alt Hacker NewsA little over a decade ago, the patents expired on the MX switch design. The first clones (mostly from China) were cheap and terrible. Then came the ones which were cheap and almost as good. Then came the ones which were better than the originals, and eventually the ones which were more innovative too.
Meanwhile, Cherry kept making the same product line which they had since the 1980s, with relatively minor improvements.
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Interesting, do you have any examples of the latter two categories? Looking for a replacement for my Cherry-Keyboard.
Bought first board with swappable switches this month. And bit later about 70 different samples from Ali. Just the cheer quantity of that number is crazy to me.
Have to figure out if there is anything there when they arrive. But I think that is not even inclusive of some more expensive chinese brands.
Still, it is another interesting example how something can end up standard. That is the pin layout and the stem for keycap.
> Cherry kept making the same product line which they had since the 1980s, with relatively minor improvements.
Cherry was an American company that manufactured in the US until the automotive division was sold to a German company with keyboard switches thrown in. They moved production to Germany to capitalize on the perception of German quality. So, it’s not really surprising that it stagnated - it was a somewhat unwanted portion of a company and all the original folks got left behind.