My First Keyboard Build
davecooper.org
My First Keyboard Build
1–10 of 82 posts
Re: My First Keyboard Build
#2Cool.
I also building my own GH60 keyboard.
Re: My First Keyboard Build
#3That's a nice hack. Gives me motivation to build a custom Emacs keyboard myself.
Re: My First Keyboard Build
#4Cool. I also building my own GH60 keyboard.
Nice man. Definitely go for it.
It took a fair amount of effort to build mine, but it was (and still is) such a rewarding feeling to have finished a project like this. If you have any questions or just want to bounce some ideas please feel free to give me a buzz. I'm always interested in other peoples DIY projects :)
Re: My First Keyboard Build
#5That's a nice hack. Gives me motivation to build a custom Emacs keyboard myself.
Thanks! As I'll tell everyone, just go for it. It takes some time/effort but is such a fun thing to do.
Re: My First Keyboard Build
#6[deleted]
Re: My First Keyboard Build
#7Current keyboard designs bug me, to put it mildly.
Put a mux on each group of switches, have the microcontroller rapidly scan the muxes to determine which switches are down.
And now all of a sudden you have a keyboard that you can actually press down as many keys as you need and it still works. Except it won't. Because USB keyboards don't support arbitrary numbers of keys being pressed at once.
Re: My First Keyboard Build
#8If I were to build a keyboard I would definitely take a couple of ideas from typematrix.
First of all, staggered keys make absolutely no sense(unles it's actually a typewriter). It takes a week to get used to a straight layout, and it feels more natural. It's not a problem to switch between staggered and matrix layouts either.
Second thing I would copy is having enter and backspace between the two halves of the keyboard. If you touch type this area is unused, and it's less strain on your pinky finger.
But anyway, this was really a great project, and a nice writeup :)
Re: My First Keyboard Build
#9If I were to build a keyboard I would definitely take a couple of ideas from typematrix. First of all, staggered keys make absolutely no sense(unles it's actually a typewriter). It takes a week to get used to a straight layout, and it feels more natural. It's not a problem to switch between staggered and matrix layouts either. Second thing I would copy is having enter and backspace between the two halves of the keybo…
Thanks!
A guy at my work has the typematrix keyboard - I like the idea but wasn't daring enough to go balls-to-the-wall and actually take that layout. He seems to like it, though!
Re: My First Keyboard Build
#10Current keyboard designs bug me, to put it mildly. Put a mux on each group of switches, have the microcontroller rapidly scan the muxes to determine which switches are down. And now all of a sudden you have a keyboard that you can actually press down as many keys as you need and it still works. Except it won't. Because USB keyboards don't support arbitrary numbers of keys being pressed at once.
"Because USB keyboards don't support arbitrary numbers of keys being pressed at once."
There is actually nothing in the USB or HID specifications preventing USB keyboards from supporting n-key rollover (when using the report protocol -- keyboards using the boot protocol are limited to a 6-key rollover). The reason most don't is simply to reduce cost and complexity. A sufficiently motivated person could build a USB-compliant keyboard that supported an arbitrary number of simultaneoue keypresses, and some do (e.g. http://www.maxkeyboard.com/max-keyboard-nighthawk-x9-red-bac...).