peripherals hacks

ZX Spectrum Turned Into A USB Keyboard

July 31, 2014 by 25 Comments

ZX

They’re a little hard to find in the US, but the ZX Spectrum is right up there with the Commodore 64 and the Atari 8-bit computers in England. [Alistair] wanted to recreate the feeling of sitting right in front of the TV with his Speccy, leading him to create the ZX Keyboard, a Spectrum repurposed into a USB keyboard.

While most projects that take an old key matrix and turn it into a USB keyboard use the TMK firmware, [Alistair] wanted to flex his programming muscles and wrote the firmware from scratch. It runs on an Arduino Pro Mini, scanning the matrix of five columns and eight half rows to turn combinations of keypresses into an astonishing number of commands, given the limited number of keys on the ZX.

The firmware is available on [Alistair]’s repo, available to anyone who doesn’t want to pay the £50 a new ZX Spectrum keyboard will cost. As far as the usability of a Spectrum keyboard goes, at least [Alistair] didn’t have an Atari 400 sitting in the attic.

Building A True Unix Keyboard

July 28, 2014 by 20 Comments

keyboard

compact keyboards that do away with a third of the keys you would usually find on a normal-sized keyboard are all the rage now, but for [jonhiggs], they weren’t good enough. There is a long tradition of Unix shortcuts these compact keyboards don’t pay attention to – CTRL-A being the Home key, and CTRL-D being the Page Down key. To fix this horrible oversight of Unix history, [jon] tore apart one of these compact keyboards, rewired the switch matrix, and made his own perfect keyboard.

The keyboard [jon] is using is a Filco Minila, a very nice and high quality keyboard in its own right.  After mapping out the switch matrix, [jon] wired all the switches up to a Teensy 2.0 loaded up with the TMK firmware. This is a pretty standard way of building a custom keyboard, and [jon] could have just cut a switch plate and installed panel-mount switches and wired up the matrix and diodes point to point. The case for the keyboard is constructed out of Lego.

Because this is a true, modern Unix keyboard, [jon] needed to connect this keyboard to a box running his *nix of choice. He’s doing this in the most future-retro way possible, with an Amazon EC2 instance. This project isn’t done yet, and [jon] is hoping to add an ARM dev board, an iPad Retina display, battery, and SSD, turning this into a completely homebrew laptop designed around [jon]’s needs.

DIY Keyboard Backlighting Takes Forever, Worth It

July 27, 2014 by 23 Comments

LED Keyboard with Custom Lights

Want a back-lit keyboard? Make one yourself. Though you may not want to after seeing this build by [prodigydoo], who devoted 40 hours to upgrade his mechanical keyboard with a smattering of shiny.

No eye rolling just yet, though, because [prodigydoo’s] work is a monument to meticulous craftsmanship and dedication. So what if he accidentally dropped the keyboard’s PCB and cracked it? He patched that up with a few wires in true hacker-problem-solving fashion and no one will ever know.

With the electronics “safely” removed, [prodigydoo] set about desoldering every single key switch, then carefully detaching and disassembling the Cherry MX Blues. He then inserted an LED into each switch’s backplate, reassembled them, mounted the keys back on the board, then added some current-limiting resistors and heat shrink to the circuit. [prodigydoo] cut a few necessary holes for a power switch, state indicator LEDs (Caps Lock, etc.) and some under-the-board lighting, then rounded off the build by hooking up a power supply capable of running all the lights.

No microcontroller? No RGBLEDs? We like it anyway, and it seems [prodigydoo] is glad he kept it simple. Go check out the gallery for gritty details, an explanation of the circuit, and more pictures than your family vacation album.

Make that C64 Keyboard Work as a USB Keyboard

July 17, 2014 by 22 Comments

keyboard-to-usb-mapping

Let’s face it, we all have keyboard peculiarities. Don’t try to deny it, everyone who types a lot has an opinion of the keyboard they stroke so frequently. We know [Brian Benchoff] swears by his model M, and we’re guessing he was the one that bumped into [Evan] and convinced him to write about his conversion of a Commodore 64 keyboard for use as a USB device.

This is not [Evan’s] first rodeo. We recently saw him fixing up the worn off letters of his own model M. But this time around there’s some clever microcontroller work at play. Apparently mapping 122 keys using an Atmel AVR 32u4 chip (built in USB connectivity) is quite a task. Luckily someone’s already worked out all kinds of good things and is sharing the love with the Soarer’s Keyboard Controller Firmware. Of course it handles scanning, but also includes debounce, muxing, and the trick to scan more keys than the uC has pins for. We still don’t fully understand that bit of it. But [Evan] did post the config file he’s using so perhaps after we get elbow-deep in the code we’ll have a better understanding.

If you give this a try, we want to hear about it. Anyone have any modern keyboards they’re in love with? Leave a comment below.

Custom Controllers For Kerbal Space Program

July 3, 2014 by 17 Comments

kerbalKerbal Space Program is already a runaway indie video game hit, and if you ask some people, they’ll tell you it is the way to learn all about orbital dynamics, how spaceships actually fly, the challenges of getting to the mün. The controls in KSP are primarily keyboard and mouse, something that really breaks the immersion for a space flight simulator. We’ve seen a few before, but now custom controllers well suited for a Kerbal command pod can be made at home, with all the blinkey LEDs, gauges, and buttons you could want.

[Freshmeat] over on the KSP forums began his space adventures with a keyboard but found the fine control lacking. An old Logitech Dual Shock controller offered better control, but this gamepad doesn’t come with a throttle, and USB throttles for flight sims are expensive. He found a neat plugin for KSP made for interfacing an Arduino, and with a few modifications, turned his controller into a control panel, complete with sliders, pots, gauges, and all the other goodies a proper command pod should have.

[Freshmeat]’s work is not the only custom Kerbal controller. There’s a whole thread of them, with implementations that would look great in everything from a modern spaceplane to kerbalkind’s first steps into the milky abyss of space. There’s even one over on the Hackaday projects site, ready to fly Bill, Bob, and Jeb to the mün or a fiery explosion. Either one works.

Thanks [drago] for the tip.

Apple Forces Non-Mac User To Make Ergonomic Mac Keyboard

June 27, 2014 by 64 Comments

Mac Ergonomic Keyboard

If you’ve ever typed for a significant amount of time you know that it can become painful. Long term exposure can cause wrist and arm injuries. There are some things that can help alleviate the risk of injury like taking frequent breaks, good posture and using an ergonomic keyboard. [Ian] likes the feel of Mac keyboard keys but doesn’t like the traditional straight layout. Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t make an ergonomic keyboard so [Ian] stepped up to the plate and made one for himself.

Mac Ergonomic Keyboard

Just starting this project was an extreme pain. Apple glues their Mac keyboards together. A heat gun was used to melt the glue to 400°F as kitchen utensils were stuck in between the halves of the case, keeping the glue from re-sealing the case together. Once the case was apart the unnecessary keys were removed. [Ian] is actually modifying two keyboards into one because he wants the middle keys to show up on both sides of the keyboard. With the necessary keys identified, the metal support frame was removed from the unneeded sides of the keyboard.

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The Relay-Based Mouse Emulator

June 15, 2014 by 28 Comments

mouse

[Nixie]’s job involves using some test software that requires moving a mouse around, clicking a few buttons, checking if everything is okay, and repeating the process over and over again. This is obviously a solution for some keyboard macros, but in a fit of sadistic spite, the test software requires someone to move a mouse around the screen. What is [Nixie] to do? Make a mouse emulator and automate the whole thing, of course.

The Memulator, as [Nixie] calls the device, is the latest in a series of devices to increase productivity when testing. The first version was the mouse tumor, an odd-looking device that simply switched off the LED for an optical mouse, keeping the cursor in one spot while [Nixie] hammered a button repeatedly. The second version is more advanced, capable of moving the cursor around the screen, all without doing an iota of USB programming: [Nixie] is simply using a resistive touch pad, some relays and a few pots to turn buttons into cursor movements. It’s such a simple solution it almost feels wrong.

There’s some interesting tech here, nonetheless. For some reason, [Nixie] has a few cases of old, can-shaped soviet-era relays in this build. While using such cool, awesome old components in such a useful and productive build seems odd, if you’re trying to fix ancient software that’s so obviously broken, you might as well go whole hog and build something that will make someone in twenty years scratch their head.

Vertical video of the Memulator below.

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