And who is M'er Forever? M'er == M'kawa & wcass???
M Forever is a single entity with a passion for Model Ms.
He has his own project going to resurrect the SSK that has nothing to do with Mkawa or Unicomp.
The question that nobody can answer is where the market really is. While we watch singles (dozens over the course of years) of SSKs selling on ebay for very high prices, the tooling and manufacturing costs literally require the sale of thousands to justify production.
My guess is that while there are some dozens or hundreds of people who desperately want an SSK and are willing to pay top dollar, but are there thousands? I don't know, and neither does anyone else, even at a <$200 or even <$100 price point.
Obviously things like different colors, native USB, and Windows keys would broaden the market, but would it be enough?
I doubt anyone would have known that the model M would be such a dominant force back in its heyday. But it is now of historical record that the model m has withstood the test of time better than most if not all of its contemporaries and even today's pretenders.
Thus, it is precisely now, in this climate, that Unicomp must signal its intentions. We are just at the cusp of a whole slew of backlit tenkeyless mechanical keyboards coming forth. But they are too exorbitantly priced to be as ubiquitous as the model m was in its day – which was very expensive in the late 80s-90s, but so too were the computers it came bundled with.
So if the SSK is to be a player today, it must position itself as the successor of the venerable model m that offers all of the benefits of what the bulk of people want now (ie. Backlit, tkl, nkro) with the promise that its longevity and hence value over time are assured.
Never before have humans in total been so desk bound and with the rise of RSI the benefits of mechanical keyboards is as relevant as it ever will be.
Before long, and if an SSK is on the market, people will JUMP at the opportunity to find a single solution without the necessity to trial the various flavours of cherry mx as the buckling spring undeniably offers a superior typing experience. Cherry has to their own detriment not come up with one perfect switch. Unicomp on the other hand is sitting on a gold mine.
So the question is price, namely $250. Enthusiasts will happily fork out far more for topre and double for customs that feature the same old cherry mx in the same old variations.
Gamers are young but certainly not stupid and are becoming more and more educated. They will be happy with something classy that does whatever the K90s could do but be guaranteed they could still use it in perfect nick when they mature.
I can really see that this whole thing could turn full circle and the buckling spring, fashioned after the SSK but feeling more like a Model F, will again be the go to board even in the corporate world where the really big bucks will be. Perhaps Dell or even IBM may be interested?
