Well this is something we haven’t seen before. A video wall An 8-bit style video wall made from 160 RGB illuminated gaming keyboards.
On display at the PAX East gaming expo, the keys on 160 Logitech keyboards make up the “pixels” of a video wall showing a short film inspired from side-scroller video games. It’s the work of the production company iam8bit. Details on the system are scant, but we can learn a little from close observation of the video.
Logitech’s RGB illuminated keyboard allow every key to be set to a custom color. The keyboards making up the wall seem to have the key markings removed or the keys replaced with blanks to enhance visibility.
We’ve seen details behind mosaic-style Raspberry Pi based video walls before, as well as individual RGB LED based video walls, but there is no word on what is used behind the scenes to drive this display or how it was made. To be honest, we should have known this was coming. That keyboard illumination hack that [Sprite_TM] pulled off a couple of years was just too cool and the next logical step is a huge matrix of multiple keyboards.
Were the keyboards themselves hacked in some way beyond removing the key markings to do what we see in the video? Let us know what you think in the comments.
[via Gizmodo]
I’m sorry, but that’s not 8 bit.
8 bit style*
Stop being a typical internet troll and over analyzing everything…
So I’m a troll for knowing and pointing out bit depths?
This “hack” blog has surely gone downhill, then.
Let’s be honest, was Hackaday ever uphill?
I’m sure they think it’s “uphill” to deal with the likes of us.
It is true, nothing technically 8-bit about it; but clearly inspired by classic 8-bit gaming.
Indeed, the animations are lovely, so is the overall concept!
It used an 8-bit era color palette even if it was the less common “painters wheel” like 8 color palette that included orange.
Certainly an 8-bit era processor just doesn’t have the transition bandwidth (bit toggle rate) to do this so I would expect it to be a 32 bit or 64 bit processor. A FPGA would have done the task of driving the keyboard from a video signal well.
Even so you can see that they have limited bandwidth by the fact that they have grouped keys (LEDs) together rather than use them as individual pixels.
Individually IP Addressed Keyboards controlled by a server, Logitech G810 Orion Spectrums.
Wondering :
Romer-G keys with Central Led so much space
vs
Cherry MX Tiny flangeless Led
Anyone got a comparison of a Romer-G vs the Mx Switch real world not one of those paid reviews etc where they crap on about how good said product is and this that.
Was more than 256 colors used?
From the keyboard website “spectrum of over 16.8 million colours” i would of said colors. so easily you can see it wasn’t my wording ;)
8-bit style video wall made from 160 RGB illuminated gaming keyboards.
Wall.
Style.
8 bit.
@feena
Even if you didn’t know what the article meant–which I don’t believe for a second–you offered no thoughts or commentary beyond a single pedantic point. At the absolute best it was kvetching, at worst it was shit-stirring.
… and it’s a “touchscreen” :D
+1
And each pixel can listen to a different touch! A thousand multitouch screen!
only if they are “n-key rollover” capable.
LinusTechTips did a video on it where they mentioned that each keyboard was hooked up to a network and they each had there own I.P.
Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg23s9FBc9s
Oh wow, thanks for that link! Sounds like there’s a lot going on behind the scenes.
No problem! Glad I could help.
I want to lie down on it
The video could have been made to loop endlessly with the capture and rescue happening over and over.
Now that’s my type of display. Ha-ha-hoo-hoo-hee-hee-hee, etc.
Can it run Crysis?
Still a better love story than twilight.
+1
with an output plugin for those keyboards, niftyled could drive that.
When I swung by their booth I saw what appeared to be a spare modded keyboard (seemed to me that they’d modded the original keycaps, not gotten ones with blank semiopaque tops) hooked up to a small 3×3″-ish black box with a label that said “test unit” on what looked like white tape. Didn’t manage to get a photo unfortunately, my phone was full.
delete the pr0n and take a picture!
When do we get LED display Doona cover.
Jeri Ellsworth I’m just putting this it out there LED Display Doona Cover