Costar pulled the Filcos

[sixty]

http://www.costar.com.tw/products01/?p_sid=32

God knows why, but they are no longer being listed on their lineup.

[bugfix]

First elitekeyboards, now them... What's happening?

[Minskleip]

Can Diatec find a new OEM and get the same boards built?

[sixty]

Costar may still be making them and was maybe just forced to remove them from their website or something... who knows. Still very odd though.

[sixty]

Then again... that should not be the case, since Costar owns the rights to the full sized boards... hmm.

[itlnstln]

They seem to still be producing the Rosewills, but the Rosewills have slightly different internals, so they might be updating specs. It might explain some of the lack in supply for Filcos in the market. Was Costar building the Tenkeyless, too, or was that another OEM?

[webwit]

keyboardco still going strong..

[sixty]

Costar was building the tenkeyless, but Diatec has the exclusive worldwide rights on that. Meaning no other company can OEM order those from Costar.

[itlnstln]

Maybe Newegg is getting the exclusive in the US. I'm sure Newegg has a helluva lot more clout than Diatec (let alone Elitekeyboards). If Costar only lists the 'boards they can OEM for all customers, that means another company could sell their own version of the Das, though I'm not sure why anybody would.

Then again, this is all speculation and assumptions. Maybe one of the Asian sites will get the scoop.

[ripster]

They haven't been listed there for quite some time.

And Filcos are easy to find WW. I'd become the North America distributor if the customers weren't such whiners.

[clickykeyboards]

One of the Taiwanese manufacturers contacted me in 2009 looking to custom build an OEM unit to spec. Good discussions back and forth and they were willing to handle all the mechanical and electrical engineering design once the conceptual design was finalized. I was traveling to Japan on unrelated conference and was invited to meet with them at a trade show in electronics expo in Hong Kong.

Would have been easy to re-use and re-label existing keyboard design.. but no fun in that.

The initial price per unit was reasonable for new keyboard design, choice of key switches, choice of colors.. and while I could confidently handle the MOQ 1,200 - 1,500 (minimum order quantity).. the tooling fees for new design, real-world logistics of 3 month lead time and ocean freight from Taiwan to port of New York, designing packaging and CE/FCC regulatory approvals, transport, brokerage, insurance, US customs (can't exactly mark 1000 keyboards as a "gift" or "sample").

All together, had a decent business plan put together, but couldn't convince loan officers at 3 US commerical banks to finance the risk during the Financial Crisis of 2007-10.

Although.. now that recession is over... anybody have an American Express black card that they can loan me?

[ripster]

Speaking of black......Have you removed Wellington1869 from your black list yet?

Oh wait, maybe that was Brian O'Neill and Majestouch.

[ripster]

Meanwhile at Geekhack, the source of true information not just wildass rumors....

http://geekhack.org/showpost.php?p=297332&postcount=108

And unlike Wikipedia I tend need at least two citations from different sources before I believe anything...

http://geekhack.org/showpost.php?p=299050&postcount=6

Wish there was an EASY way to embed links here.

[sixty]

Meanwhile at Geekhack, the source of true information not just wildass rumors....

U SO FUNNY

[ripster]

For a dead company Filco sure cranks out nice PCBs.




Damn internet. Between OCN, HardForum, Anandtech and now this forum I have to spend all my time stamping out keyboard myths.

[sixty]

Never said they were dead. Also why the massive change on PCBs. Maybe its not Costar anymore after all?

There, new rumor for you to work out.

[laden3]

The PCB looks so familiar... who is cloning who now? There were never any clones I guess.

[itlnstln]

Lame key caps are lame. I want to check out the new Filcos, but for all the re-design, they didn't appear to make any improvements on the weakest part of the 'board (IMO).

[ripster]

News sure travels slow on this forum.

[keyboardlover]

Fewer Filco fanboiz here.

[itlnstln]

Fewer Filco fanboiz here.

Sounds like Welly.

[keyboardlover]

Who's that?

[ripster]

Hmmm.....KL - Are you SURE Filco is going under?

http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?p=299982#post299982

[microsoft windows]

I think there was already a thread here on that.

[travishax]

Doesn't costar make the keyboards? Because i remember that the rk-9000 is a costar oem

[espritsc]

Getting less and less places to get a filco. I wish elitekeyboards would restock soon.

[Pylon]

Amazon just started stocking them.

[duq]

Espiritsc, EK would have no reason considering they now stock they're filco replacement leopolds.