Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A complete guide to building a hand-wired keyboard (2020)

crackedthecode.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 74 posts

Re: A complete guide to building a hand-wired keyboard (2020)

#61

Post by xeonmc »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #59
bmitc wrote: post #57

Is there a general source of the, seemingly modern day, fascination with keyboards? I buy the Logitech ergonomic mice and keyboards and call it a day, because they save my wrists but aren't crazy, are easy to buy off the shelf, and integrate well together. For example, I use two different mice and a keyboard across two computers with a single USB receiver with just a simple KVM built-in to my monitor. In my personal…

It's a mix of three different cultural factors long extant in the programming community which came together to create today's keyboard culture: 1. Keyboard elitism Until as late as the early 2000s, there was a lot of elitism in programming circles about how using the mouse was something only "lusers" did. Keyboarding was supposedly faster than mousing (even though programmers do a lot more thinking than either keyboa…

also the expiry of the Cherry MX switch patent

Re: A complete guide to building a hand-wired keyboard (2020)

#62

Post by drekipus »

digging wrote: post #48
qwerty456127 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never knew there are keyboards with configurable firmwares, also never heard about layers. Your comment sounds very helpful, thank you. By the way I already considered buying a Moonlander because of its 2-part design - I have an idea of possibly using a computer while lying on the floor sort of like in the Shavasana posture with my hands by my sides rather than in front of me.

> also never heard about layers I was just discussing this yesterday with a friend. It's funny how rare and technical it is to understand layers when everyone uses layers every day - shift + 3 does not render 3, but #. But we don't talk about it that way.

I really want to reconfigure some "shift" values, like shift + space should give you an underscore.. but I have to use a layer button for that, not the shift key

Re: A complete guide to building a hand-wired keyboard (2020)

#63

Post by bArray »

Rather than use the knife to cut sections out of the wire, I would have considered getting some single core wire and sliding pre-cut heat shrink down it - that way you don't risk cutting into the wire. Just remember to let the core cool between heating/soldering to prevent premature shrinking.

Re: A complete guide to building a hand-wired keyboard (2020)

#64

Post by Given_47 »

wakeupcall wrote: post #5
qwerty456127 wrote: post #2

Sounds very interesting. I have looked through premium and "custom" keyboards market recently and found out their customness mostly is about look&feel, key placement and omitting "unnecessary" keys while I want a positively custom set of keys: as many keys as possible - full keypad, multimedia keys separate from f1-12 keys, Windows context menu key, also programmable macro keys if possible, no spatial "optimizations"…

My impression for the popularity of the 75% form factor is due to laptops and people being accustomed to never have used the "missing" keys in the first place. A tell-tale is that default layout even for thinkpads is to set the Fn row to media keys by default... An increasingly smaller number of people use them, despite being a row of freely remappable keys right _there_. What I've seen happen though is that especial…

> despite being a row of freely remappable keys right _there_.

Lol right. And I add a shift layer to the fn row as well, to add more fn keys. Sadly a lot of apps won’t support fn20+ but u find more utility binding them to hand crafted actions anyway

Re: A complete guide to building a hand-wired keyboard (2020)

#65

Post by Given_47 »

hnlmorg wrote: post #60
eviks wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a one time effort you can easily avoid with a much smaller one time effort (tapping/holding a very convenient numpad layer modifier). And it's especially a wasted effort for very short numbers like TOTPs And all the digits are right there, not at some opposite ends, e.g., UIO789 JKL456 M,.123 on a qwerty

I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

I’m fairly certain they’re talking about creating an actual numpad layer on ur keyboard (which I also have), exactly so digits aren’t on the opposite side of the keyb. Mine is triggered by holding down esc/caps lock with my left, while my right is typing on the “numpad”

Re: A complete guide to building a hand-wired keyboard (2020)

#66

Post by hnlmorg »

Given_47 wrote: post #65
hnlmorg wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

I’m fairly certain they’re talking about creating an actual numpad layer on ur keyboard (which I also have), exactly so digits aren’t on the opposite side of the keyb. Mine is triggered by holding down esc/caps lock with my left, while my right is typing on the “numpad”

Yeah I got that, but I disagree having to hold down down additional keys to enable that mode, and importantly in my case, having to remember to hold them down is less effort then moving your wrist two or three inches.

Ultimately there’s going to be a lot of personal habit baked into these preferences and we are talking about micro-optimisations at best anyway. Which I why I think it’s probably better to just agree to disagree.

Re: A complete guide to building a hand-wired keyboard (2020)

#67

Post by eviks »

hnlmorg wrote: post #66
Given_47 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m fairly certain they’re talking about creating an actual numpad layer on ur keyboard (which I also have), exactly so digits aren’t on the opposite side of the keyb. Mine is triggered by holding down esc/caps lock with my left, while my right is typing on the “numpad”

Yeah I got that, but I disagree having to hold down down additional keys to enable that mode, and importantly in my case, having to remember to hold them down is less effort then moving your wrist two or three inches. Ultimately there’s going to be a lot of personal habit baked into these preferences and we are talking about micro-optimisations at best anyway. Which I why I think it’s probably better to just agree to…

You don't need to remember since you don't need to hold it down, you can toggle Or both, hold for shorter totp codes, toggle for longer data entry sessions Or you could have a one-shot modifier where for single numbers you wouldn't need to hold anything (while avoiding having to frequently move your hand back and forth just for a single symbol). This works similar to one-shot shift for a First Letter Cap

And the mistake in your first response with the numbers on the opposite ends isn't about "personal habit"

Re: A complete guide to building a hand-wired keyboard (2020)

#68

Post by nick__m »

unnouinceput wrote: post #45
nick__m wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why an esp32 instead something simpler like an stm8 (or an stm32f103c8t6 if you need arduino compatibility) if you really want an mcu per key ?

because I'm experienced in ESP32 and not in STM8. But now that you mention it, a little seed started to grow. Thank you kind stranger, lemme get back to you when this will probably 2 years from now on and another $2000 in research/playing around.

I said stm8 but there are a lot's of cheap microcontroller, I don't know what you use to program your esp32 but you should have a look at platform.io . I use that list https://registry.platformio.org/search?t=platform&p=1 to select MCU's for my projects.

The thing I like the most about it is that I don't have to manually install and managed various tool chains and it's a lot more flexible than the Arduino ide.

Re: A complete guide to building a hand-wired keyboard (2020)

#69

Post by sleepybrett »

rgoulter wrote: post #56
sleepybrett wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

less keys = more cognitive overhead. Having to remember what layer i put fucking pipe on is not better than just hitting the damn key. In ~2000 I started suffering from tendonitis and my coding job became very painful, I tried kind of the 'easy onramp' ergo options at the time, namely the ms 'natural'. It did not help. Eventually someone pointed me at the kinesis advantage (then essential) and I bought one. After som…

> less keys = more cognitive overhead. Right. The benefits of reducing hand travel / stretching come at the cost of additional complexity. Not everyone will be comfortable with that complexity. I find the complexity acceptable; and in many ways more coherent than traditional layouts. e.g. I'd keep slash and backslash (/\) adjacent (or otherwise paired); a question mark (?) is frequent enough even in prose; so, pipe (…

i have almost 0 hand travel on my kinesis advantage. It lacks f-keys (layered on the numrow) and it has another layer for a keypad (front printed on the keys .. square of u-p m-/)... but also zmk so I could reprogram it if I wanted. It's a 76 ( if I'm counting right) key layout.

Re: A complete guide to building a hand-wired keyboard (2020)

#70

Post by Given_47 »

hnlmorg wrote: post #66
Given_47 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m fairly certain they’re talking about creating an actual numpad layer on ur keyboard (which I also have), exactly so digits aren’t on the opposite side of the keyb. Mine is triggered by holding down esc/caps lock with my left, while my right is typing on the “numpad”

Yeah I got that, but I disagree having to hold down down additional keys to enable that mode, and importantly in my case, having to remember to hold them down is less effort then moving your wrist two or three inches. Ultimately there’s going to be a lot of personal habit baked into these preferences and we are talking about micro-optimisations at best anyway. Which I why I think it’s probably better to just agree to…

Oh I didn’t mean to disagree, just wanted to add that it is pretty simple. However I still use the standard top number row for typing in a short sequence of numbers because of habit
Post reply on HN