Wooden keyboards, assembly required

(Credit: Hacoa)

We could have told them this would happen. Japanese design firm Hacoa, which made wooden keyboards for Marubeni Infotec, has shockingly found that consumers weren't exactly beating down their maple doors to buy the sylvan peripherals. It probably didn't help that they were going for 50,000 yen, or about $400, apiece.

And we're not so sure about its alternative strategy either. Akihabara News reports that Hacoa plans to sell kits that would have consumers assemble their own wooden keyboards. It would be one thing if this could be done for a fraction of the price, but they'll still cost about $290 each to build.

We're still trying to assemble our kids' Playmobil airplane from last Christmas. But if you're really into wooden computer equipment, and money isn't an issue, you can always get an entire system from Wood Contour for around $3,775.