The story of Signature Plastics | Hacker News Reader

The story of Signature Plastics

kbd.news

73 pointscakeface14 comments

I love SP and was pretty broken up about this when I found out. We use SP keycaps exclusively on our SCRAMBLE [1] and while we could certainly switch to a different vendor and save money, the quality and experience wouldn’t be the same.

Fingers crossed they find a good buyer.

1: https://nullbits.co/scramble/

Having bought a few sets from Signature Plastics and a few other places, I have to say I'm impressed with their quality. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but they feel nicer than some other manufacturers I've seen. Hope they can find a good buyer.

Agreed ... I have the SA jukebox and carbon sets that were once available on MassDrop.

After trying the original cherry profile, I've lost interest in all the other profile variations.

I don't like most of their profiles like DCS (too thin, it makes an ugly sound), or SA (not ergonomical). They make no sense commercially.

From the business aspect, it's incredible that they couldn't forsee some market changes like the rise of offshore manufacturers.

Surely the article is very interesting. A great read :-)

The original injection molding tool ended up a few kilometers from where I live. I always thought to give them a call and ask if I could touch the holy grail (and maybe make a few photos).

Are you talking about GMK?

Surely you know about geekhack.org!

A lot of people would be interested in that.

PS somebody went there, I'll watch religiously the video, right now. https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=122453.0

The ASA (Akko SA) profile is a nice combination if you like the spherical aspect and central position of the marking without the odd height of SA profile.

I do agree that SA as a profile is weirdly high and that the keycaps wobble. It's designed for a very tilted layout, i.e. with the PCB tilted very much towards the user rather than more horizontally as is preferred by most modern users.

DCS sure are thin, but sound is preference, and so some of us see ABS DCS as the best sounding keycaps on the market.

Custom DCS runs (SolDark, 9009, Reaper, WoB, etc.) in the past few years sold well and are generally appreciated and sought after.

I love the R3 SA profile, where all the keys have the same profile as the third row of regular SA. Not as sculpted as regular SA, which I find too much.

It's been a while, don't they call that the SP profile?

You should give MTNU a try - similar height to cherry but wayyyy more comfortable to type on.

A new profile from GMK? Incredible news.

It just launched last year so the sets aren't too widely available yet. I got a set last year and really love them. Full PBT double-shot, vibrant colors, and a very pleasing texture and scoop on the keys.

Wow what a nice article. Funny, I'm typing on a set of Signature Plastics DSA keycaps right now, and I had no idea they were designed in the 80s.

Really nostalgic to read about the history of this company.

And also, I've had Melissa Petersen personally respond to my emails and she's a wonderful person :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com