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Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

stavros.io

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Re: Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

#61

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

foobarian wrote: post #19
StavrosK wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting idea, and you can, but if you have an entire keyboard anyway why not use that?

That was my first reaction too but it's growing on me! With IntelliJ on an external Mac keyboard (because, 2017 era MBP, yeesh) for some reason they didn't group the F keys. I mean at least there are F keys. So it's always stressful to try to step over, because the continue button is right next to it (F8 and F9) and it's easy to lose minutes of context buildup with one wrong button press. And then, HTF do you force-s…

Happily IntelliJ keys are configurable. Settings->Keymap. Debugger actions are under Main Menu→Run→Debugging Actions.

Sadly it's difficult to see all the mapped keys at once, and the search can't search for the key (only for the action a key might be bound to) so making new maps is a bit tedious. It's possible to do so via making a plugin, but that's probably even more effort.

Re: Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

#62

Post by weinzierl »

KMnO4 wrote: post #26
throwaway744678 wrote: post #23

Falsehoods programmers believe about hands: - they have 5 fingers Joking aside, that's a really nice project: congratulations!

Well, digits; a thumb is not technically a finger:)

Are you telling me that I have four fingers in English but five Finger in German?

I'm confused, but Collins dictionary agrees with you: "Your fingers are the four long thin parts at the end of each hand."

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/finger

Re: Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

#63

Post by intrepidhero »

It seems like every hardware geek makes one of these at some point. I think it's really cool. Designing a chording scheme for individual keys is a fun problem, kind of a nerd snipe. But in the end everyone concludes, "It's too slow to be useful." I think where the hand held keyboard might be really interesting is in combination with steno (http://www.openstenoproject.org/plover/), but I haven't seen that done.

Re: Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

#64

Post by tyingq »

jnwatson wrote: post #11

This is called a chorded keyboard [1]. Like seemingly everything invented in the following 40 years, it was introduced by Douglas Englebart in the Mother of all Demos in 1968. Englebart had a iOS app that allowed you to chord type as well. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorded_keyboard

The machines court reporters use seem like they would be chorded keyboards from long before 1968.

Re: Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

#65

Post by tombert »

StavrosK wrote: post #59
tombert wrote: post #57

The esp32 never ceases to amaze me. I bought a set of five of them from Banggood awhile ago, and I was amazed how quickly I was able to build some pretty interesting stuff, like a wireless arcade controller (using the same bluetooth keyboard library that the author mentioned, actually).

It's fantastic, I have tens of them because I constantly use them around the house, in things like alarm clocks ( https://www.stavros.io/posts/do-not-be-alarmed-clock/ ), cat toys (no writeup there), scales (maybe later) and other random things. At $2 each, they're fantastic.

I hadn't even thought about making an alarm clock! You might have accidentally convinced me to order a set of Nixie tubes.

Re: Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

#66

Post by StavrosK »

tombert wrote: post #65
StavrosK wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fantastic, I have tens of them because I constantly use them around the house, in things like alarm clocks ( https://www.stavros.io/posts/do-not-be-alarmed-clock/ ), cat toys (no writeup there), scales (maybe later) and other random things. At $2 each, they're fantastic.

I hadn't even thought about making an alarm clock! You might have accidentally convinced me to order a set of Nixie tubes.

Definitely do it.

Re: Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

#68

Post by StavrosK »

intrepidhero wrote: post #63

It seems like every hardware geek makes one of these at some point. I think it's really cool. Designing a chording scheme for individual keys is a fun problem, kind of a nerd snipe. But in the end everyone concludes, "It's too slow to be useful." I think where the hand held keyboard might be really interesting is in combination with steno ( http://www.openstenoproject.org/plover/ ), but I haven't seen that done.

I don't know about other people, but I definitely didn't intend it to be useful!

Re: Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

#69

Post by StavrosK »

weinzierl wrote: post #62
KMnO4 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, digits; a thumb is not technically a finger:)

Are you telling me that I have four fingers in English but five Finger in German? I'm confused, but Collins dictionary agrees with you: "Your fingers are the four long thin parts at the end of each hand." https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/finger

That looks exactly right, we have five digits and four fingers, apparently. Who would have thought?

Re: Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

#70

Post by ljoshua »

jjp wrote: post #24
ljoshua wrote: post #12

Reminds me a bit of this really cool project I saw the other day: https://there.oughta.be/a/macro-keyboard Difference is one is generic for typing anything, and the link there is purpose-built on a per-application basis, but the idea of having a small amount of keys for a precise job is very interesting. (Side note, anyone remember the Optimus Maximus, where each key was an LED screen? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O…

Is this (mostly) available in something like a Stream Deck - https://www.elgato.com/en/stream-deck

That's a slick implementation, very nice.
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