The Birdy44 Keyboard Is Something to Crow About https://hackaday.com/2023/10/18/the-birdy44-keyboard-is-something-to-crow-about/ #PeripheralsHacks #SteamController #RaspberryPi #low-profile #Kailhchocs #keyboard #rp2040

A Clear Guide For A Low-Profile Bespoke Keyboard

At the risk of stepping on our fantastic Keebin with Kristina series, a beautiful tutorial by [Ben Vallack] details how to create a custom low-profile keyboard in great detail.

We've covered complete guides to building your own and projects making custom rubber dome keyboards. In addition, several subreddits exist around custom keyboard builds and dozens of websites are dedicated to selling parts. So why add not add one more guide, especially on as well done as [Ben's]?

[Ben] focuses on the high-level tooling and the methodology of laying out a keyboard and how it all comes together. It all starts with determining your specific hand shape and layout with Ergopad. With that shape taken care of, you can move onto Ergogen, which allows you to take the layout you have in mind and generate a KiCAD board layout that just needs to be routed. Flippable boards, various footprints for switches, and connecting up different microcontrollers are all supported.

Once you have your PCB in hand, [Ben] walks you through soldering the sockets on the back and setting up your board firmware in ZMK with Github Actions. It's a slick guide with a nifty product at the end. Video after the break.

#peripheralshacks #kailhchocs #keyboard #keyboardguide #mechanicalkeyboard

Keebin’ with Kristina: the One with the Ballpoint Typewriters

So you want to minimize finger movement when you type, but don't have three grand to drop on an old DataHand, or enough time to build the open-source lalboard? Check out these two concept keebs from [SouthPawEngineer], which only look like chord boards.

Every key on the home row is a five-way switch -- like a D-pad with straight down input. [SouthPawEngineer] has them set up so that each one covers a QWERTY column. So like, for the left pinky switch, up is Q, right is A, down is Z, and left is 1. Technically, the split has 58 keys, and the uni has 56.

Both of these keebs use KB2040 boards, which are Adafruit's answer to the keyboard-building craze of these roaring 2020s. These little boards are of course easy to program with CircuitPython, which supports KMK, an offshoot of the popular QMK. Thanks for the tip, [foamyguy]!

New Keebs: The Glove80 Is One Size Fits All

As much as I love my Kinesis Advantage, it is an ideal keyboard for home use and not necessarily anywhere else. There's no way I can go back to a rectangle unless I want my repetitive stress injury to resurface, so I need an ergonomic split for outside the house. Pretty much any split would be more portable than the Kinesis, but not all splits are created equal. Thus far, I have found the ErgoDox too big for my hands, and I still haven't got my Dactyl working all the way, so there's no data there. Ergo, I am more than tempted by the Glove80, a low-profile split which is available via fully-funded but still-active Kickstarter. It has Kailh Chocs, POM keycaps, and uses a pair of nRF52840s.

The designers behind Glove80 are enthusiasts -- an entrepreneur and and engineer with 18 years of ergo keyboard use under their fingers. They did over 500 ergo experiments and built really cool-looking modular test rigs in order to build a keyboard that is purported to be comfortable for all hand sizes. They weren't originally planning to commercialize this keyboard, but luckily, someone convinced them it should be shared with the world.

This Bluetooth split has 80 low-profile keys (hence the name), all of which are the same size -- 1u. That makes it easy to swap layouts and keycaps however you like. The only thing I don't care for is that it's only available with red switches, and I think at this point, y'all know how I feel about reds. On the bright side, there's a stretch goal in place to add browns and whites to the switch offering, but that is roughly $80,000 away as I type this. I'll be checking back later in the month for sure.

A Keeb Designed By Physics

As [Foone] pointed out on Twitter (ThreadReader version) the other day, keyboard layouts as we know them have descended from typewriters and their operational limitations. But we can throw all that out the window since we have digital keyboards now.

To that end, [Foone] let physics design this layout (if you can call it that) by essentially putting all the keys in a virtual jar with some spacer spheres, shaking it, and letting the letters, symbols, and modifiers fall where they may.

If you think typing on this would be a nightmare, consider the wiring for a minute. [Foone] used a Teensy++ 2.0, which has 45 GPIO pins, so there's no need for a matrix or diodes. This is essentially an expensive joke, but there is some truth in it. If nothing else, let this funny exercise serve as an inspiration -- one that gives you permission to put ergonomics first, or whatever butters your muffin when it comes to keyboard design. Thanks for the tip, [J. Peterson]!

Historical Clackers: Ballpoint Typewriters Will Draw You In

Serial keyboard designer [deʃhipu] tipped me off to this old Twitter thread from [Paul Rickards] (ThreadReader version) about ballpoint typewriters, which are kind of like the love child between a word processor and a pen plotter. Under normal circumstances, the user types on the keyboard and the characters appear on a small screen about 20 at a time, which gives a chance to correct mistakes before it sends the words to the print head.

When connected to a computer via RS-232 serial port, these machines can draw all sorts of things from graphs to graphic art using an Alps plotter mechanism and tiny ballpoint pens in red, blue, green, and black. There are a ton of nice pictures in the thread that show different makes and models throughout the years, so go check them out.

ICMYI: the Palm Portable Keyboard Goes Wireless

Okay, so you probably don't have a Palm device anymore, but you almost certainly carry a smart phone around. Wouldn't it be cool if you could use Palm's revolutionary (at the time) foldy keyboard that collapses neatly to pocket size? Yeah it would.

Well now you can, thanks to [Xinming Chen] and their tidy little Bluetooth adapter. It is essentially an Adafruit Feather nRF52840 and a voltage level inverter that translates RS-232 from the keyboard into TTL for the Bluetooth host, all in a neat 3D-printed package that slides on to the keyboard's connector and powers on with a tiny, hidden switch. What's not to like? And you wouldn't believe how cheap and abundant these origami inputs are on kee-bay. I got mine and left you all plenty.

Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards? [Help me out by sending in a link or two](mailto:tips@hackaday.com?Subject=[Keebin' with Kristina]). Don't want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to [email me directly](mailto:kristinapanos@hackaday.com?Subject=[Keebin' Fodder]).

#hackadaycolumns #peripheralshacks #5wayswitch #ballpointtypewriter #dpad #kailhchocs #kb2040 #lowprofile #palmportablekeyboard #plotter #teensy

Can’t Spill Coffee On Your Keyboard If It’s Already Inside

No matter where you live in the world or what beverage you enjoy, it's too easy to spill it on the keyboard. Obviously, the solution is to combine the two. That's exactly what Google Japan did this past April Fool's Day when they released the Gboard -- a cylindrical keyboard wrapped around a removable cup. But is it still a joke once you've open-sourced it and made a build guide, more or less?

Here's where it gets weird: each kanji on the keyboard represents a different kind of fish, and they're laid out in Japanese phonetic order. You're not stuck with the fish, though -- one of the 60 keys switches between fish input and regular Hiragana (the basic Japanese phonetic alphabet). Underneath all those fish are low-profile Kailh chocs hooked up to an ATMega32u4. We only wish it were wireless.

We love that they open-sourced this keyboard, and it even makes sense in a way. In order to produce a good April Fool's video, you actually have to make the fake product. The better it is (i.e. weird but plausible), the more people will like it and probably want one. So if you're going to go to all that trouble, why not set it free on GitHub? Note that the second line of the readme is "this is not an officially-supported Google product", which we suppose goes without saying.

Be sure to check out the short video after the break. If you don't understand Japanese, you'll want to turn on the closed captions.

You know, now that Raspberry Pi have made their answer to the Arduino, it's about time that Apple made their answer to the Raspberry Pi.

Via r/ErgoMechKeyboards

#lifehacks #peripheralshacks #atmega32u4 #kailhchocs #keyboard #mechanicalkeyboard

Chordie Chording Keyboard Speaks No Qwerty

What is the fastest way to get thoughts out of your brain and into relative permanence? Well, yeah, probably a voice recorder. But after voice recorders comes typing in a distant second. Typing, especially QWERTY-style, has its limitations. The holy grail method it comes to typing quickly has got to be a chording keyboard, hands down. How can court reporters possibly keep up with everything that's uttered during a trial? When you can press a few keys at the same time and type entire words, it's not that difficult. It just takes a whole lot of memorization and muscle memory to get to that point.

So if you're going to go for the glory, check out Chordie, a snazzy little chording keyboard that does it all with just 14 keys. [kbjunky] based Chordie on the Ginny, a cute little bare-bones bat-wing chording keyboard that uses the ASETNIOP chording engine originally built for soft keyboards.[kbjunky] added open-face trackball support via printed cradle, but it's not necessary to use a trackball since there's a pair of rotary encoders and a mouse layer.

This keyboard looks fantastic with its rocket ship MCU holder and its flush-mounted I/O expander breakout boards. Apparently [kbjunky] used polyimide tape to keep the solder from making blobs. It's all there in the nice build guide.

We would probably argue that chording is not totally ergonomic. Sure, you barely move your hands or wrists, but chording itself can be hard on the digits, especially the pinkies. To that end, [kbjunky] used low-profile switches with light springs. Totally ergonomic or not, we have to admit that we love the idea of clacking along at 300 WPM someday far, far down the learning curve of ASETNIOP. Take a look at the key map, and check out [kbjunky]'s follow-up post if you want to see a demo.

Maybe you prefer a completely different typing experience. Well, ASETNIOP works with digital pianos, too.

Via r/ErgoMechKeyboards

#peripheralshacks #asetniop #chording #chordingkeyboard #kailhchocs

Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Keycaps

16Just when we thought we'd seen the peak of ergonomic, split keyboards, along comes [Peter Lyons] with the Squeezebox -- an adjustable, column-staggered, streamlined beauty with 21 keys per hand. Much like the Kinesis Advantage and the Dactyl, the user's fingers are allowed to dangle comfortably and stay in their naturally curled position, moving as little as possible between keys, rows, and columns. But the Squeezebox goes a few steps farther to reduce finger travel.

For starters, each column of keys is adjustable on the fly in the Y-direction by loosening the screw and sliding it until it's just right. The columns are also adjustable in the Z-direction, but for now, this requires reprinting a few parts. In case you didn't notice, the grid is pretty tightly packed, and those low-profile Kailh choc switches are naked to the world, mostly because keycaps wouldn't fit anyway.

At that angle, there's no reaching required at all between the middle and bottom rows. The 100° corner that they form both invites and supports chording -- that's pressing multiple keys simultaneously to do some action. There's no real need to reach for the top row, either, because [Peter] merely moves his finger upward in the Z-direction a little bit to hit those. The similarly-angled thumb clusters are chord-able as well, and their position relative to the mainland is adjustable thanks to a grid of holes that are meant for threaded inserts. Genius!

For the next version, [Peter] plans to bring the three sets of thumb cluster switches closer together, and arrange them like a tri-fold science fair display board. Be sure to check out the super cool but somewhat impossible-to-solder prototypes in the build log, and stay for more stuff in the huge build gallery. Typing demo is after the break.

Still too much travel for your taste? How about a 5-way for each finger?

Thanks for the tip, [Tyberius Prime]!

#microcontrollers #peripheralshacks #adjustable #adjustablekeyboard #elitec #kailhchocs #keywells #qmk #rj9