Hey guys. First time poster. I'll start off by saying WOW, this is an awesome community with a wealth of information.
I've been looking to replace my existing Apple keyboard with something mechanical. It's the thin aluminum wired model that came with my Mac Pro tower. It's not a horrible board (good for a pack-in one, I suppose) but it's far from ideal. My last experience with a mechanical board was the old Apple Extended II. I LOVED that keyboard, but it was sold off with an old PowerMac many years ago.
With that being my point of reference, I embarked on my exhaustive search to find the ideal mechanical board with proper Mac legends. The closest that seems to exist in this arena is the Matias Tactile Pro 3. It's a great board in many regards, but its Alps switches are a bit too noisy for my tastes (they're considerably louder than I remember the Extended II ever being). It also appears that Das is also going to start shipping a Mac version of their Professional S next month, but it will only be available with MX Blue switches. It looks like Razer started producing Mac versions of the Blackwidow boards as well, but again, MX Blues (and their products are too gaudy for my tastes anyway). So far, I'm pretty convinced that I want something with MX Browns.
The only easily attainable Mac board available with MX Browns appears to be the DSI Modular, but it's tenkeyless and I really want a num pad without buying a separate accessory. Also, I'm not a huge fan of the function keys being laid out on the sides. I feel like I'd accidentally hit them a lot.
So, I eventually stumbled onto WASD Keyboards, thanks to
this post by
iindigo. I played around with their keyboard customizer and I must say this is one of the coolest ideas I've ever seen to come out of a keyboard company: simple, functional design and high-quality custom construction. Really, the only thing missing in my mind is a USB 2.0 hub, which would hopefully be offered in a newer board revision. But it's not a total deal breaker.
The whole novelty behind buying a WASD is certainly the custom engraving options, so I figured why not? I downloaded the 104-key US template from the WASD website and popped it into Illustrator. I laid out the legends as sort of hybrid between the old Apple Extended II and a modern Apple keyboard. The legends use the Arial font in
italics (looks pretty close to the Extended II, not perfect though) and modern Apple multimedia functions are present. A PDF of my layout
here.
Unfortunately, WASD is out of many of the parts to make this keyboard a reality until late April (MX Brown switches and the black keycaps I want for the alpha keys).
I guess I was seeking perhaps other WASD owners that happened to be Mac users who could share their overall experiences with their boards. Sorry in advance for the long-winded post!
