Keycaps: UK ISO Cyrillic a thing?

[vometia]

I'm slightly doing my head in with the keycap situation again, having never quite "got" the group buy thing, being typically indecisive and too late.

As Model M/F will probably never be a thing, it's looking like MX is The Only Way. There's certainly plenty of choices out there but of course being me I can't find what I want. Because what I want is usually whatever is not available.

So this week I fancy learning Cyrillic of the Russian persuasion. Will I still fancy it next week? Dunno, but it is one of those recurring things.

As such, what would be really cool is something with UK ISO layout and Russian Cyrillic (I understand there are subtle differences in theory, though in practice I dunno, probably not) alternatives. And yeah, if I'm doing a wish-list, nice heavy double-shot sphericals with not-too-pointy edges, and if I'm going to insist on the impossible, nice big centred legends too! Which means the Cyrillic will have to go on the front. Triple-shot, then!

Ahem. Okay, that is very unlikely so let's stick with what is at least feasible, which is ISO UK/Cyrillic. It'll likely be a TKL, not that it matters, the remainder can join the other spares in the keycap silo.

Any ideas where I might look? My scratching around on Amazon and Ebay have drawn a blank so far, though given the increasing tendency of both to stock poor quality imitations of other people's work that may be as well.

I know the purists' answer is "just use blanks" but I am not a touch-typist and never will be, and that would be fun when trying to figure out a completely different alphabet! And whether it's autism or just the fact that I'm easily irritated, the oddity that is the US ISO thing won't work for me either: has to be UK ISO.

I'm also thinking of something to put them on: could use my Filco Blue TKL but I like it's chunky doubleshots if not its switches so it might be a good time for me to try an MX Black version of the same, which someone mentioned some time ago might actually be what I'm looking for; but given KeyboardCo's monopoly in the UK, where would I even find one...?

[Lanrefni]

UK ISO caps with Cyrillic stickers on the front of the caps maybe? Or grab a set of white caps and use a nice pen to hand draw the legends on the front?

[depletedvespene]

Why not do a fully custom set with dye sublimation? That is what I (*) did with my fully customized layout, and I am pretty happy with the results.

(*) By "I", I mean «I designed the thing and then paid the guy on etsy to actually do, based on the specification I sent him.».

Model M SSK with custom dye-subbed keycaps for the Iberoamerican layout(s).

IMG_6638_th.jpg (215.41 KiB) Viewed 2943 times

[vometia]

Handwritten stuff: "have you seen my handwriting?!" etc. I guess in a similar vein to "have you seen my driving?!"

Custom: that looks interesting. And someone mentioned it once and I forgot. Also a Model M so yeah, if I'm going to be all clickety clackity I should do it properly and my SSKs are feeling neglected. Cost, links etc?

[depletedvespene]

This is the etsy shop I worked with: https://www.etsy.com/shop/DecentKeyboards.

I contacted the seller, we talked a bit about it what I wanted, then wrote a detailed spec of this layout (characters to put in, colors, etc.), then we ping-ponged a bit over draft graphics he made until I was satisfied. The work for the 50 keycaps you see was 90 USD (plus 7 for shipping to my country); front-printing was available too, but that cost more (I opted to not have front-printing on this particular keycap set).

[TheInverseKey]

Yes they are a thing. Strangely enough though the only ones that I have found are handmade.

You might want to try to replicate these, they are carved into the plastic somehow drilled maybe and then infilled with ink/paint.

[vometia]

Thanks, guys. I shall try the DecentKeyboards guy (also recommend by... Mu, I think?) once I've actually specified what I want, which may take me a little while!

And that's quite an interesting keyboard you have there, Inverse. May I ask what it is? I suppose nowadays LK200-type keyboards are relative rarity thanks to the PS/2's ubiquity so it's easy to forget that there were a million VT220+ clones back in the day, and many that weren't but still used the same layout. I actually quite liked it but have to agree with those who complained that the function key numbering was insane; interesting that DEC's own applications used the keypad instead.

[TheInverseKey]

Thanks, guys. I shall try the DecentKeyboards guy (also recommend by... Mu, I think?) once I've actually specified what I want, which may take me a little while!

And that's quite an interesting keyboard you have there, Inverse. May I ask what it is? I suppose nowadays LK200-type keyboards are relative rarity thanks to the PS/2's ubiquity so it's easy to forget that there were a million VT220+ clones back in the day, and many that weren't but still used the same layout. I actually quite liked it but have to agree with those who complained that the function key numbering was insane; interesting that DEC's own applications used the keypad instead.

The keyboard is an ADDS VT220: wiki/ADDS_VT220

The only problem with is so far is that the AT mode of the keyboard doesn't give full functionality. Some of the scan codes are interesting and need to be remapped.

[ball00n]

There is also an OG cherry variant viewtopic.php?t=8894 , but it doesn't feature red sublegends, they're pad printed and keyboard is rather rare.