If the concern is actually getting closer to a true Honeywell, I would recommend; stop ****ing around and commit to colour matching to an actual keyboard, rather than a previous SA run with who knows which of the keys will actually match. If they ever did at all. As shown in your example pictures, most Honeywell terminal boards aren't using the same white across alphas and modifier legends - It is quite noticeable on the real thing.
Lastly, slashing the numpad seems like a half baked idea considering MTNU WoB numpads are only a feature in full base kits - which are incidently out of stock at most vendors, GMK themselves included.
The point wasn't to color-match to a previous SA run at all. I was simply explaining, with sources, why whoever designed the SA run (which used stock SP colors) made color choices that were closer to the actual Honeywell keyboard than whoever designed the previous GMK runs.
I highly doubt the white is actually different, it's most likely just a matter of lighting and/or yellowing. Imagine color-matching the LEGENDS of a 40 to 50 year-old keyboard. Unless you have a pristine unit, the color matching is inevitably going to be off.
The fact that MTNU WoB Base Kits are currently out of stock means that hundreds, if not thousands, of units are already in the hands of what I'd guess is at least 80% of the people buying $100+ plastic. And I'm sure they'll eventually be restocked. If you don't own an MTNU WoB set, it's highly unlikely you're much of an MTNU fan to begin with.
I'm not opposed to offering a separate Numpad Kit, though. The problem is that we already know it wouldn't reach MOQ on its own and would most likely have to be saved by vendors. I see people asking for numpads all the time, but the reality is that sales data consistently shows most buyers simply don't care for it.
Colourmatching to existing Honeywell terminal boards is decently feasible, the keys are overall _very_ UV-stable. Below is a pristine unit, showing the off-white legends. And a yellowed unit for comparison. Does this account for all units? No. As for the rest of your comment, yes the source matters.
Cost cutting your set to the bone to tell someone to buy a product 1.5x the price is a bad sell - You should absolutely consider offering a numpad.
>$99 base kit
>look inside
>ANSI TKL
The problem with most people is that, as we say in Italy, they want to have the full barrel and a drunk wife.
A $99 TKL Base Kit has too little compatibility, while a $135–150 'Grand' Base Kit is often considered too expensive. What exactly do you expect?
All of this while also having little to no understanding of MOQ tiers. When you occasionally see a set with slightly broader kitting than usual while also being a bit cheaper than average, it's generally because the starting MOQ used for pricing is higher than what most sets begin with.
The problem with most designers, as we say here in Denmark, is that they're full of ****.
You can absolutely subsidise a kit completely into oblivion, where actually having meaningful support ends up being more costly compared to a standard base kit, chasing away customers. Turning your argument of MOQ tiers upside down, actually doing streamlined support in the base kit with physical support and then moving specialised kits into as few extension kits as possible is absolutely the way to go for any base kit to be successful.
99 USD for this base kit is not a good deal, and for any ISO user this is an atrocious deal. Not only is the base kit not 99 USD for them - It's going to be substantially more expensive and still yield them 0 accents. ISO support
is key physical support, it should not be subsidised. Your extension kit is forcing Alice-users to pay for HHKB-support, HHKB-users to pay for ISO support, and the ISO-users skipping this buy, because why the **** should they pay for HHKB and Alice-support when they only get barebones support out of it.
Your current kitting is bad, but it's not like the whole thing is salvageable. Here's what I would expect from a decent base kit:
Put ISO back into the base, and if you want accents, add ISO accent.
Add alpha tilde and pipe to the base.
Do a proper extension kit and keep the rest there, and add the rest of the split bars.
Move F13, heck I'd discuss moving the "MTNU R2 Up"-meme from the base there as well, and you can consider adding decent 40s support to that to bring in more people to buy your base kit.
If you're committed to splitting the numpad, omit R1 End and Pg Dn and save those for a numpad kit, where you can do split 0 and Equal sign. With adequate accents. But again, there's strength in numbers, and
If you can't do that base kit for 99 USD at that point, what's the ****ing point of splitting the numpad in the first place then.
