51–60 of 136 posts
Interesting thought: The microcontroller in that keyboard is more powerful than the first IBM PC.
I have a design wish for people who make things like this: “row modules” Basically, as an example - i wouldnt be fond of the size of that spacebar, and would like other modules. What if each horizontal row of the standard length on a qwerty were its own module, and you can snap several together to make the board you want. Want a touchpad? Snap it to the base or side. Want a touchbar oled strip: snap it to the top. 9-…
I'm curious why you want modular parts rather than just designing a board that has what you want? Keyboards are surprisingly easy to design now (as seen in this article), and you can design things that would be completely unreasonable for any modular system.
The first person to build a "row" based multi layout platform will really start to hit the right spot because some people would want a function row, others not, some would want an ISO enter, others ANSI, and as long as it was plug and play, it would eat the market whole.
People on Geekhack seem to love collecting keyboards. I just want one, that I can use, that will match my mac layout.
This project looks nicer than most first efforts. Some random tips for anyone who wants to do something similar, with reservations for that it has been awhile: 1. Get a through hole supported usb connector instead of a pure smd one, since the latter likes to fall off. 2. I would avoid routing under the switches for durability, this might just be superstition though. 3. You can route the x and y of the matrix on diffe…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious why you want modular parts rather than just designing a board that has what you want? Keyboards are surprisingly easy to design now (as seen in this article), and you can design things that would be completely unreasonable for any modular system.
> I'm curious why you want modular parts rather than just designing a board that has what you want? A design requires an effort (the TFA author worked for 3 months on it) and future changes to it requires extra effort. Plus you need to have the knowledge, the time, and the will to go through all this. Whereas a modular component could be assembled by anybody, tested, changed to a different format if their needs chang…
I actually made some single-switch PCBs with some (IMHO) clever design ideas to make one-off keyboards much easier to solder together, but never went much further with the idea.
Has anyone seen keyboards with non-traditional touch surfaces? Such as trackpad keycaps? Backstory: My fingers slide smoothly across my ThinkPad laptop keyboard, so I was playing with optical hand tracking (with a surface mirror to better track touch) to make the entire keyboard (and surrounding laptop) into a multitouch surface. There were occlusion and jitter issues, even with fingernail markers, and I set it aside…
Myself, I really want more touch feedback from my keys, not less, but to each her own!
For anyone who’s tried both: are big keyboards with lots of modifiers or little keyboards with “layers” more comfortable and functional for you? I currently have a full-size mechanical PC keyboard and am debating buying a Planck.
I don’t get the apparent fascination that (mech) keyboard enthusiasts have with small keyboards. I can understand moving or removing the keypad since it displaces the mouse (then again, “don’t use the mouse!”), but beyond that I don’t see the appeal except for the aesthetics.
I think the happy hacking keyboard has the missing keys on the FN layer. Hopefully the FN key is programmable, or else you are stuck with whatever the manufacturer wants the FN key to mean. (Pet peeve of mine: cheap keyboards now seem to come with those dang FN keys which can’t be reprogrammed like the regular keys and are just for garbage multimedia functionality.) With a regular boring full-sized keyboard I can program/re-purpose whatever the key is on the equivalent position to the FN key, or choose another key entirely. Right now I can access all F1–F36 keys by using a series of modifier keys right in reach of the glorious Home Row (prostrates). That’s just by modifying my standard keyboard in X. And of course I can access F1–F12 without using modifier keys since I have an (almost) full-sized keyboard. That way I get the best of both worlds: I can use modifier keys to access every key from near the home row, or just one-key while using a fidget spinner with the free hand.
Has anyone seen keyboards with non-traditional touch surfaces? Such as trackpad keycaps? Backstory: My fingers slide smoothly across my ThinkPad laptop keyboard, so I was playing with optical hand tracking (with a surface mirror to better track touch) to make the entire keyboard (and surrounding laptop) into a multitouch surface. There were occlusion and jitter issues, even with fingernail markers, and I set it aside…
Has anyone seen keyboards with non-traditional touch surfaces? Such as trackpad keycaps? Backstory: My fingers slide smoothly across my ThinkPad laptop keyboard, so I was playing with optical hand tracking (with a surface mirror to better track touch) to make the entire keyboard (and surrounding laptop) into a multitouch surface. There were occlusion and jitter issues, even with fingernail markers, and I set it aside…
Yeah, Apple got their multitouch technology in 2005 by buying Fingerworks, the startup that made Touchstream keyboards, which were sort of like a giant single trackpad with key areas on it. Now that every Android phone and tablet has this feature, you could maybe use a tablet or two as a reconfigurable keyboard. Myself, I really want more touch feedback from my keys, not less, but to each her own!
Great project scope, execution, and write up.