thock weekly — issue 10
A layout compatibility guide before the keycap set arrives, split-build parts pairing as two decisions instead of one, Cherry's tracker slide against Keychron's delivered Kickstarter, GMK CYL Orange Alert's group buy at Divinikey, and what a silent switch's damping actually silences — plus a tracker check-in on Keychron's all-time high and Cherry's renewed slide.
Five pieces, one per pillar, picked from the week's coverage — closing out with the tracker's clearest signals from the week of August 31, 2026.
Guides — read the layout before the keycap set ships
ANSI, ISO, or JIS: a practical layout buying guide
ANSI, ISO, and JIS describe key geometry, not language or legends, and a listing photo rarely spells out which one a board uses. The piece walks the Enter key shape, the Left Shift width, and the bottom-row unit math that determines whether a keycap set clicks into place or leaves a gap — the kind of spec-sheet shorthand worth decoding before an order ships, not after.
Read it if you've ever ordered a keycap set by eye and found out the hard way it was cut for the wrong layout.
Ideas — a split board is two decisions, not one
Parts pairing for a split build: two independent halves, two independent decisions
A split keyboard is really two independent keyboards sharing a keymap, but most builders still shop for it as if it were one — one switch order, one sculpted keycap set, one tuning applied evenly across both halves. The piece makes the case for treating each half on its own terms, down to running different switches or different lube weights left to right where the halves actually see different use.
Read it if you've built a split board and never once considered tuning the two halves differently.
Trends — two rows, one cause apiece, opposite directions
Cherry's tracker slide continues. Keychron's Kickstarter delivered.
Three weeks ago thock left two questions open: whether Cherry's brand line would keep closing the gap toward positive tracker territory, and whether Keychron's V6 Ultra HE Kickstarter would give the tracker something new to climb on. Both have answers now — Cherry's line reversed hard instead of continuing to recover, while Keychron's campaign became the rare single event that moved a brand row and a switch-category row in the same week.
Read it if you want the mechanism behind this week's biggest brand mover and its steepest brand decline, not just the scores.
News — the second Alert-series set reaches group buy
GMK CYL Orange Alert opens at Divinikey, the second Alert-series set to reach group buy this year
GMK CYL Orange Alert opened August 14 and runs through September 14, 2026, hosted by Divinikey with KBDfans, UniKeys, and Keebz N Cables running alongside as additional storefronts. It's a Cherry-profile doubleshot in orange, beige, and gray with Katakana accent legends, reads closer to equipment signage than a themed art set, and follows Prussian Alert's June close at KBDfans as the second entry in GMK's Alert naming convention.
Read it if you're weighing whether to order before the September 14 close.
Deep dive — damping catches the stem twice, not once
What a silent switch actually silences — and what it can't
A keystroke lands twice — once on the downstroke floor, once on the upstroke ceiling — and Cherry's molded stem pads and Gazzew's silicone pads exist to catch both impacts. The piece uses the undamped Boba U4T as a control to isolate what damping is actually buying, about 14 dB on one tester's meter, and lays out the tradeoffs in travel and rebound that come with muting a bump that still has to land somewhere.
Read it if you've assumed "silent" switches are just quieter versions of their standard counterparts rather than a different mechanical compromise.
Tracker check-in
Keychron closed the week at an all-time-high tracker score of 100, up from 80 eight weeks ago, with the climb driven by the V6 Ultra Hybrid Kickstarter hitting 569% of its $30,000 goal within 48 hours, the B39 and B40 Alice boards shipping, and glowing Q11 Ultra reviews landing in the same window — the broadest single-week brand presence the tracker has logged. That same Kickstarter is doing double duty one row over: Hall Effect/Rapid Trigger rose to 98, up from 87 eight weeks back, since the V6 Ultra Hybrid puts mechanical and magnetic switches on one board and keeps reinforcing Hall effect as a mainstream default rather than a niche pick. Cherry (MX + XTRFY) tells the inverse story — the brand line sits at -20, back in decline after a mid-window recovery that briefly touched -2, though still short of the -30 it registered eight weeks ago, with Lumina Brown quality complaints still drawing no official response. On the keycap side, GMK CYL Orange Alert — this week's News pick — climbed to 75, up from 20 eight weeks ago, as its group buy stays mid-run through September 14.
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