want to throw up what ever to distract from the fact you most likely can't find 100 people willing to buy a ISO only set. In a community that supposedly got enough ISO users to support raising the cost for everyone.
I'm sure you have never joined a group buy.
1) Do you know how group buys work? More people join and price goes lower. Either that or you get extra keys/novelties. Or price is set low for high MOQ.
You need lots of people to join for good prices. How you do that? Good compatibility.
2) Have seen what is currently in the base kits? Don't f*cking tell me you use every single key cap of the base kit and pay for them gladly.
I think what it comes down to is someone from North America might think "I might use 40% one day" so they don't care about those extra caps or "I guess some people don't like Tsangan, so I'm fine with having an extra spacebar" or "it's nice to get novelties in base kit so I can save some money" but at the same time they'd look at the ISO keys and say "I'll literally never use those keys". I think this is why ISO in particular is target, because it's a regional change as opposed to a preferential change.
A lot of people only look at this issue from their own US/China/Other ANSI using country-centric perspective and are willing to skew the numbers, gloss over the facts and refuse to listen because they feel they have nothing to gain and something to lose from including ISO support.
- UK-ISO support used to be common in base kits
- Sets began to be broken up, removing numpad, ISO and other keys and putting them in separate kits
- More and more price is assumed to be a defining factor in whether a keyset makes MOQ
- The idea is that splitting kits creates a bigger price drop than reaching a higher MOQ
- Most set designers were from ANSI-using communities, and made the base kit TKL ANSI-compatible out of the box
- As the broken up sets got shuffled around, sometimes caps were missing, or minorities became uncatered for
- Not having physical ISO support is an issue for a significant and growing portion of the community
- Not having access to correct legends is an issue for a significant and growing portion of the community
Like I said before, this issue isn't going away anytime soon. The non-US/China based mechanical keyboard community is here, it's growing and it certainly hasn't decided it wants ANSI to be the global standard.
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 05 August 2019, 04:57:39
I think what it comes down to is someone from North America might think …
Good outline. You've missed one factor, though.
Part of the resistance to ISO support from some ANSI users is that pretty often, "ISO support" is conflated with "UK ISO support", making for an heavier reason for this resistance (as it's "eight keys I'll never use" instead of "four keys I'll never use"). Even on some ICs right now (not naming names!), ISO support has been asked for, and the runner has added the keys for UK ISO (*), instead of US ISO or even physical ISO.
This is why I've been so insistent on talking explicitly about making the distinction between "US ISO" and "UK ISO" and why I've spelled out that the compromise should be to include the former in the base kit (after all, pretty much every single extant base kit is US ANSI, and that's an starting point no one even thinks of changing) and move the latter to an extra kit.
(*) Whether the "UK ISO" support has been done correctly or, as has happened plenty of times, it's been added partially (what I've taken to call Atlantis ISO).
Post by: lewisflude on Mon, 05 August 2019, 05:16:08
I think what it comes down to is someone from North America might think …
Good outline. You've missed one factor, though.
Part of the resistance to ISO support from some ANSI users is that pretty often, "ISO support" is conflated with "UK ISO support", making for an heavier reason for this resistance (as it's "eight keys I'll never use" instead of "four keys I'll never use"). Even on some ICs right now (not naming names!), ISO support has been asked for, and the runner has added the keys for UK ISO (*), instead of US ISO or even physical ISO.
This is why I've been so insistent on talking explicitly about making the distinction between "US ISO" and "UK ISO" and why I've spelled out that the compromise should be to include the former in the base kit (after all, pretty much every single extant base kit is US ANSI, and that's an starting point no one even thinks of changing) and move the latter to an extra kit.
(*) Whether the "UK ISO" support has been done correctly or, as has happened plenty of times, it's been added partially (what I've taken to call Atlantis ISO).
If we put ISO in the base kit, I expect physical ISO. Return, accented return, pipe, tilda, at, left split shift. So 6 caps at the bare minimum. Anything short of this isn’t acceptable IMO.
If we put ISO in it’s own kit, I expect the above, and UK-ISO in the event there isn’t a separate NorDeUk being run. It’s a compromise not having the NorDe in there, but I feel like being only 2 caps that have a much larger userbase than the Alice B for example, it’s a compromise that’s worth making.
For context, I think the latest 9009 R3 ISO kit is pretty great now! It’s actually 20 caps, and includes some other esoteric caps like stepped control and OSX bottom row caps.
Post by: depletedvespene on Mon, 05 August 2019, 07:14:25
If we put ISO in the base kit, I expect physical ISO. Return, accented return, pipe, tilda, at, left split shift. So 6 caps at the bare minimum. Anything short of this isn’t acceptable IMO.
I'm gonna have to mark my disagreement here. But first, let's make sure we're talking about the same thing.
If I understood correctly, "pipe, tilda, at" above refer to the keys R4 \|, R3 #~ and R3 '@. If so...
1) Mod-colored ISO Enter must absolutely be present. Accent-colored ISO Enter keys should also be present, in the same quantity as the accented ANSI Enter keys (same goes for numpad Enter, SUE Enter for ortho kits, etc.). But if the need is too pressing, keep just one ISO Enter key, which needs to be the mod-colored one.
In the case of GMK 9009 R3, the accented ISO Enter keys absolutely had to be present, because it's the accents what "make" the set — I'm glad the runners saw it this way too and corrected that omission.
2) As alphas go, you seem to have fallen into the "Atlantis ISO" error. R4 \| is common to UK ISO and US ISO, while R3 '@ and R3 #~ are only for UK ISO (taking the place of R3 '" and R3 \|, which are only for US ISO). The choice has to go one way or the other, but not fall into the "middle of the pond", which is the worst option of all.
I still favor making the base kits US ISO compatible, meaning the bare minimum of four keys (plus whichever accented Enter keys the designer decides to include, as long as that number is not -1 :)) ).
If we put ISO in it’s own kit, I expect the above, and UK-ISO in the event there isn’t a separate NorDeUk being run.
If all ISO support goes to a separate kit, then I think that UK+US ISO should be the no-brainer option (exactly one more key than simply UK ISO). But that's assuming the designer hasn't added an 1.25U Shift key to the base kit to support 40% keyboards, in which case ISO support (US ISO, specifically — three keys at this point) must totally, completely, inarguably be included in the base kit as well.
I'm not naming names here, but a particular popular recent GB did that: the base kit had no support for ISO, but did have a 1.25U Shift key, for 40% support; ISO was half-assedly done in a separate kit, where several glaring errors were easily found. The devil is in the details, they say... and there was a lot of "devil" in that keycap set. :'(
Post by: rxc92 on Mon, 05 August 2019, 14:21:43
Post by: tobiasvl on Mon, 05 August 2019, 15:19:57
Post by: lewisflude on Tue, 06 August 2019, 03:54:48
Is there a way to unfollow this thread so I can get away from the barrage of two circlejerkers doing their business?
Don't have anything to add to the discussion then?
Post by: Findecanor on Tue, 06 August 2019, 04:55:24
You can't possibly think that after realizing that China exists and dwarfs the entirety of the EUYou are incorrectly assuming that ANSI would be the standard in China.
There are lots of Chinese keyboards that have a vertical (ISO-style) Enter key but a long left Shift.
By not including a vertical Enter key and the key beside it in a kit, you are locking those Chinese keyboards out.
Post by: Surefoot on Tue, 06 August 2019, 06:46:21
2) As alphas go, you seem to have fallen into the "Atlantis ISO" error. R4 \| is common to UK ISO and US ISO, while R3 '@ and R3 #~ are only for UK ISO (taking the place of R3 '" and R3 \|, which are only for US ISO). The choice has to go one way or the other, but not fall into the "middle of the pond", which is the worst option of all.
My view is if the 2 and 3 are not present either, i am paying $200+ for a keyset where key legends are wrong. It's like saying to Colemark or 40% users "suck it and put the wrong legends you just touch type anyway" or "just get blank caps". If i were to get blank caps, i'd get one of those Chinese PBT sets and not bother with a very expensive, 6 month wait group buy... Which is the reason why there are so few ISO users here.
My view is ISO UK is the minimal set that provides no redundancy (like R1 2" and R3 '@ instead of R1 2@ and R3 '@...) and correct legends, along with native international support in any modern OS (through ALT or dead keys). Having the correct legends when i pay more than $200 is not an exotic demand.
Post by: rxc92 on Tue, 06 August 2019, 12:45:17
You can't possibly think that after realizing that China exists and dwarfs the entirety of the EUYou are incorrectly assuming that ANSI would be the standard in China.
There are lots of Chinese keyboards that have a vertical (ISO-style) Enter key but a long left Shift.
By not including a vertical Enter key and the key beside it in a kit, you are locking those Chinese keyboards out.
Is that so? In a couple years of living there, I have never seen a non-ANSI layout keyboard. Perhaps they exist in some special region.
Post by: depletedvespene on Tue, 06 August 2019, 12:54:54
You can't possibly think that after realizing that China exists and dwarfs the entirety of the EUYou are incorrectly assuming that ANSI would be the standard in China.
There are lots of Chinese keyboards that have a vertical (ISO-style) Enter key but a long left Shift.
By not including a vertical Enter key and the key beside it in a kit, you are locking those Chinese keyboards out.
Is that so? In a couple years of living there, I have never seen a non-ANSI layout keyboard. Perhaps they exist in some special region.
I won't say anything about keyboards IN China, BUT... where I live, the majority of the cheap-ass mechanical or pseudo-mechanical keyboards manufactured in China and sold here, are indeed of the ANSISO variety (even with the legends made to be the Spanish (Latin America) layout in most cases).
Post by: ideus on Tue, 06 August 2019, 17:12:51
What other type of KB should be in Chile? But the Spaniard one.You can't possibly think that after realizing that China exists and dwarfs the entirety of the EUYou are incorrectly assuming that ANSI would be the standard in China.
There are lots of Chinese keyboards that have a vertical (ISO-style) Enter key but a long left Shift.
By not including a vertical Enter key and the key beside it in a kit, you are locking those Chinese keyboards out.
Is that so? In a couple years of living there, I have never seen a non-ANSI layout keyboard. Perhaps they exist in some special region.
I won't say anything about keyboards IN China, BUT... where I live, the majority of the cheap-ass mechanical or pseudo-mechanical keyboards manufactured in China and sold here, are indeed of the ANSISO variety (even with the legends made to be the Spanish (Latin America) layout in most cases).
Post by: depletedvespene on Tue, 06 August 2019, 17:38:47
What other type of KB should be in Chile? But the Spaniard one.
Remember there are two layouts for Spanish: "Spanish (Spain)" and "Spanish (Latin America)", both designed for an ISO physical layout. In Chile, the official(*) layout is the latter, although the former is commonly seen as well.
That said, it's not difficult to find aftermarket cheap-ass keyboards that force any of the two Spanish layouts to an ISANSI or even a plain ANSI keyboard, often making absurd or outright idiotic changes in the process... and when it comes to Chinese mech-like keyboards, the ANSISO hybrids I mentioned earlier have become somewhat common, too.
(*) Official in this context very very probably means "Back in the '80s, someone at IBM decided so, and no one's ever questioned it.". Some other countries, like Brazil, do have an official definition from a state agency.
Post by: ideus on Tue, 06 August 2019, 19:08:03
I see. I use a Swedish layout that allows me to write in EN, SP and FR with no issues whatsoever. The layout even has three locations that you can repurposed if you do not need the grave accented characters often.What other type of KB should be in Chile? But the Spaniard one.
Remember there are two layouts for Spanish: "Spanish (Spain)" and "Spanish (Latin America)", both designed for an ISO physical layout. In Chile, the official(*) layout is the latter, although the former is commonly seen as well.
That said, it's not difficult to find aftermarket cheap-ass keyboards that force any of the two Spanish layouts to an ISANSI or even a plain ANSI keyboard, often making absurd or outright idiotic changes in the process... and when it comes to Chinese mech-like keyboards, the ANSISO hybrids I mentioned earlier have become somewhat common, too.
(*) Official in this context very very probably means "Back in the '80s, someone at IBM decided so, and no one's ever questioned it.". Some other countries, like Brazil, do have an official definition from a state agency.
(https://i.imgur.com/kTcJKUE.jpg)
Post by: Puddsy on Tue, 06 August 2019, 19:43:59
so the percentage of people it saves more people money is vastly larger than the percentage it solves problems for
basically just learn to use ANSI you giant nerds
Post by: lewisflude on Wed, 07 August 2019, 01:16:35
the data says nobody buys it when it's available
so the percentage of people it saves more people money is vastly larger than the percentage it solves problems for
basically just learn to use ANSI you giant nerds
I've seen this point before and I do get it. In a world with so much competition and so little margin, optimising sets really does matter in order to gain enough popularity to meet MOQ. You say vastly, but the split we tend to see in high end kits is about 80% ANSI users and 20% ISO users, so there's no doubt the custom end of the hobby skews American but there is a significant community outside of the US+China.
What we're talking about here is a 3-4% increase in costs (assuming $5 for adding physical ISO support in a base kit costing $130) in order to enable 20% of the community. In addition to that, about 8-12% of users typically buy NorDeUk kit, clearly showing there's a minority of users who want the option to have legends that are regionally correct.
For many outside the US/China ISO is "the standard" and the custom side of the hobby includes a lot more ISO boards than someone from an ANSI-using country might expect. Not only that, but there's a significant population of people on non-custom mechanical keyboards looking to get into the hobby.
As this hobby grows, if the overall "pie" is getting bigger we should support ISO as the 20% of people using ISO will want those keys in order to get physical compatibility. ANSI isn't the global standard for keyboard layouts, we have two. The one from the American National Standards Institute and the one from the International Standards Organisation and both get about 50/50 usage in the "real world".
At the end of the day, they might just seem like different shapes for keys, but for a lot of people these shapes are fundamental to what a keyboard is.
Post by: fleeceman on Wed, 07 August 2019, 02:28:35
the data says nobody buys it when it's availableWould expect nothing less from you Pudgy.
so the percentage of people it saves more people money is vastly larger than the percentage it solves problems for
basically just learn to use ANSI you giant nerds
Sent from my Pixel 3a XL using Tapatalk
Post by: depletedvespene on Wed, 07 August 2019, 05:42:13
…
ANSI isn't the global standard for keyboard layouts, we have two. The one from the American National Standards Institute and the one from the International Standards Organisation and both get about 50/50 usage in the "real world".
Fun fact: the "ANSI" and "ISO" terms are, strictly speaking, misnomers. Both shapes for the Enter key originated in American keyboards and were encoded and fixed into the current standard shapes by IBM itself in the Enhanced layout. Both Enter keys are American (and so is the BAE "Big Ass/Asian Enter" Enter key, which was not just standardized but actually created by IBM as well, in the F AT keyboard).
Before the Enhanced layout became commonplace, many differing physical layouts and shapes for the Enter key existed, and the most common layout by far was the "DEC terminal" one, as seen in its keyboards (and off-brand units), which had what we know call a "thin ISO" Enter key.
So, if you want to "Buy American!" or something, be clear that both main possibilities competing today came from there. :thumb:
Post by: Surefoot on Wed, 07 August 2019, 06:14:41
Post by: jonowarren94 on Wed, 07 August 2019, 14:49:58
the data says nobody buys it when it's available
so the percentage of people it saves more people money is vastly larger than the percentage it solves problems for
basically just learn to use ANSI you giant nerds
Pudgy... The data is flawed. Look at a set that offered reasonably priced ISO kits eg xda canvas and compare that to the hhkb kit (Hobbyist) keys that are often included in base kits, and (probably) about the same cost. Both have similar number of kits sold and I have seen a vocal minority cry out when ISO is included in the base because they won't ever use it, well look at the data its used as much as hhkb layout and yet I for one am happy to pay for that compatibility despite knowing I will never use it myself.
Post by: ideus on Wed, 07 August 2019, 15:07:01
the data says nobody buys it when it's availableYou are totally right my dear. But let us be as stubborn as we can, even if the means that we should live with only three set forever.
so the percentage of people it saves more people money is vastly larger than the percentage it solves problems for
basically just learn to use ANSI you giant nerds
Post by: nguyenhimself on Thu, 22 August 2019, 10:46:11
(https://massdrop-s3.imgix.net/img_comment/38LTWJkRwagEdNk4312s_MT3serika2status1908211556.PNG?auto=format&fm=jpg&fit=max&w=796&h=425&dpr=2&q=35)
Post by: lewisflude on Thu, 22 August 2019, 10:52:15
>inb4 it’s a niche ugly set like JamonShow Image(https://massdrop-s3.imgix.net/img_comment/38LTWJkRwagEdNk4312s_MT3serika2status1908211556.PNG?auto=format&fm=jpg&fit=max&w=796&h=425&dpr=2&q=35)
It's a niche ugly set like Jamon
Post by: nguyenhimself on Thu, 22 August 2019, 11:01:52
Weird how all the other kits, even the 40 & the Mac, have no problem hitting MOQ huh?>inb4 it’s a niche ugly set like JamonShow Image(https://massdrop-s3.imgix.net/img_comment/38LTWJkRwagEdNk4312s_MT3serika2status1908211556.PNG?auto=format&fm=jpg&fit=max&w=796&h=425&dpr=2&q=35)
It's a niche ugly set like Jamon
Post by: Surefoot on Thu, 22 August 2019, 11:39:24
Post by: lewisflude on Thu, 22 August 2019, 11:41:04
For this particular GB, when pressing other europeans about it, they answered they didnt buy anything from MassDrop due to the US shipping and additional EU customs... Makes me sad, i like this set.
Can confirm this was the case in the UK community. We essentially pay 22%+ over what Americans pay because Drop mark German-made GMK products as "made in America".
Post by: tobiasvl on Thu, 22 August 2019, 11:47:48
But yeah, no arguing those numbers are very bad
Post by: tobiasvl on Fri, 23 August 2019, 03:32:57
Post by: HotRoderX on Fri, 23 August 2019, 03:36:20
Ooooh. Looks like Drop is experimenting with establishing an EU proxy right now actually: https://drop.com/buy/massdrop-x-sennheiser-pc37x-gaming-headset-eu#overview
There not experimenting its a thing they been working on and are gradually getting the kinks out of. I wouldn't call it a proxy. As the items that are sold EU specific do cost more as the cost of importing/Vat Etc are rolled into the price. I think the biggest advantage for EU customers is the fact instead of taking 2-4 weeks to get a item they get it in like a week. Also no extra hassle with Imports and what not.
Post by: lewisflude on Fri, 23 August 2019, 03:38:06
Ooooh. Looks like Drop is experimenting with establishing an EU proxy right now actually: https://drop.com/buy/massdrop-x-sennheiser-pc37x-gaming-headset-eu#overview
There not experimenting its a thing they been working on and are gradually getting the kinks out of. I wouldn't call it a proxy. As the items that are sold EU specific do cost more as the cost of importing/Vat Etc are rolled into the price. I think the biggest advantage for EU customers is the fact instead of taking 2-4 weeks to get a item they get it in like a week. Also no extra hassle with Imports and what not.
Oh yes, I did hear about this. It's really exciting. If they can keep GMK products out of US, then I think Europeans will be much more likely to buy into sets running on Drop.
Post by: HoffmanMyster on Fri, 23 August 2019, 15:02:39
Ooooh. Looks like Drop is experimenting with establishing an EU proxy right now actually: https://drop.com/buy/massdrop-x-sennheiser-pc37x-gaming-headset-eu#overview
There not experimenting its a thing they been working on and are gradually getting the kinks out of. I wouldn't call it a proxy. As the items that are sold EU specific do cost more as the cost of importing/Vat Etc are rolled into the price. I think the biggest advantage for EU customers is the fact instead of taking 2-4 weeks to get a item they get it in like a week. Also no extra hassle with Imports and what not.
Oh yes, I did hear about this. It's really exciting. If they can keep GMK products out of US, then I think Europeans will be much more likely to buy into sets running on Drop.
Any idea if you all will be able to avoid additional taxes and fees since the caps are produced in Germany anyway? Avoiding shipping and delays is of course a great benefit, but I noticed that all of the Sennheiser products, for example, cost more in the EU despite being a German company with at least some portion of manufacturing taking place in Germany. I would have expected our EU brethren to benefit a bit more from this... is the main appeal just the shipment time, or maybe I'm missing something?
Post by: HotRoderX on Fri, 23 August 2019, 15:19:03
Ooooh. Looks like Drop is experimenting with establishing an EU proxy right now actually: https://drop.com/buy/massdrop-x-sennheiser-pc37x-gaming-headset-eu#overview
There not experimenting its a thing they been working on and are gradually getting the kinks out of. I wouldn't call it a proxy. As the items that are sold EU specific do cost more as the cost of importing/Vat Etc are rolled into the price. I think the biggest advantage for EU customers is the fact instead of taking 2-4 weeks to get a item they get it in like a week. Also no extra hassle with Imports and what not.
Oh yes, I did hear about this. It's really exciting. If they can keep GMK products out of US, then I think Europeans will be much more likely to buy into sets running on Drop.
Any idea if you all will be able to avoid additional taxes and fees since the caps are produced in Germany anyway? Avoiding shipping and delays is of course a great benefit, but I noticed that all of the Sennheiser products, for example, cost more in the EU despite being a German company with at least some portion of manufacturing taking place in Germany. I would have expected our EU brethren to benefit a bit more from this... is the main appeal just the shipment time, or maybe I'm missing something?
Massdrop Touched on why the Sennheisers are more expensive in the EU. They have a contract setup that they don't get the products directly from Sennheisers European office. Instead the products are gotten from Sennheiser USA which is a division of Sennheiser. They are manufactured in Europe but then sold thought American division, thus they have to be brought to America first then imported back to Europe.
Post by: HoffmanMyster on Mon, 26 August 2019, 10:32:23
Any idea if you all will be able to avoid additional taxes and fees since the caps are produced in Germany anyway? Avoiding shipping and delays is of course a great benefit, but I noticed that all of the Sennheiser products, for example, cost more in the EU despite being a German company with at least some portion of manufacturing taking place in Germany. I would have expected our EU brethren to benefit a bit more from this... is the main appeal just the shipment time, or maybe I'm missing something?
Massdrop Touched on why the Sennheisers are more expensive in the EU. They have a contract setup that they don't get the products directly from Sennheisers European office. Instead the products are gotten from Sennheiser USA which is a division of Sennheiser. They are manufactured in Europe but then sold thought American division, thus they have to be brought to America first then imported back to Europe.
Huh, thanks for the info. That's certainly an interesting situation, but does make sense. Hopefully once the Drop EU system matures a bit they can streamline the logistics to make things a bit more efficient/affordable.