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

Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Leather Keyboard

Are you eager to get your feet wet in the keyboard surf, but not quite ready to stand up and ride the waves of designing a full-size board? You should paddle out with a macro pad instead, and take on the foam face-first and lying down.

A beautiful purple galaxy-themed macro pad with nine switches and three knobs.
Image by [Robert Feranec] via Hackaday.IO
Luckily, you have a great instructor in [Robert Feranec]. In a series of hour-long videos, [Robert] guides you step by step through each part of the process, from drawing the schematic, to designing a PCB and enclosure, to actually putting the thing together and entering a new world of macros and knobs and enhanced productivity.

Naturally, the fewer keys and things you want, the easier it will be to build. But [Robert] is using the versatile Raspberry Pi 2040, which has plenty of I/O pins if you want to expand on his basic plan. Not ready to watch the videos? You can see the schematic and the 3D files on GitHub.

As [Robert] says, this is a great opportunity to learn many skills at once, while ending up with something terrifically useful that could potentially live on your desk from then on. And who knows where that could lead?

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