Mods Make A Stock Keyboard Your Own

May 7, 2022 by Kristina Panos 2 Comments

Trust me, you don’t have to build your own keyboard from the deskpad up to be happy or feel like one of the cool kids. Sure, it doesn’t hurt, but not everyone is able to or even wants to start from next to nothing. Take [Roger] for example. [Roger] started with a stock mechanical keeb — the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard (UHK) — which can be outfitted with magnetic add-on modules such as a thumb key cluster, trackball, trackpoint, and touch pad, and made it his own.

While the stock board that you choose may not be so option-laden, there are plenty of other things one can do to customize things, and [Roger] did basically all of them. The Kailh browns that the UHK came with were too loud, so [Roger] swapped them out for Zilent V2 Silent tactiles and dampened the case with plenty of neoprene foam.

[Roger] frequently switches between two keyboard layouts, which got confusing at times. But instead of boring blank keycaps, he scrounged around until he found a cool set. (We do like the way they look with the wood wrist rests.) Speaking of those wrist rests, the right one is carved out and hiding a 10,000 mAh power bank, because [Roger] also made the UHK wireless using one of those often-out-of-stock BT-500 Bluetooth adapters. This allows him to switch between two PCs with a keyboard shortcut.

Think you want to go split, but not sure about key wells and column stagger and all that jazz? Something like the UHK is a good place to start, because it takes the familiar brick wall layout and breaks it into two pieces. No idea what you want? Check out the split keyboard finder.

Pico Chording Keyboard Is Simultaneously Vintage And New

May 6, 2022 by Kristina Panos 9 Comments

On paper, chording — that’s pressing multiple keys to create either a single character or a whole word — looks like one of the best possible input methods. Maybe not the best for speed, at least for a while, but definitely good for conserving the total number of keys. Of course, fewer keys also makes for an easier time when it comes to building keyboards (as long as you don’t have to code the chording software). In fact, we would venture to guess that the hardest part of building your own version of [CrazyRobMiles]’s Pico Chord Keyboard would be teaching your fingers how to work together to chord instead of typing one at a time.

[CrazyRobMiles] took inspiration from the Cykey chording design used for the Microwriter and later, the Microwriter Agenda that also featured a qwerty blister keyboard. Both featured small screens above the six keys — one for each finger, and two for the thumb. While the original Microwriter ran on an 8-bit microprocessor, Pico Chord Keyboard uses — you guessed it — the Raspberry Pi Pico.

We love that [CrazyRobMiles] went with four 14-segment displays, which gives it a nice old school feel, but used transparent keycaps over Kailh switches. This is actually important, because not only do the LEDs show what mode you’re in (alpha vs. numeric vs. symbols), they also teach you how to chord each letter in the special training game mode. Be sure to check it out in the video after the break.

Isn’t it cool that we live in a world of relatively big keyboards with few keys and tiny keyboards with all the keys?

Continue reading “Pico Chording Keyboard Is Simultaneously Vintage And New” →

Toast Keyboard Raises A Glass To Short Index Fingers

May 5, 2022 by Kristina Panos 4 Comments

Custom keyboards? They’re totally great. And we can keep telling you this, but you really won’t feel it until you try a few and find one or two that are right for you. If you’re already on board, we wonder: is there any limit to what custom keyboards can provide in terms of a good, comfortable time for your fingers, wrists, arms, shoulders, and neck? We think not, and as time goes on, there is more and more evidence to support this.

Take [vpzed]’s Toast keyboard for example. The beauty of customization is that as with any other human input problem, you’ll discover many more people who share your misery once you present a solution. In this case, it is the portion of the population whose index fingers are shorter than their ring fingers (which is evidently men in general). This is known as the 2D:4D ratio and is decided during gestation. At first, the phenomenon was thought to be due to high testosterone exposure in the womb, but subsequent studies have debunked this belief.

Toast aims to sate the need for a keyboard layout that accounts for a significantly shorter 2D than 4D by way of aggressively staggering the index finger’s key positions and staggering the columns overall. As you might imagine, there are no inner keys for length-challenged index fingers to grasp at — that would just be cruel. But there is another pinky column on each hand, which bring the key total to 34. We like the square boards, and frankly wish they were bread-shaped.

Not enough keys for you? Take a look at this many-keyed monoblock split with a numpad in the middle.

via KBD

Fireball-Flinging Figurine Feeds Fiction

May 3, 2022 by Kristina Panos 7 Comments

If you’re writing a screenplay or novel, there will likely be points along the way at which you can’t get enough encouragement from friends and family. While kind words are kind, acts such as [scubabear]’s can provide a push like no other. By commissioning another 3D designer friend to model a character from the first friend’s screenplay so he could print and animate it, [scubabear] fed two birds with one scone, you might say.

Designer friend [Sean] modeled the mighty Braomar in Maya and Z-brush, and [scubabear] did test prints on a Formlabs Form2 as they went along to keep an eye on things. Eventually, they had a discussion about making space for wires and such, so [Sean] took to Blender to make Braomar hollow enough for wires, but not so empty that he would collapse under the stress of being (we presume) the main character.

Braomar stands upon a sigil that changes color thanks to an RGB LED ring in the base that’s driven by an Arduino Nano. A single pixel in the fireball is wired through Braomar’s body and flickers with the help of an addressable LED sequencer board.

Our favorite part of this build has to be the power scheme. Not content to have a wire running out from the base or even a remote control for power-draining concerns, [scubabear] used disc magnets in the base to switch on the 9 V battery when Screenplay Friend rotates it.

Of course, if you need inspiration to even thing about beginning to write a screenplay or novel, maybe you should lead with the maquette-building and then construct a story around your creation.

This project was an entry into the 2022 Sci-Fi Contest. Check out all of the winning entries here.

Chonky Palmtop Will Slide Into Your Heart

April 29, 2022 by Kristina Panos 41 Comments

You probably know what a cyberdeck is by now, but you’ll find that people’s definitions differ. Some use the term rather loosely, applying it to things that are luggable at best. But we think you’ll agree that the “Chonky Palmtop” created by [Daniel Norris] AKA [a8ksh4] is without a doubt, quite cyberdeckian.

One of the hallmarks of a cyberdeck is that it folds up, often like a laptop in the screen-over-keyboard sense. Not only does chonky palmtop do that, but the split keyboard (more on that later) has this impressive pivot geometry and really satisfying slider mechanism thing going on. The whole thing folds up into a little brick, which [Daniel] says is about the size of an old Asus EEE laptop. (Remember those bad boys? Those were the days.)

Inside the brick is some stuff you might expect, like a Raspberry Pi 4 and a 7″ touchscreen. [a8ksh4] also packed in an AmpRipper 3000 LiPo charger, which is especially good for high voltage projects. Speaking of, there is a voltage button to check the battery level, which is then displayed on a trio of 7-segment displays that are smack dab in the middle below the screen.

Now about that split keyboard — that’s a Corne, which is kind of a happy medium between a lot of keys and too few, and 42 is probably enough keys for most people. Considering the overall size, we think that is a great amount of keys.

Not that you can tell by the keycaps on those Chocs, but [a8ksh4] is rocking the Miryoku layout and firmware. Slide past the break to watch chonky palmtop unfurl, boot into Ubuntu, and close back up in a brief demo video.

Continue reading “Chonky Palmtop Will Slide Into Your Heart” →

Hackaday Podcast 165: Old Printers, Dark Towers, 3DP Gaskets, And Wavy Traces

April 22, 2022 by Kristina Panos 6 Comments

Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos as we gab about the most interesting hacks and stories of the previous week. This time, we start off by marveling over everything happening this weekend. Most urgently, it’s your last chance to enter the 2022 Sci-Fi contest, which closes Monday, April 25th at 8:30 AM Pacific Time sharp. Already got your hat in the ring? If you’re anywhere in the neighborhood of New Jersey, don’t miss the VCF’s Vintage Computer Festival East. Don’t want to leave the house? Then check out all the talks that start approximately right now, assuming you get your Hackaday Podcasts hot off the server.

In this episode, we’ll fawn over a KiCAD plug-in that gives your PCBs that old-timey look, discuss ancient telephone exchanges and the finest in 70s-era custom telephones, and dream about building a wall of sound out of Raspberry Pis. Then we’ll talk about awesome old printers and the elegance of RSS feeds, developing your own digital film, and a really cool line follower robot that works without a brain. Stay with us to find out where Kristina likes her taskbar, and we’ll tell you the cool-kid name for the the Commodore key.

Direct download!

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments below!

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast 165: Old Printers, Dark Towers, 3DP Gaskets, And Wavy Traces” →

Electric Chopsticks Bring The Salt, Not The Pain

April 21, 2022 by Kristina Panos 12 Comments

The Japanese people love their salt, perhaps as much as Americans love their ~~sugar~~ high fructose corn syrup and caffeine. But none of these are particularly good for you. Although humans do need some salt in their diets to continue existing, the average Japanese person may be eating too much of it on a regular basis — twice the amount recommended by the World Health Organization, according to Reuters. Cue the invention of electric chopsticks, which provide salty flavor without the actual sodium.

No, you won’t get shocked — not even a fresh 9 V to the tongue’s worth. The tips of the chopsticks are made of something food-safe and conductive, and one is wired to a bracelet that contains a small computer. Using a weak current, the chopsticks transmit sodium ions from the food to the tongue, which increases the perceived saltiness by 1.5x. The device was co-created by a Meiji University professor and a Japanese beverage maker, who hope to commercialize it sometime next year.

This isn’t the first time humans have used trickery when it comes to diets. The older among you may remember the miracle berry weight loss craze of the 1970s. When ingested first, miracle berries make sour things taste sweet, so chowing down on grapefruits and lemons suddenly sounds like a good idea. What people failed to realize was that the acidity would still wreak havoc on their teeth and tongues, leaving them regretful the next day.

Images via Reuters