Well, maybe you guys are right. It just seemed to me that since:
- There's such an Alps Blue mania in KB communities around the world, with people paying over $200 for otherwise pretty pedestrian '90s boards containing them; and
- Companies have come out with all kinds of new switches over the last few years—apparently having the resources, whatever they are, to design and make totally new switches (which I presume sell sufficiently, even the most pedestrian types)
...that it seemed someone might be at least
interested in reproducing a switch that's taken on a kind of divine reputation, and that people are scouring the planet trying to find.
I mean, really, if it was done right, who among us—not just the particularly Alps-appreciating guys, but
anyone interested in MKs—wouldn't be intrigued enough to buy a sub-$100 board with New Alps Blues? I mean, people spend twice as much as that for a set of keys (or even
one key!).
I don't know about switch manufacturing. But what I know about manufacturing in general is, the more resources you have in place, the more cheaply and easily you can R&D. For example, a company like Kaihua, which has just come out with all these new Kailh switches—why should they now keep their R&D guys sitting around waiting for the next idea?
And how about someone like XMIT? He worked with a Chinese company to design a new, modern Hall Effect switch from the ground up, and had
not one but two iterations of keyboards produced and sold with them. He just had a cool idea: to make one of the best switch technologies ever, available again. And he made it happen, and he's just
one guy. (Well, he's an MIT-educated engineer, but still.)
Maybe all this would take is some vision and courage. I know what it
doesn't take: sitting around thinking up reasons it'd be too hard. Funny how that works, isn't it?
They're just switches, right?
I'm not gonna say I know everything that goes on in developing a switch but I think you're undermining the efforts that go into it.
Sorry, you think
I'm undermining the idea? But I started the discussion. Are you sure you know what "undermine" means?:
undermine (n.) to remove the foundation or support of subtly or by underhand means; subvert or weaken insidiously or secretly <"the way a writer handles the social situation either supports or undermines it"–Peter Crowcroft> <"selling below cost to undermine competition"–Time>