[HN Gopher] The 8bit Keyboard
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The 8bit Keyboard
Author : zdw
Score : 80 points
Date : 2022-06-24 18:47 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (hackaday.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (hackaday.io)
| adamgordonbell wrote:
| This is awesome. It's like inputting in punch card style, but one
| column at a time.
| tyingq wrote:
| Very similar to the front panel controls on a Dec PDP-11,
| Altair 8800, IMSAI 8080, etc.
|
| Or, I guess, the Kenbak-1 is closest in form factor to this
| thing.
| amelius wrote:
| Now they should make a MIDI keyboard and give a live performance.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I don't think that counts either as 8-bit or as a keyboard. Sure,
| it outputs 8-bit key codes, but the input is binary. And it has
| no keys.
|
| It's more like an old-fashioned mainframe console. Pretty,
| though!
| benj111 wrote:
| It is 8bit. It takes 8bits of input at a time, and then outputs
| an 8bit byte (well depends on what the protocol is)
|
| It is more of a switch board though
| beaker52 wrote:
| I must confess, that when I first saw it, there was a flicker of
| the sadistic part in me that hoped the creator had already learnt
| to type at 120wpm with it.
| VLM wrote:
| For ASCII encoding the MSB isn't going to get much action so
| technically they could have gotten away with 7 bits/switches
| instead of 8 bits/switches.
|
| Although with 8 bits they could input UTF-8 unicode which is
| nice.
|
| "Back in the day" large (formerly automotive-style) paddle
| switches were far nicer on the fingertips than submini toggles.
| grishka wrote:
| There are many 8-bit encodings that use the 8th bit for non-
| Latin characters, like Windows-1251 for Cyrillic. Imagine not
| having to switch your keyboard layout, ever!
| IHLayman wrote:
| But it's probably not ASCII but rather scancodes, which
| definitely use the MSB for special keys such as function keys,
| scroll lock, caps lock, and other chorded combinations.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scancode
| tyingq wrote:
| It would also be faster to send a lot of punctuation
| characters, math operators, etc. Since the keypad area
| scancodes have those available without setting shift first.
| [deleted]
| kragen wrote:
| Note that Engelbart's chording keyset was 8 bits: five bits on
| the keyset itself and three more on the mouse. Unfortunately it
| wasn't even as fast as a regular keyboard, let alone Plover or
| its proprietary antecedents.
| carapace wrote:
| Step one, take this and substitute sensors on the fingers of
| gloves (the actual sensors don't matter so long as they can
| record a bit from each finger. You could used MEMS IMUs these
| days, eh?) You have "key button" sensor on a thumb.
|
| Step two, learn self-hypnosis.
|
| Step three, using hypnosis give yourself the ability to use the
| "keyboard" automatically without conscious thought. That is, you
| think a sentence and your fingers & thumb "type" it into the
| computer. It's like touch-typing but much easier if you use
| hypnosis.
| ahmadmijot wrote:
| I misread it as 8byte but it really is 8bit! Now that I'm in the
| stage of learning low level computer, I really like this kind of
| project.
| d4a wrote:
| It's useless and I love it
| dgan wrote:
| it's pointless and I don't see what to love about it
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| It's whimsical and reminds us what computer input used to be.
| eschneider wrote:
| Ooof, yeah. I'm old enough to have done time inputting
| programs on a PDP-11 front panel this way. O_O
| robterrell wrote:
| It's nostalgic in the best/worst way! Anyone old enough to
| remember the start of the 8-bit era (not the Apple ][+ and
| the Commodore Pet and the SOL, but before those, the Altair
| and IMSAI and the Byte-8) will have memories of using these
| switches to input a bootloader-type program that would let
| you load a stored program from an optical paper tape reader
| or a magnetic cassette tape. Set all the bits for a byte &
| store it, set all the bits for the next byte & store it...
| moron4hire wrote:
| People are allowed to screw around and do not owe you a
| justification for how they use their time. You don't like the
| thing they made? It's not for you. You aren't the center of
| the universe. Not everything is about you.
| loudthing wrote:
| It demonstrates how technology we take for granted obfuscates
| how complex basic tasks can be.
| Eji1700 wrote:
| I am unreasonably upset at how large it is. You've got a golden
| opportunity to make the crkbd and other mini boards look massive.
| thederf wrote:
| These "because why not" projects are my favorite sort. I'd love
| to build something like this with four keys representing bit
| pairs (00, 01, 10, 11) where you could type bytes by repeatedly
| pressing keys. Bonus points for mounting it on the back of a
| phone for one handed typing.
| keybored wrote:
| Could also make an eight-key keyboard with chorded input. Hold
| down the bits you want to set and then release. Once all have
| been released then you send the byte.
| loudthing wrote:
| Reminds me of the 8-bit guy's device he created for manually
| programming character lcd displays.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZRL8luuPb8
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(page generated 2022-06-26 23:02 UTC)