Diatec, known for its mechanical keyboard brand FILCO, has ceased operations

I remember over 20y ago, a filco was the best mechanical keyboard money could buy.

I bought one a couple of years ago, to my surprise it was nearly identical. A bit cheaper material. Still over a 100 USD.

The difference is one can by an Aula for less than half the price, with better 3 Bluetooth settings + 2.4 dongle, blacklit, better sound coming out of the keys, less loud and annoying.

A great company that made the mistake to stay stagnant.

I got a bluetooth Majestouch sometime a decade or so ago and it's been a daily driver ever since. At the time, there weren't a lot of bluetooth mechanical keyboards out there. The bluetooth bit can be a little bit picky or slow when connecting. It's not as quick and reliable as a Logitech wireless keyboard with a proprietary protocol and dongle. However, the keyboard itself is like nothing Logitech makes. If you know, you know.

I'd absolutely buy another one of these right now if it were showing even the slightest signs of wear, but it's not. Bulletproof. The only keyboard I still use that's older is a Model M.

Filco really put quality first. It's a shame to see them go.

I've never had a Filco, but I remember it was significant in the early start of the keyboard hobby. Many mods had been tried on the Filco Majestouch first. The first custom key sets had been made for Filco's Majestouch layouts first, etc.

My daily driver at home for over a decade is a keyboard that I had built myself around community-designed replacement parts for the Filco Majestouch TKL. This included a controller to customise the firmware, and that was my first start in programming microcontrollers.

Sad to hear this, one of my first mechanical keyboards was a Filco TKL. At one point in time, it was my go-to "safe recommendation" for a keyboard. Since that point in time, the Majestouch keyboards only received incremental improvements, whereas the likes of Keychron completely overtook them on almost all criteria.

Shame. I have two Filcos over 15 years old.

Some of the switches started dying at the same time last year. I guess I tipped over the lifetime of cherry switches.

I looked around but there are so few UK TKLs. I didn't want a layout change of page/home/end cluster or lose "useless" keys ins/pause/etc. (I remap them and now rely on them). I didn't like the look of prebuilts from Keychron or want to pay £500 or mess with shady "group buys" for parts.

So I bought a bag of switches and a soldering iron instead and expect to get another 15 years out of them.

Happy customer but I guess not a repeat customer.

A shame, my first mechanical keyboard was a Filco Majestouch tenkeyless with cherry blue switches, I've used it as a daily driver since 2011 (I just checked when I bought it) and only replaced it a few months ago because some of the keys didn't register properly.

I still have it, I should open it up and clean it again, probably just a dirty contact or something. Solid piece of gear.

currently using a NuPhy Field75 because it looks and sounds cool, lol. The linear magnetic switches are a neat feature but in practice I don't use any features that it theoretically supports.

One of my colleagues has a mechanical keyboard - possibly a Filco - that they use in preference to their crappy corporate-issued one, and i have come to loathe the machinegun sound. I get that they feel good to use, and the haptic and audible feedback combo is particularly effective. But for the love of $deity I just want the noise to stop.

Unfortunate! I have a bunch of keyboards and a FILCO is my favourite, my daily driver. It just feels ... solid.

I still have a Filco TKL keyboard with custom SA keycaps, this is my go-to keyboard, and I own many including a few Unicomp (too clacky), Topre (constant USB problems) and Keychron (why do I need a webapp to configure a keyboard)

Years ago I ordered Ninja 2 from Japan and was sadly expecting to pay another 20% or so in customs fees, but the price was given in yen, and the customs probably couldn’t figure it out, so they released it to me for free. It’s still going strong.

“Ran out” and grabbed two more Majestouch 3 with silent red switches. Should keep me going for the rest of my life!

Am I the only one unhappy with mechanical keyboards? I find them all tactily unpleasant, plus what's with the stripped down layouts? Basic $10 office keyboards with all the keys and the classic layout are my go to. Keep the chopped down, squished down, expensive keyboards.

https://share.google/eQk4xJAJmeVnbLnjz

I have 3 FilcoTKL's, 2 blues and one brown with ninja key caps. They started to get quite expensive for what they were.

I use an IBM model M today with a Model H controller replacement.

I have 2 of their Filco Majestouch 2 models. The are great and this make me sad as I had planed to buy a new model when I visit Japan again in a few months.

Loved my Filco stealth, thanks for the great products!

Sad news. I'm sitting at a modified Filco keyboard with custom firmware right now. Its sound profile is not very pleasing by today's standards but it has been a reliable workhorse.

nooooooooo!

Lost another keyboard to Diatec