K-1 Body

It worked in the K-01.
If that had had an EVF it might have been better.
Given the K-01 exists, surely much of the dev work will have been done.
Such a camera would give the Canon M series and some of the Fujis a run for their money given Pentax designers' feature implementation potential.
Admittedly, such a camera would require more than just a new circuit board!

The K-01 is a 7 year old design that lacks an EVF. In what sense has “development work been done”

I don't see any new Pentax in the immediate/mid term future nevermind a ML.

Meanwhile that is a great price for the K-1, and almost tempting given the current € exchange rate. But for all the photography I do nowadays it probably isn't worth it for me.

An EVF is only an eye level version version of the back screen.
Some cameras now manage to automatically switch between the two without user intervention.
The work creating the K-01 won't suddenly have undone itself, it is part the way there!
Good EVFs are virtually indistinguishable from optical VFs now it would seem (though they certainly never used to be.)
If Pentax don't go down that route where can they go? You've implied there is little scope within the existing design.

There's still nothing to touch the glass pentaprism finder though, good though some EVFs may be. I'd be disappointed if Pentax moved away from what they are doing now, which isn't the cheapest thing to do but IMHO it is still the best.

Having said that, some EVFs are very good indeed and they have different advantages and disadvantages. It depends what the photographer likes.

John (JAK)

I know no more than you. But my take is this. Pentax do the DSLR well although there are areas of improvement needed like AF

Given the current state of the camera market and their current funding position within Ricoh I would rather they concentrated on what they were good at rather than chase a dream of becoming the next great wonder in ML. Something Sony Nikon Canon are all failing to do at the moment because demand is not there

Agreed
Agreed, but is that actually possible to achieve within the DSLR design. I don't believe the K-1 is significantly better or worse than similarly designed cameras with optical VFs from other marques. This suggests there is little scope for improvement in this area.
That's only achievable if there is scope to further the concept. I'm not convinced that there is. If there isn't a different direction is required or simply give up.

It is surely simpler removing the prism and mirror swapping it for an EVF than taking an EVF and adding a prism and mirror assembly! Basically a K-1 with just live view with an EVF. How much extra design work is that?
The constraints of mirror flipping etc are thus eliminated. Like it or not I feel this direction is inevitable.
The camera along these lines would be easier to use than a K-1 in liveview and not too different through the VF.
If funding from Ricoh or someone else dries up they'll be no further development in any event.

The K-1 mkii incorporated the accelerator chip (seen on the K-70 and K-P), which supposedly improved ISO noise. It was knocked in several reviews for being too aggressive (eating stars isn't a good look when you offer the astrotracer feature). It's a bit simplistic to say it's just a new circuit board, as if that couldn't offer improvements, but in this case it is fairly close to the original spec.

That's kind of the theme at the moment though. The last really new camera was the K-P in 2017, and as discussed here the K-1 mkii released in 2018 was a small variation on the original K-1 (released back in 2016). Same thing happened with the K-3 (released way back in 2013) which received a mk ii variant in 2015.

Pentax haven't released any new camera in 2019, and in some areas (mostly flagship APS-C K-3 range) it's now been a very long time between drinks.

It's a while since I looked at an EvF, but panning was appalling. The new Panasonic L ML seems to be suffering as it's the size of an FF DSLR. The 50mm lens is likely as big as the DFA50/1.4 judging by the size of the box.

Size isn't important unless the difference is significant. Many ML shooters are still using legacy glass with adapters which nullify any size advantage while crippling functionality. When I see P6x7 lenses advertised as suitable for ML systems I'm simply amazed anyone would bother.

A K-1 for a grand is a massive bargain.

Ricoh rep told me today they might have something new in November to celebrate the centenary...

Didn’t say what

Didn’t say which year....

Pros and cons. Manual focus can be easier on an EVF/live view because of digital zoom and focus peaking. I've never felt comfortable judging manual focus via an APS-C optical viewfinder, even though Pentax had the best of these.

It's a chose to go mirrorless or DSLR, but the two have a lot in common. In fact probably more in common than different, given you're only talking mirror/prism vs EVF and AF system versus on sensor AF. Where originally AF was a mirrorless weakness, and a point of difference to DSLRS, tracking AF seems very capable on mirrorless now with hundreds of sensors right across the frame.

K-1 for that price is really cool. I hope members have picked some up?