[IC] DCS SMRT (formerly SA SMRT) - Possible Presale November 2024

Piperaceae · June 19, 2024, 6:24pm

This is a project I’ve been working on for a while now, SA SMRT. It’s a tribute to, and updating of, classic Wyse terminal keyboards of the early 90’s. Designed to be mix-and-match, you can rock the traditional navy-on-grey colorway, or go bold with navy blue ASCII alphas, and a yellow monolegend alert-style number row.

I’ve seen Wyse reproduced in DCS and Cherry profiles, but never in SA, and never with this degree of layout coverage, or with alternate alphas and accents offered.

SMRT is my second design; my first SA set is currently in production for an in-stock sale later this year. So I do have some design experience, though this is definitely more elaborate than my previous effort.

The colors are stock SP resins matched to the Wyse colorway (GSX light grey, GTD dark grey, BBI navy blue, and YY yellow). I believe all the legends used are extant molds, with no new ones required. Mod legends are drawn from various Wyse boards from their heyday; it’s not based on any one Wyse board.

Kitting
UK ISO is baked-into the alphas and mods. This is probably the one thing I’m unwilling to change, because I use it on most of my boards, and I don’t want to go the route of a hyper-expensive international kit, or a UK minikit that’s either sold out too soon, or left orphaned.

Grey alphas, and “Thin Client” ASCII navy alphas

Modifiers

Accents/“Yellow Alert” Monolegends, and Number Pad

Spacebars, and 40’s/Ortho

Vendors
TBD

Pricing
TBD, but probably a lot

Renders

As for the name, it’s both a play on Wyse (wise), and a Simpsons reference. I felt it appropriate due to the 90’s timeframe, and all the yellow.

I’m looking for feedback, but I don’t think I’m ready to throw this to the Geekhack wolves just yet since I don’t have any vendors lined up at this stage, and that will be their first complaint. I don’t see a ton of other keycap IC’s here, so I’m hoping this is okay.

CHANGELOG:
6/20/24: Changed Tab and Shift legends in Modifiers kit to text
6/20/24: Added Alice B for the Thin Client alphas to the spacebars kit
6/20/24: Created alternate Modifiers kit with 3-key 40s support, if 40s kit needs to be dropped
6/20/24: Replaced duplicate 1.25 R3 Func modifier with a 1.25 R3 Compose modifier
6/23/24: Fixed incorrectly labeled 1.5u R2 Backspace mod (was labeled as 1.25u)
6/23/24: Fixed 3-key support in Mod kit (Switched 1.75u R3 Enter for 1.25u R3 Tab)
6/30/24: Numerous kitting fixes to the SA and DCS versions for legend consistency. Fixed redundant or unmatched PgUp/PgDn keys. Moved mod Tilde and Pipe Slash to Alt Mods kit. Fixed key R3/R4 assignments in DCS 40s kit introduced when it was copied from the SA version.

Deadeye · June 19, 2024, 7:48pm

Seems like a solid idea to me - I think I’d do exactly the same in those shoes. This is a pretty easy-going and friendly forum that tends to be more concerned with being helpful than anything else, so I think you came to the right place.

I’m not much of an SA guy myself, but I love the mix-and-match nature of the color options. For me, this always adds to the value of a set - the more keyboards (and moods) and individual set and its kits can cover, the happier I am to buy it.

Aesthetically, I’m quite fond of the first middle and second bottom combinations, with the second top being a close runner-up. Love that yellow stripe, and I love navy + grey.

Adjacent; also love that Amiga ball icon ya got.

HungerMechanic · June 19, 2024, 8:29pm

This is cool, but looks pricey. I’d say maybe take it to Domikey, but of course then you don’t get the authentic Signature Plastics, which is the manufacturer (sort of) of WYSE.

I think there’s still a lot of people who would like to purchase this in DCS!

EDIT: If going the clone manufacturer route, hypothetically, the AF SA / MG manufacturers could certainly deliver something to a budget. But then you won’t get those creamy SP SA keys.

Piperaceae · June 19, 2024, 8:34pm

Thank you! I’m wondering about adding an extra Tab key to the alpha kits, so that someone could potentially buy one mod kit and both alphas, and cover two boards of differing layouts. I feel like I’ve seen that trick before, but can’t find any examples right now.

Piperaceae · June 19, 2024, 8:53pm

Yeah, it’s definitely going to be expensive, but I would want it to be authentic SP. Both because I know that their workers are being paid and treated well, and because I’ve worked with them on my previous design, and everything has gone smoothly.

That said, I don’t think the mod kit is too unwieldy compared to others I’ve seen in recent years; it’s basically the same as Metaverse and Maestro, with UK ISO rolled in. The 40s kit is identical to SP’s own Standard BoW/WoB sets they’re selling now. So people are willing to buy bigger sets. I’d be shocked though if someone felt compelled to grab one of each kit offered. I’m fully prepared for the 40s/Ortho one not to hit a MOQ, and part of my rolling ISO into the alphas and mods was to shield it from being another potentially cut kit.

I don’t know if I’d be interested in doing it in a different profile. I found a bunch of past interest checks on DCS versions that didn’t seem to pan out, or happened over a decade ago. I pretty much exclusively type on SA, so I’m not as familiar with other profiles, or how they’re typically kitted out.

Deadeye · June 19, 2024, 9:16pm

I definitely like that idea - if one key is all that separates covering a whole extra board of some kind, I’d happily pay a little more for a kit (or all-in collection).

I don’t have any sets exactly like that myself, but two kind of similar situations, IIRC:

DCS Paperwork (all-in): in this case it was down to one key and I could populate two of my boards with the dark and light versions respectively - I didn’t have it in the kit, but the absolute legend queen of customer support at SP sent me the key I needed for peanuts. Very happy Deadeye. Only way I’d have been happier is if the key was already included.
GMK Prepress (all-in): in this case I was “short” more or less a whole set of mods (if I wanted color consistency), but that actually worked out fine as I paired the more colorful alphas kit with a generic WoB mod set and it came out looking great - now I have two boards with one of my favorite sets on it.

Piperaceae · June 19, 2024, 9:21pm

It is more than one key, alas. I realized SA Carbon did it with a Tab in its extras kit, and so I checked its kitting out.

T0mb3ry got away with it in Carbon because there were accent Esc and Return keys in the mods kit, in addition to the mod-colored ones. So I’d need to add those in as well. I’m not sure if the already large mods kit need any more keys than it already has, but it’s something to think about. I guess it depends whether the potential sales boost would outweigh the cost increase.

It would only work in very specific cases, like if one board had an ANSI bottom row and the other was Tsangan; one had stepped caps and one didn’t, etc. I wonder if the enthusiasts this is primarily aimed at keep multiple boards with different layouts, or if they pick one they like best, and build all of them the same way?

smshark · June 20, 2024, 4:59am

I love the WYSE colorway and am very interested in this set; however, I do think some pieces should be considered further.

Would you consider deviating from mixed icon and text legends? My personal favorite wyse boards have texticon or text-only mods (excl. arrows which are always yellow). Though mailbox 1.5u backpace would be tough to leave out.
Do those alpha molds for the thin client exist already? If not, that could bump up price even more. The color mixing of dark alphas/light mods isn’t for me but, for those interested, it may be worth considering using the same legends as SA ASCII/Oblivion with the vertically-stacked centered legends.
While SP kits 40s like that on their site and it’s great for 40s-only folks, I think it’s a tough sell for a GB and I’d recommend adding basic 40s support into the base kit instead (only requires a few keys in base if you have a separate spacebar kit anyhow).
To the extra Tab question, iirc it’s more expensive to add those to alphas kits than modifier kits though I can’t be certain at this point. So while that seems nice in theory to throw a tab in every alphas kit, the cost might not be worth it. You can always add the extra to the modifiers kit; though I can’t be sure if there’s a lot of value add there either. (Sculpted Bliss went this route)

Piperaceae · June 20, 2024, 10:43am

I do like the “x-box” backspace legend and the back-arrow ISO Enter (which seem to have been used on some Wyse boards even when the other mods were text). I tend to think of those almost as forced novelties. But I’d be fine with going with text legends for Tab and Shift, which would definitely give the legends more consistency. The current mix was the result of me going through a bunch of Wyse boards and picking whichever legend appealed most to me visually in isolation, versus how they looked together side by side.
The molds do exist. In fact there are two different sets of ASCII molds; one with the ASCII text towards the bottom right (used in SA Silent Assassin) and one with the ASCII text above (used in SA Oblivion and SA ASCII). I went with the ones in the bottom right, since SA ASCII came out last year (and Oblivion is still in stock on Drop), and people have had a chance to pick up a kit like that recently. While it’s been longer since we’ve seen the other variation, and it feels more unique.
I’m not a 40s user (most of my own boards are 75% or 1800), so I went with a copy of existing kitting just so I’d know I had all the “right” keys required for coverage. But 3-key token 40s support would be fine by me (again, as a not-40s user). I obviously want to cater to as many layouts as possible, but I didn’t even bother making Norde or Colevrak kits because I know realistically they would be a hard sell. 40s may wind up being the same. (Oh, and if anyone is curious, the monolegend top row also exists, and was used in SA laser.)
I’m leaning towards omitting the extra Tab, because its usefulness is so niche, it probably wouldn’t be worth it. While I’m fine making everyone subsidize ISO in the base (socialism!), I’m less fine with having everyone pay for Tabs that 3 people might ever use.

Piperaceae · June 20, 2024, 10:49am

Also, can I just say that I really love how useful all of this feedback has been? This is great, and I appreciate all of the support and suggestions!

Here’s a quickie render of how the grey base would look with most of the icon mods changed over to text, to match the other mods:

And here’s what a Mods kit would look like with 3-key 40s support in lieu of a separate 40s/ortho kit:

Ideally, I’d cut the mod-pipe and mod-tilde, but I think some people feel very strongly about having those.

EDIT: Also realized the spacebar set had no blue Alice B, so I’ve added that:

rpiguy9907 · June 20, 2024, 7:23pm

Can they do Gorton font in SA?

Centered legends on the light alphas, but upper-left aligned on the dark alphas? hmm…

I wonder if SP still has the odd size molds they used to use, like the 2.5u stepped that uses a 2u mount. That would really be Wyse!

Piperaceae · June 20, 2024, 7:59pm

The font for SA is technically Gorton too, though in all-caps, centered, and wider than what DCS uses. (I can take the Gorton Perfected font from my renders for example, cut the width to 80%, and it looks identical to DCS’s.)

But I get what you’re saying about more DCS-style legends. Unfortunately, I don’t think any SA molds like that exist, at least as plain alphas without sublegends built into them.

There’s one set of SA molds with top left-aligned alphas, that MiTo commissioned for SA Laser Cyberdeck, with Japanese sublegends (and Cherry mod legends!):

And then these with ASCII sublegends, introduced with SA Silent Assassin, that I’m hoping to use myself on the navy blue keys:

Those are the only two sets of SA molds where the alphas are top left-aligned, that I know of.

As for stepped keys, I’d love to do a bunch of weirdo stepped keys like Wyse used to use. But I don’t think they exist as SA molds. They probably have the old DCS molds laying around, but even if this was running in DCS, it’d probably be a tough sell when modern boards can’t fit those keys.

rpiguy9907 · June 20, 2024, 8:43pm

All the Filco caps are made by SP as well and have left aligned legends.

Piperaceae · June 20, 2024, 9:11pm

Oh, that’s right! I stand corrected!

I like having the ASCII sublegends, just because they feel fun, and somewhat unique since only a handful of sets use them. And there’s some tenuous connection to Wyse, in that they produced what they called the ASCII Keyboard for a period (though it had no actual ASCII legends).

If the sublegends are a turn-off for a lot of people though, I’d consider doing plain alphas, and see if I could use the left-aligned Filco molds.

rpiguy9907 · June 21, 2024, 3:39pm

You know this post tickled the deep recesses of my brain

Piperaceae · June 21, 2024, 4:06pm

Oh wow, I’ve never seen this (and I’m glad my design is significantly different, so it doesn’t look like I’m copying!) All I found when I searched were interest checks on moogle kits and DCS runs. I got into the hobby in late 2019, and feel like I missed out on so much history. (And how easy it was to run an IC back then, when one didn’t have to deal with Blender.)

Gonna take this opportunity to post my current kit renders:

And some update board renders with the changes I’ve made:

I’ve been trying to make all the promotional materials look like pages from a fictional 1991-ish tech brochure.

rambus1138 · June 21, 2024, 4:12pm

I would 100% buy Client alphas, mods, numpad and accents. The colorways are fan-effin-tastic! Great job on renders.

Piperaceae · June 21, 2024, 4:22pm

Thank you! I can’t claim credit for the colors; I’m just going by what Wyse used. But I’m glad I can remix them in fun new ways!

I had tried to figure out Blender in the past and failed miserably. When I sent my previous design to Signature Plastics to pitch it, I just drew it up in Photoshop, and typed the letters on top of blank keys. That was three months ago, and sometime between then and now it just clicked. Blender still doesn’t make a lick of sense, but I know its… eccentricities now.

pixelpusher · June 21, 2024, 4:46pm

Is it possible to get a sample of the blue alphas? I just know from sets that I own (Yuri and Silent Assassin), bright color alphas can really get muddy on a dark cap. I love the idea and the look of the renders, but it might not look as good IRL with the Thin Client with ASCII alphas. Those usually end up being quite thin

And to reiterate… I really do like this set a lot. Love everything about it.

Piperaceae · June 21, 2024, 4:54pm

Good question! I really don’t know off the top of my head. I know I can get the color chips, but that doesn’t show how the actual legends will look in doubleshot. I don’t know if SP is set up or willing to do a one-off sample.

I wonder if I can find a good photo of Silent Assassin’s alphas, since it’s the same ASCII molds. Red on black wouldn’t be an exact comparison of course, but might show the relative thickness of the legends, and how light letters would look against a dark background. Problem is it wasn’t a popular set, coming from Kono and being wildly overpriced.