On the availability of ISO in GB

[HotRoderX]

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.

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 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.

[lewisflude]

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.

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 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.

[Surefoot]

I'll give a bit of perspective on the polls and numbers given in this thread. I work in IT and as a contractor have been in quite a few places, here and in quite a few countries. I know of the mech keyboards enthusiasts in most of these workplaces, and absolutely all of them are using ISO keyboards (OEM mechs). Very few of them have heard of custom keebs, and NONE of them know about Geekhack. The polls done here were biased by the local forum population which is in the vast majority, US-centric. Turns out that in Asia most of them have their own online communities (China comes to mind for this, but Korea too), in Europe almost everyone have their own language communities as well..
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...

[HotRoderX]

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.

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 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.

[lewisflude]

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.

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 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.

[depletedvespene]

……
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.

[Poesjuh]

And yet, some people arguing here expect ISO users to pay $60 for a full Nordeuk kit (speak with your wallet right?) but get angry paying $5 more to include physical iso... so it’s ok to ask to pay $60 but hell no that you’re paying $5 extra yourself. Sounds hypocrite to me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[typischt]

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)

[lewisflude]

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.

[Poesjuh]

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.

[typischt]

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.

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).

[depletedvespene]

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.

[Surefoot]

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..

[Acereconkeys]

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.

[lewisflude]

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.

What are “123 UK legends”?

[Signature]

what if you... put ISO ... in the GB .. aha ha, just kidding.. unless..?

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.

What are “123 UK legends”?

Special legends for the keys ¬ 2 and 3 in UK ISO.

UK-ISO:


ANSI:

[HotRoderX]

I love how everyone arguing with me glosses over my biggest point of all. The bottom line is still, if you don't like whats in the current keysets run your own. Simple as that.. heck if you run your own exclude Ansi completely. Have the base kit only include ISO make ansi a 60 dollar add-on. See how the kit does..

[spyruf]

All ISO users should adopt GMK dots.

[Gampela]

I can't imagine myself ever spending +100€ for a keyset that doesn't give me something like 98% matching legends, that seems crazy to me. In that sense I wouldn't mind if the ISO enter and short left shift were put into the Nordeuk kit.

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.

[rxc92]

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.

[tobiasvl]

I'll gladly pay, and have repeatedly paid, lots of money for full NorDeUK support when it's offered as a kit. For me it'd be fine to have all ISO keys in a separate kit. However, it's not certain it'll reach MOQ, as unfortunate as it is. I put my money where my mouth is but we're not enough people. We also probably won't be more people unless NorDeUK legends are easier to get, so in that sense it's a catch-22. Which is unfortunate, since the ISO keyboard market is obviously huge and untapped.

[Poesjuh]

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

[Acereconkeys]

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.

[tobiasvl]

Possible sarcasm aside, that's a thought, actually. Now that GBs have started having lots of child kits, a sensible thing to do would be to always have an actual base kit that's an actual base for other layouts, and expand it with child keys for anything beyond that. It'd probably be logical for that standard base kit to be ANSI 60%. I wonder how many F row child sets would reach MOQ. The trend nowadays does seem to be going smaller, after all.

[depletedvespene]

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.

[HotRoderX]

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.

[depletedvespene]

…
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?

[HotRoderX]

…
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.

[rxc92]

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.

[depletedvespene]

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)

[fr08]

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.

[lewisflude]

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.

[Acereconkeys]

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).

[Surefoot]

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 standard

No 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.

[Surefoot]

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.

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.
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.

[HotRoderX]

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.

[lewisflude]

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.

[depletedvespene]

…
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.

[Poesjuh]

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.

[Acereconkeys]

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.

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.
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.

[rxc92]

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.

[lewisflude]

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.

[nguyenhimself]

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.

[depletedvespene]

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...

[depletedvespene]

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).

[nguyenhimself]

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).

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.
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.

[depletedvespene]

…
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).

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.
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.

[nguyenhimself]

…
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).

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.
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.

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.

[depletedvespene]

…
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?

[lewisflude]

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).

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.
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.