Illustrated Kristina with an IBM Model M keyboard floating between her hands.

Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Keyboard-Mouse, Again

December 29, 2025 by Kristina Panos 8 Comments

The astute among you may remember an earlier version of this Russian beauty, the Lapa, which I featured last year around this time. Creator [lemosbor] claims that the worry was less about visual beauty and more about ergonomics. Way more. Well then, let this serve rather nicely as a textbook definition of that old form-follows-function principle.

A splendidly ergonomic split with few keys, large openings under the palms and wrists, and mouse control on the thumbs. — The lovely Lapa.

See, [lemosbor] believes that the keyboard must adapt to the hands and not the other way around. The main goals were to minimize hand and finger movement as well as the visual attention required of the keyboard itself. No, there were never going to be any screens or RGB, and there likely never will be.

But I refuse to sidestep the obvious beauty in this keyboard, which from the side resembles a stylish and expensive pair of slightly-heeled shoes that were tailored to the contours of the human hand. And let’s not forget those handmade, oval keycaps, which again are a product of form-follows-function.

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Moving Mousepad Is An Elegant Aimbot

December 27, 2025 by Lewin Day 12 Comments

These days, it can be hard to remain competitive in online shooters without spending your entire life dedicated to the sport. This leads some to explore the world of competitive aids. (AKA: cheating.) A great example is [Nick], who built a mechanical aimbot to help in this regard.

[Nick’s] build moves a mousepad underneath the mouse opposite to the desired movement direction, in order to simulate the mouse movements required to aim at targets in game. This is achieved with the aid of a XDraw A4 pen plotter, which served as a cheap prebuilt X-Y motion platform. The plotter responds to simple serial commands, which makes it easy to control. The X-Y gantry was mounted underneath the desk so the mousepad sits seamlessly on top of the desk, sliding neatly on low-friction mouse skate stickers.

With the mousepad control system built, it was then necessary to figure out how to turn it into an aimbot. [Nick] already had a machine vision tool to detect enemies in shooting game, so it was merely modified to make the right mousepad movements to get the crosshairs right where they needed to be before firing. In testing, it proved more than capable at helping a new player achieve far superior aim, as a good aimbot should.

We’ve featured similar projects before that use complex mechanical contraptions to aim for you. Yes, it’s still cheating, but it’s a lot harder to detect than a traditional aimbot. That doesn’t make it right, per se, just more subtle. Video after the break. Continue reading “Moving Mousepad Is An Elegant Aimbot” →

a torn-up printer with a very long image of different frames

Playing DOOM On A Receipt Printer

December 27, 2025 by Ian Bos 33 Comments

Gaming is a wonderful thing. Unfortunately for many of us, work takes up our valuable time, which should be allocated to our gaming. What if there was a better way? Well, printers can print an image quickly, and receipt printers can print a lot of images. This sounds like an effective display for DOOM in a pinch. [Bringus Studios] managed to find such a printer and got the classic shooter running.

Getting the printer’s attached computer, which was only designed for printing the cost of your chicken sandwich, to run Half-Life was far from easy. [Bringus] struggled through the process of swapping operating systems from Windows 7 to Linux just to return to Windows 7 after a painful process of maintaining compatibility between 32 and 64 bit software. Driver issues followed through the entire process just to get anything running at all.

But we can’t play DOOM while at work on a normal screen. The printer MUST display our glorious 480p gameplay. To achieve such a workflow, [Bringus] implemented a script to print out a frame of the display, allowing for “visible gameplay”. Along with some heat issues from the nature of thermal receipts, eventually the printer displayed the glory of DOOM.

Playing games on a thermal printer might be one of the weirdest things you’ve seen today, but what if we could reverse the script a bit and create a printer from something else? Here at Hackaday, we have exactly the thing for you: a printer made from a vintage typewriter!

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Building A High-Performance Shifter For Sim Racing

December 25, 2025 by Lewin Day 10 Comments

These days, sim racing is more realistic than ever. There are better screens, better headsets, and better steering wheels with better force-feedback, all of which help make you feel like you’re driving the real thing. If you’re looking for a stick shifter to complete such a setup, [DAZ Projects] might have just what you’re looking for.

To create a robust shifter with great feel, the build relies on 3D printed parts as well as lots of quality metal hardware. At the heart of the build is a linear rail for the front-to-back movement, with a printed slider on top with a carefully-profiled indexer to ensure the stick properly ca-chunks into the right gear. A ball joint locates the shift lever itself, while allowing for smooth movement left-to-right. Centering is via simple extension springs. The H-pattern shift is enforced with machined steel rods. Detecting the position of the stick is handled via microswitches, with an Arduino Leonardo reading the switches and reporting itself as a USB device that should work with any modern sim.

It’s funny to think that such a mechanism would once have been a very serious machining job. These days, you can just squirt all this stuff out on a printer in a few hours. For the parts that can’t be extruded, [DAZ Projects] has provided a parts list on Google Docs.

We’ve featured some great racing sim builds over the years, from button pads to pedal boxes.

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Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Ultimate Portable Split

December 23, 2025 by Kristina Panos 8 Comments

What do you look for in a travel keyboard? For me, it has to be split, though this condition most immediately demands a carrying solution of some kind. Wirelessness I can take or leave, so it’s nice to have both options available. And of course, bonus points if it looks so good that people interrupt me to ask questions.

A pair of hands poised above a blue split keyboard that packs easily for travel in a 3D-printed case. The case doubles as a laptop stand. — Image by [kleshwong] via YouTube

Depending on your own personal answers to this burning question, the PSKEEB 5 just may be your endgame. And, lucky for you, [kleshwong] plans to open source it soon. All he asks for is your support by watching the video below and doing the usual YouTube-related things.

You’ll see a couple of really neat features, like swing-out tenting feet, a trackpoint, rotary encoders, and the best part of all — a carrying case that doubles as a laptop stand. Sweet!

Eight years in the making, this is the fifth in a series, thus the name: the P stands for Portability; the S for Split. [kleshwong] believes that 36 keys is just right, as long as you have what you need on various layers.

So, do what you can in the like/share/subscribe realm so we can all see the GitHub come to pass, would you? Here’s the spot to watch, and you can enjoy looking through the previous versions while you wait with your forks and stars.

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The Quirky Peripherals In Medical PC Setups

December 18, 2025 by Lewin Day 17 Comments

Modern hospitals use a lot of computers. Architecturally speaking, they’re pretty typical machines—running the same CPUs and operating systems as any other PCs out there. However, they do tend to have some quirks when it comes to accessories and peripherals, as [tzukima] explores in a recent video.

The video starts by looking at typical power cables used with hospital computers and related equipment. In particular, [tzukima] talks about the common NEMA 5-15P to IEC-320-C13 style cable, which less sophisticated users might refer to as a kettle cord. In hospital-grade form, these cables are often constructed with translucent plug housings, with large cylindrical grips that make them easier to grip.

Digging further through business supply catalogs lead [tzukima] to discover further products aimed at hospital and medical users. In particular, there are a wide range of keyboards and mice that are designed for use in these environments. The most typical examples are regular peripherals that have simply been encased in silicone to make them easier to wash and disinfect where hygiene is paramount. Others, like the SealShield keyboard and mouse, use more advanced internally-sealed electronics to achieve their washable nature and IP68 ratings. These are peripherals that you can just throw in a dishwasher if you’re so inclined.

It’s a great look at weird hardware that most of us would never interact with.

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Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Curious Keyboards

December 16, 2025 by Kristina Panos 6 Comments

I love first builds! They say so much about a person, because you see what’s paramount to them in a keyboard. You can almost feel their frustration at other keyboards come through their design choices. And the Lobo by [no-restarts] is no exception to any of this.

There’s just something about this Corne-like object with its custom case and highly-tappable and variously tilted keycaps. The list of reasons for being begins innocently enough with [no-restarts] wanting a picture of their dog on the case.

A nicely-tented split keyboard with really interesting, 3D-printed keycap profiles. — Image by [no-restarts] via reddit

From there, things get really personal. You may notice the thumb cluster is slightly different — [no-restarts] doesn’t like the thumb tuck required by the Corne to reach the innermost keys. I really dig the homing bumps on the middle thumb keys. Another difference is the splayed layout, as [no-restarts] is especially prone to pinky splay. Finally, there are a pair of OLEDs hiding on the inner sides of the case, which are designed to be visible when tented.

Overall, [no-restarts] is happy with it, but has some ideas for revision. Yep, that sounds about right. The Lobo is all hand-wired, and there’s a PCB with hot swap sockets in its future. If you’re interested in the case files, GitHub is your friend.

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