Show HN: Threeboard – a full-size mechanical USB keyboard with only three keys
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Re: Show HN: Threeboard – a full-size mechanical USB keyboard with only three keys
#2Cool! Can you recommend any reading resources for getting into hardware design?
Re: Show HN: Threeboard – a full-size mechanical USB keyboard with only three keys
#3Cool! Can you recommend any reading resources for getting into hardware design?
SparkFun have some pretty good tutorials and resources for learning, e.g. this tutorial which guides you through using KiCad, a tool for designing schematics and PCBs: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/beginners-guide-to-kica....
Re: Show HN: Threeboard – a full-size mechanical USB keyboard with only three keys
#4It seems the A key takes the brunt of the typing, did that factor into your design?
Re: Show HN: Threeboard – a full-size mechanical USB keyboard with only three keys
#5But, is it clicky enough? ;)
Re: Show HN: Threeboard – a full-size mechanical USB keyboard with only three keys
#6It seems the A key takes the brunt of the typing, did that factor into your design?
Yes the A key is the most frequently used, as it increments the USB keycode in all layers. An alternative would be a mode that allows setting individual bits in the keycode byte, but that's still quite arduous.
Re: Show HN: Threeboard – a full-size mechanical USB keyboard with only three keys
#7But, is it clicky enough? ;)
Put whatever switches you want on it and it can be!
Re: Show HN: Threeboard – a full-size mechanical USB keyboard with only three keys
#8But, is it clicky enough? ;)
Put whatever switches you want on it and it can be!
On a more serious note, that’s a really cool project!
As it happens, I spent quite a bit of time last night learning about the qmk firmware and was looking around for a “keyboard development board”…
Do you think that you’d aim to grow the firmware to support bigger boards?
Re: Show HN: Threeboard – a full-size mechanical USB keyboard with only three keys
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Put whatever switches you want on it and it can be!
On a more serious note, that’s a really cool project! As it happens, I spent quite a bit of time last night learning about the qmk firmware and was looking around for a “keyboard development board”… Do you think that you’d aim to grow the firmware to support bigger boards?
For me personally, no. But I think the threeboard firmware is small enough right now that it's very readable and understandable, so it could make a good starting point to fork and adapt to different boards!
Re: Show HN: Threeboard – a full-size mechanical USB keyboard with only three keys
#10I love small keyboards, but with only 3 keys, you may as well just send ASCII codes. Nitpick aside, this does appear to be a quality project. :) A design document, user manual, and graphical simulator are lacking in many other niche keyboard projects.