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

Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The C64 Keyboard

December 9, 2025 by Kristina Panos 2 Comments

[Jean] wrote into the tips line (the system works!) to let all of us know about his hacked and hand-wired C64 keyboard, a thing of beauty in its chocolate-brown and 9u space bar-havin’ glory.

A C64 keyboard without the surrounding C64. — Image by [Jean] via GitHub

This Arduino Pro Micro-based brain transplant began as a sketch, and [Jean] reports it now has proper code in QMK. But how is a person supposed to use it in 2025, almost 2026, especially as a programmer or just plain serious computer user?

The big news here is that [Jean] added support for missing characters using the left and right Shift keys, and even added mouse controls and Function keys that are accessed on a layer via the Shift Lock key. You can see the key maps over on GitHub.

I’ll admit, [Jean]’s project has got me eyeing that C64 I picked up for $12 at a thrift store which I doubt still works as intended. But don’t worry, I will test it first.

Fortunately, it looks like [Jean] has thought of everything when it comes to reproducing this hack, including the requisite C64-to-Arduino pinout. So, what are you waiting for?

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Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Auto Harp Typewriter

May 28, 2024 by Kristina Panos 6 Comments

An extremely large split keyboard with giant knobs, and pedals underneath the desk. — Image by [crazymittens-r] via reddit

Where do I even begin with this one? Let’s start with the reasoning behind this giant beast’s existence, and that is medical necessity. [crazymittens-r] needed something that would let them keep working, and after many hours and many versions, this is the current iteration of their ArcBoard, which looks like it could control a spaceship.

You can read all about this version on GitHub, but here’s the gist — you’re looking at a split keyboard with dual macro pads, rotary encoders, and a built-in trackball. And oh yeah, there are pedals, too. Those are a whole other thing.

In this revision, [crazymittens-4] said no to hand-wiring and instead went with custom flexible PCBs. The encoders now have push-button LED screens, and overall, there are “more LEDs than QMK can handle”. There’s even a secret keyboard within the keyboard! I can’t express how much I want to put my hands on this thing.

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