Want to give prospective employers a business card that doesn’t immediately get tossed? Of course you do. If you’re one of us, the answer is obvious: make it some kind of a PCB.

But as those become commonplace, it’s imperative that you make it do something. Well, you could do a lot worse than giving someone a fully-functioning capacitive-touch keyboard to carry around.

[Ricardo Daniel de Paula] initially chose the CH32V303 microcontroller because it has native USB 2.0 and 16 capacitive touch channels, which can support up to 48 keys via multiplexing.

But in order to reduce costs, [Ricardo] switched to the CH582M, which does all that plus Bluetooth communication. The goal is to have an affordable design for a unique, functioning business card, and I would say that this project has it in spades.

Btrfld is a Folding Butterfly Keyboard

This origami beauty’s name is pronounced ‘butter-fold‘, by the way. And that’s because this is a folding, portable version of the original butterfly keyboard by [SolidusHal]. Be sure to check out the .gif of it folding and unfolding on the first link.

Instead of the Kailh Chocs you were probably expecting, this bad boy has Cherry MX ULP (ultra-low profile) switches, which [SolidusHal] reports are really nice-feeling with a tactile bump. The jury is still out as to how they compare with Chocs, however. With these, the overall thickness of the thing is only 15.5 mm.

As [SolidusHal] says over on GitHub, there aren’t any amazing sources of ULP keycaps yet, so the best option is to print them, and of course you’ll find the STLs in the repo. But beware, an FDM printer isn’t up to this task.

While you could hand-wire this thing, board files are available, so you should probably use them if you’re gonna build your own. And controller-wise, you can use a nice!nano or a BlueMicro840, or just a Pro Micro if you don’t want Bluetooth.

The Centerfold: Taste the Rainbow

You know I can’t resist a rainbow, right? And a translucent case too; that just takes the cake. This here is [haunterloo92]’s Locus keyboard, which features a carbon fiber plate, Lichicx silent tactile switches, and GMK CYL ZX keycaps, which of course recall the Sinclair Spectrum ZX. Not sure what desk mat that is, but it recalls ye old Apple rainbow, don’t you think? But good luck searching for it. (I had none.)

Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad? Send me a picture along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!

Historical Clackers: Salter No. 5

The curved keyboard of this Victorian beauty isn’t just for looks — it was designed to mimic the shape of the hands and thus be more comfortable.

What you can’t do with this one is slouch in your chair, otherwise you won’t see what you’re typing over that curved, black shield in the middle.

It is thought that there were no Salter nos. 1-4, and that Salter started with a higher number as to appear more established. Although sold by George Salter’s family company, the typewriter was invented by James Samuel Foley in 1892.

The Salter no. 5 features a three-row keyboard with two Shifts, one for upper case and the other for figures. Altogether, there are 28 keys that can produce 84 characters.

While early 5s used an ink pad, the later models employed a ribbon. They were marketed to compete with Remington typewriters and such, but at one-half or one-third the cost. Even so, they were one of the best typewriters available at the time.

ICYMI: KanaChord Plus Makes Comprehensive Japanese Input Simple

Have you ever wished you had a separate, smaller keyboard for inputting another language so you didn’t have to switch up your OS every time? Well, then KanaChord Plus is the keyboard for you, as long as your second language is Japanese.

[Mac Cody]’s update supports a whopping 6,165 Kanji along with 6,240 of the most common Japanese words containing Kanji. This is on top of what KanaChord already supported — all the Kana characters which make up the rest of Japanese writing.

As you may have guessed, KanaChord takes chording input — pressing multiple keys at once as you would on a piano. It uses color in order to indicate character type, Kana mode, and even to provide error feedback. Worried that it won’t work with your OS? There’s a slide switch to select one of three Unicode key sequences. Guess which three.

The touch screen is the icing on this updated cake. As you chord, an incremental Input Method Editor will search the embedded dictionaries and display an ordered list of Japanese words and Kanji choices to scroll through and select. [Mac Cody] has plans to support the Pico 2 and will update the comprehensive repo when it’s ready.

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Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards? Help me out by sending in a link or two. Don’t want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to email me directly.