keyboard

443 Articles

A New Case And Keyboard For The Timex Sinclair 1000

January 31, 2025 by 10 Comments

The Timex Sinclair 1000 was a sleek and compact machine, and the US counterpart to the more well-known Spectrum ZX-81. Timex may not have come to dominate the computer market, but the machine still has its fans today, with [skidlz] being one of them. That inspired them to craft a new case and keyboard for their beloved machine, putting a slimline twist on the old classic.

The new case finds some economies of size by eliminating the bulky RF modulator in favor of hacking in a cleaner composite out feed. In turn, this enabled the elimination of the channel switch that freed up more room. [skidlz] then designed a simple case using 2D laser-cut parts and dovetail joints, using superglue to assemble the individual pieces into a cohesive whole.

Meanwhile, the keyboard swap is obvious to anyone that ever used one of these things. The original was particularly unpleasant. In order to upgrade, [skidlz] decided to look to the compact Redragon K603 as an inspiration, giving the new build a longer travel and a nicer mechanical feel under one’s fingers.

The final result look great, and files are on Github for the curious. We’ve seen great work from [skidlz] before, too, in the form of this microcassette storage project. Meanwhile, if you’ve been cooking up your own retrocomputing projects, don’t hesitate to let us know!

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Hackaday Links: January 26, 2025

January 26, 2025 by 7 Comments

Disappointing news this week for those longing for same-hour Amazon delivery as the retail giant tapped the brakes on its Prime Air drone deliveries. The pause is partially blamed on a December incident at the company’s Pendleton, Oregon test facility, where two MK30 delivery drones collided in midair during light rain conditions. A Bloomberg report states that the crash, which resulted in one of the drones catching fire on the ground, was due to a software error related to the weather. As a result, they decided to ground their entire fleet, which provides 60-minute delivery to test markets in Arizona and Texas, until a software update can be issued.

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Smallest USB Device… So Far

January 20, 2025 by 37 Comments

For better or worse it seems to be human nature to compete with one another, as individuals or teams, rather than experience contentedness while moving to the woods and admiring nature Thoreau-style. On the plus side, competition often results in benefits for all of us, driving down costs for everything from agriculture to medical care to technology. Although perhaps a niche area of competition, the realm of “smallest USB device” seems to have a new champion: this PCB built by [Emma] that’s barely larger than the USB connector pads themselves.

With one side hosting the pads to make contact with a standard USB type-A connector, the other side’s real estate is taken up by a tiny STM32 microcontroller, four phototransistors that can arm or disarm the microcontroller, and a tiny voltage regulator that drops the 5V provided by the USB port to the 3.3V the STM32 needs to operate. This is an impressive amount of computing power for less than three millimeters of vertical space, and can operate as a HID device with a wide variety of possible use cases.

Perhaps the most obvious thing to do with a device like this would be to build a more stealthy version of this handy tool to manage micromanagers, but there are certainly other tasks that a tiny HID can be put to use towards. And, as far as the smallest USB device competition goes, we’d also note that USB-A is not the smallest connector available and, therefore, the competition still has some potential if someone can figure out how to do something similar with an even smaller USB connector.

Thanks to [JohnU] for the tip!

Low-Profile Travel Keyboard Is Mostly 3D Printed

November 29, 2024 by 9 Comments

If you’ve got a nice mechanical keyboard, typing on anything else can often become an unpleasant experience. Unfortunately, full-sized versions are bulky and not ideal when you’re travelling or for certain portable applications. [Applepie1928] decided to create a small travel keyboard to solve these problems.

Meet the Micro Planck. It’s a simple ortholinear mechanical keyboard in a decidedly compact form factor—measuring just 23 cm wide, 9.5 cm tall, and 2 cm deep. You could probably stuff it in your pocket if you wear baggy jeans. Oh, and if you don’t know what ortholinear means, it just means that the keys are in a straight grid instead of staggered. Kind of like those “keyboards” at the bowling alley.

The build relies on Gateron KS-33 switches installed on a custom PCB, with a ATmega32U4 microcontroller running the popular open source QMK firmware. The keyboard has a USB-C port because it’s 2024, and all the components are wrapped up in a neat 3D printed shell.

Overall, it’s a tasteful design that packs in a lot of functionality. It’s also neat to see a mechanical design used which offers more tactile feedback than the rubber dome designs more typical at this scale. Meanwhile, if you’re cooking up your own nifty keyboard designs, don’t hesitate to let us know what you’re up to!

The Lancaster ASCII Keyboard Recreated

November 25, 2024 by 20 Comments

It is hard to imagine that there was a time when having a keyboard and screen readily available was a real problem for people who wanted to experiment with computers. In the 1970s, if you wanted a terminal, you might well have built a [Don Lancaster] “TV Typewriter” and the companion “low cost keyboard.” [Artem Kalinchuk] wanted to recreate this historic keyboard and, you know what? He did! Take a look at the video below.

The first task was to create a PCB from the old artwork from Radio Electronics magazine. [Artem] did the hard work but discovered that the original board expected a very specific kind of key. So, he created a variant that takes modern MX keyboard switches, which is nice. He does sell the PCBs, but you can also find the design files on GitHub.

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ESP32 Hosts A USB Keyboard In This Typewriter

November 17, 2024 by 14 Comments

Did you know the ESP32 can be a USB host? Well it can, and [Volos] uses host mode to build this fun little word processor.

The venerable ESP32 has a well-known USB device mode. Anyone who has programmed one has used it. A bit less known is the microcontroller’s ability to host USB devices. These days, operating as a USB device is relatively simple. But acting as a host is a much more complex task. The ESP32 has a software host that works — but only for Human Interface Devices (HID).  Human interface devices generally are keyboards, mice, trackballs, and similar devices that handle data relatively slowly, forming the interface with us simple humans.

[Volos] uses the EspUsbHost Arduino library for this project. The library makes USB host mode simple to use. Another piece of the puzzle is the LCD board [Volos] picked. It has a dual-role USB Type-C port, meaning the hardware to switch roles is baked in. Other boards may require some modifications or special cables to make things work.

The software is the best part of this build. [Volos] implemented a simple word processor. It can save and load files from a microSD card and, of course, edit text — all controlled by a USB keyboard. He had to use a 4-bit palette to save memory. This gives the device a retro charm that reminds us of Don Lancaster’s TV Typewriter. The source for this and all of [Volos] projects can be found on GitHub. Now, all we need is a spell check that can fit in the memory constraints of the ESP32! We have to admit the chip has a lot of potential USB tricks.

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Producing An Exquisite Wooden Keyboard

November 1, 2024 by 41 Comments

Keyboards! They’ve been almost universally made out of plastic since the dawn of the microcomputer era. Meanwhile, wood is a rather desirable material and it lends itself rather well to touch-heavy human interface devices. As [ProcessX] shows us, though, it can take quite a bit of work to fabricate a keyboard entirely out of this material.

The video shows us the construction of a Japanese wooden keyboard from Hacoa, which retails for around $1000 USD. The video shows us how the wooden housing is produced from start to finish, beginning with the selection of some fine walnut. From there, we get to see how the frame is routed out and machined, along with the more delicate work to create all the keycaps out of wood, too. They’re laser engraved to give them high-quality markings that will last the test of time. What we don’t see is the construction of the electronics—it appears that’s handled separately, and the wooden frame and keycaps are then assembled around the otherwise complete existing keyboard.

It’s nice to see what it takes to produce commercial-quality parts like this out of wood. We’ve seen other wooden keyboard builds before, too.

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