are the internals of costar tenkeyless boards the same?

[HapticBovinator]

Hey all.

I picked up a g80-3000 series cherry board a while back, and love it, but im looking for something portable (but full size keys and normal ansi layout). Cherry has such a board but it is 167.

I'm a mac user, and noticed the cooler master storm quickfire rapid tenkeyless board i tried worked, but had to be unplugged and reinserted after a reboot. That is unacceptable for me.

Now ncix is carrying filcos in canada, and im interested in trying e.g. the #:FKBN87M/EB2, thats majestouch 2 black ninja with mx browns. However i called and they wont get any filcos in store in canada yet, so i have to make a web order.

What i want to know is how likely is the folco to behave the same on my mbp if they are both made by costar.

Any takers?

[HapticBovinator]

To clarify im just wondering how likely it is the boards' internals are the same.

[mkawa]

they're not physically the same, and i never saw that behavior with my mbp when i had a filco MJ1. honestly, i would implicate the cable before i implicated the keyboard in your situation though. there's nothing particularly special about the QFR firmware that would make it not register in macos on boot.

[HapticBovinator]

they're not physically the same, and i never saw that behavior with my mbp when i had a filco MJ1. honestly, i would implicate the cable before i implicated the keyboard in your situation though. there's nothing particularly special about the QFR firmware that would make it not register in macos on boot.

Hmm, ok then; it seems it may be worth a try. I am glad a Canadian retailer is finally stocking Filco boards and I would love to support NCIX for doing so, but I'm going to Seoul some time around Christmas and I think I might find a better selection there among the gaming elite than here in the Great White North :-)

(So far NCIX has no store stock, and apparently won't be stocking white nor otaku Filco's for the time being. I would love a white otaku tkl.)

[laffindude]

What i want to know is how likely is the folco to behave the same on my mbp if they are both made by costar.

The firmware behaves almost exactly the same. Problem is OSX.

[HapticBovinator]

The firmware behaves almost exactly the same. Problem is OSX.

That may be so. Indeed, the problem is often software (or device software, aka "firmware.") But some such problems can be that vendors design and build products according to popular implementation (e.g. Windows USB drivers) rather than specification. For some types of hardware it can get really dicey, like SD cards. An electrical engineer I know was troubleshooting cards and told me in horror of the number of manufacturers that produce cards with characteristics which put the cards outside the SD specs. Its too bad; it means questions such as, "Will card X work with camera Y from manufacturer Z?" really are necessary.

In any case, I am currently weighing the potential risk of having to return a Filco and paying a restocking fee, as well as losing time, against the chances I'll be unhappy with a white tenkeyless others such as iMav have confirmed work with OS X (the PLU-87).

Looks and build quality are quite important to me, but if I had to choose, I'd rather have a keyboard that worked in the pre boot EFI firmware environment than NKRO. Still, I guess I'd rather have better build quality even if it didn't work in the EFI firmware environment.

Maybe its time to try the Filco...

[HapticBovinator]

Breaking news...

Ncix mississauga has a majestouch 2 out for demo. I brought in the macbook pro, and the filco worked in the efi pre boot environment, in the os, and after reboot without reinsertion. Maybe the cm storm qf rapid i tried before was defective, or the model is simply not compatible. Either way, the filco worked fine.

Black filco majestouch 2 ninja tkl with Browns ORDERED AND ON THE WAY!