Support for Alternative Layouts
This is a summary of how alternative layouts have been supported by kits such as Colevrak and Homing. It is not a discussion of alt layout performance and development, but if that interests you I highly recommend starting with Pascal Getreuer’s A guide to alt keyboard layouts (why, how, which one?). It’s a concise and comprehensive overview with links to some great sites that go deeper. He also has a separate Links about keyboards page. The Keyboard layouts doc he recommends explains layout goals and metrics in detail, summarizing the alt layouts discussed here as well as more than one hundred others. Sculpted-profile The majority of custom keycap sets are sculpted-profile (Cherry, SA, MT3, KAT, etc. - more on profiles generally here) so let’s start there. Because each row has a unique keycap shape, alt layouts require a unique keycap for each legend that moves off its QWERTY row. At first there were two The Dvorak layout was patented in 1936 by August Dvorak & William L....
Apr 23, 2024
The long reply:
If your keyboard has "normal"-width keys, that shouldn't be too hard to do (maybe except the tape controls).
WRT the color way, there are a few companies that sell individual keycaps (http://pimpmykeyboard.com/ and http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/ are the two that come to mind, but there are others). If they don't have what you're looking for, WASD (not sure about PMK) will make custom one-offs for you. I don't know what they charge for that, but since the only "custom " part would the color, I'd hope it wouldn't be much.
WRT to the tape keys, you can get "media keycaps" from at least one of those sites, but I don't think it had the "record" button. If your vendor uses dye-sublimation to print the keycaps, that's fine. The molds for double-shot keycaps are several thousand $$$ though, so if you go that route for the rest of your caps, be aware that if your vendor for the other caps is only offering double-shots, you'll probably have to source the record button from someone else. I mean, go ahead and ask anyway since they might just happen to already have a mold laying around that either matches the "•" (or is close enough), but be prepared to see a *very* big number for that particular key.
Speaking of different vendors and such, be aware that different companies make their keycaps in different shapes, or "profiles"... sometimes *really* different. The SA profile from Signature Plastics (Pimp My Keyboard is their outlet) is popular right now, but they'll stick out like ten sore thumbs if the rest of your keyboard's caps are OEM/Cherry, DSA, or some other profile. Here's a pic that shows a few of them side-on so you can see the differences: https://m.imgur.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/kFxqOm8, but there are at least two profiles missing from that, "XDA" and "MT3" (https://www.massdrop.com/talk/1624/about-mt-3-profile-and-dev-tty-set), so keep that in mind. Although, come to think of it, having the "tape" keys all be a different profile from the regular keys might look cool. From the picture you posted, it almost looks like Amstrad did that anyway.
Finally, WRT to the large QWERTY typeface, dunno. I've never specifically looked for that, but I'd be surprised if *some* one didn't stock them. It seems like roughly half the drops we've had here recently had fairly large legends. I don't recall the last time one of the custom keycap sets had white-on-black, like in that picture, though. You might have better luck looking for a pre-made set for those.
Anyway, I hope that was helpful. I'm not the expert around here, but I'm always happy to share what I know :-)