deskthority

Daniel Beardsmore wrote:There's a huge table of Topre Realforce models, and even that's wrong — but I couldn't make enough sense out of it to correct the entries for European keyboards.

If you can tell me which entries are wrong I'll correct them. The only thing that I can think of would be availability?

You have "105UK" with "Laser" legends for the UK, "105FR" for France etc, all marked as "black". They're not black, they're charcoal; mine has "105UB" on it exactly as the Keyboard Company claims (they're all 105UB apparently in Europe), and the legends are … well, I have no idea. Could be lasered, but if so, it's a hundred times better lasering than Costar or Cherry. Looks like dark gold paint to me, but despite my efforts, I did not receive a single useful reply here about the non-decal white-on-black printing technique, which Topre may or may not be using, just with gold. UV printing was suggested for this concept, but that's not an industry term for keycaps, but then when I tried to research pad printing, all I got was some other keyboard enthusiast saying that pad printing was expensive and rare.

I gave up.

I think at one point, Keyboard Company had all the model numbers listed like that so I simply copied it from their website. I'll update them all later. I take it that the 88 key Euro models are also like that now too.

Is the charcoal colour actually printed on the label? The 'Black' colour listed for most models was inherited from the old Realforce wiki and if Topre's official colour is 'Charcoal' then I suppose I'll correct it. What I'm more interested in is whether or not the Euro models have the same paint applied to them like seen on the ND31BS which is definitely not 'Black', but I don't think they do, at least from pictures I've seen.

The keycaps are lasered. The gold colour simply comes from the plastic's reaction to the laser but I'll double-check this with Topre. The lasering might be good but it still wears away eventually, which is why the latest Just Systems keyboard with lasered caps comes with spares for heavily used keys.

I don't know what Topre call it, it's a subtle shade of dark grey. Instead of vivid white and jet black, it's dark gold lettering on dark grey. Makes Filco boards look garish and cheap and tacky in comparison.

If that's lasering, then someone knows what they're doing with it. It will be the only lasering I've ever seen that didn't suck.

No paint on it anywhere that I'm aware of. I've never seen a Topre anything that appeared to have any paint on it.

When you refer to charcoal are you talking about the keycaps themselves or the enclosures?
The 'Black' listed on the reference table only refers to the enclosure colour, which is why for the ilovex board on the OEM table there is no indication for "retina burning orange" keycaps, just that the enclosure is green. That's not a bad idea though to have keycap colour - I could easily add a column for it. Anyway, thanks for pointing out the model number adjustments.

The case ("enclosure"). Can't be 100% sure of the keycaps; the board is at work and it's too hard to tell from photos I took. Obviously "black" is a relative term — most black objects aren't actually black, nothing that reflects light can be by definition. I'm having the same issue with photos of Datalux boards — I think "C" is charcoal and "B" is black but there's no possible way to tell from photos due to lighting and exposure. However, Topre's "black" isn't black, it's dark grey; subtle but effective.

OK well I've never seen the Euro models in person. I suppose Topre's black keyboards are not completely black - I can see just looking at mine now which is right in front of me that my smartphone is "blacker", but that my wristwrest, which is listed as being black in the corporate express magazine from which it was ordered, is not as black as the keyboard...
Anyway for these things I tend to just go with what the manufacturer advertises as. If Topre called their black "Night Time Super Surprise Special", the wiki tables would be slightly wider all round.

I wouldn't call it black. That doesn't do justice to how subtle the colour is.