It was only a matter of time till things slowed really. With the lockdowns & stimulus checks the hobby got a ton more attention than it would’ve otherwise. Now that life has gotten somewhat back to normal, we’re back to mostly the core hardcore crowd that will be keeping a daily eye on what’s going on. Which leads to lower sales & less exposure on more recent GBs. At least that’s my guess, but I agree that things have noticeably slowed down. I kinda like it TBH, now you can actually decide if you really want something & still have a shot of grabbing it more than 5 min after the GB started LOL!
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That’s so true. Plus I’m thinking GBs will go from thousands of units back down to only a few hundred.
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I too will be out of the hobby soon - nothing really interesting out there anymore apart from obscure vintage keyboards which are just my thing. Waiting for one elusive keyboard case to finally build my “endgame”.
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I think we need some new obscure boards too, though. Everyone is too eager to design 65% boards b/c they know they will sell. Let’s see some more new weird stuff like the HB85, or the Command64 but with the funky 2u keycaps on the right column. There’s a lot more innovation in the small board community, but I don’t like sub 60%, and I can’t do ortho.
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Matt3o is designing a C64 replica for Vortex, that has a chonky function column (though on the left, not the right like the original had).
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I feel like I remember seeing this somewhere but I don’t know where. Do you have a link? I checked matt30s site and the vortex discord but nothing there.
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I’ll look, I think he posted some prototype photos on his own Discord.
Edit: found one recent shot. Looks like 1.5u function keys?
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ok, yes i remember seeing that somewhere. As someone who uses my right shift a lot, I’m not a big fan of the arrow cluster placement but the modifiers are unique.
I think they might be 1.5 or 1.25u. hard to tell from the photo though
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I’m an ISO user, so I went with the Command 65 instead; I couldn’t deal with the integrated ANSI plate on this one. But I do want it to succeed. I’m hopefully eventually matching caps will be available.
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Thank you for this.
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probably in his new MTNU profile by GMK. Wouldn’t it be awesome if the first run was a C64 brown set? One can dream
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While I love the diversity of offerings and choice thereof, I also feel overwhelmed. To me the buying experience comes with a certain anxiety to make the correct choice. Especially because things can quickly add up to amounts I cannot justify as a father and husband.
Sometimes less is more. Like choosing which Topre offering to go for 
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Anyone say Norbazzar? Please?
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still waiting to find out why Project URSA went dark 
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I personally have reached endgame myself, which was more or less just returning to the HHKB I started out with haha. I’ve been thinking of getting rid of my non topre stuff because I just don’t end up using it.
I’m excited by the prospect of more topre projects in the future but ultimately I found my preference and it leaves me limited in desire for a lot of what’s in the market now
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I understand the person designing it had a life crisis and won’t have time to work on it for the foreseeable future.
We do find ourselves at a relative low point for buying but that’s to be expected with summer, loosening restrictions outside, inflation, and basically 2.5 straight years of hobby growth (many GBs to deliver thru the remainder of 2022).
But - there’s plenty of stuff to be excited about coming up! For me: multiple Topre projects upcoming for Alice and 40s fans, some fun trackball/pad implementations being tested, and finally receiving all my GBs
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any trackball/pad stuff for 60% and up?
i can’t DM you on here for some reason. Do you know the address of matt3o’s discord? I can’t find it anywhere
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Weird, I’ll check my settings. In the meantime, he has it linked in his most recent blog post: matt3o