[HN Gopher] Yet another keyboard post, or, introducing ErgoNICE
___________________________________________________________________
Yet another keyboard post, or, introducing ErgoNICE
Author : JNRowe
Score : 124 points
Date : 2023-01-13 13:32 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (val.packett.cool)
(TXT) w3m dump (val.packett.cool)
| Bedon292 wrote:
| I love having a split keyboard. It feels far more ergonomic than
| a single piece keyboard. Just relax your arms and put each half
| where your hands are. No having to bring your hands together and
| angle your wrists to get your hands in position.
|
| The other piece of the puzzle for me is curvature. On a flat
| keyboard there is more stretching or physically moving but adding
| in a bit of curvature helps cut down on that.
|
| For a few years now I have been using a hand wired Dactyl-
| ManuForm [1] and it has been great. At least for writing /
| programming. I go back to a regular keyboard for gaming purposes.
|
| [1] https://github.com/tshort/dactyl-keyboard
| slothtrop wrote:
| Same for the split. I'm not fussed about curvature but mine is
| more elevated towards middle.
| tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa wrote:
| I use MS ergo keyboards for exactly this reason. My entire
| career has been on those keyboards to the point that I struggle
| with straight keyboards.
|
| I don't know that I'm a fan of the complete split like this,
| but I definitely agree with your overarching point.
| cleak wrote:
| The split and relaxed shoulders are amazing. I really wish more
| tech would try this approach. The Wii controller (Wiimote +
| Nunchuck) was my favorite controller for this reason and I have
| yet to find anything as ergonomic.
| CarVac wrote:
| The ASCII Gamecube Controller is very relaxing for this
| reason too.
| lukas099 wrote:
| TIL there was a GameCube controller with a keyboard on it:
| https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/ASCII_Keyboard_Controller
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| You can do the same thing with the Nintendo Switch
| controllers. It's my favourite way to play.
| lolive wrote:
| Just bought my first "strange" keyboard from Keychron (it is pre-
| built, and programmable with VIA). I hope I can hardwire there
| all my (actually implemented with) .Xmodmap tricks, and make them
| available on both Windows and Linux.
|
| This kind of article just shows me what I will become in a few
| years if that first experience indeed succeeds.
| amalgamated_inc wrote:
| I also just got a Keychron (K3 Pro), and I'm liking it a lot.
| Great look and feel, types well. Clean design.
| panda88888 wrote:
| Did you get the Alice layout? How is it working out for you?
| I've been interested to get one myself.
| bloopernova wrote:
| What I want in a split keyboard is rollers or wheels built into
| the inside edges of the 2 halves. That would let my thumbs reach
| them pretty easily, and because they're mostly hidden within the
| keyboard body like a mouse wheel they wouldn't be wasting
| precious key space.
| bloopernova wrote:
| I mean, dials are nice, but I prefer mouse wheel style if the
| interface doesn't require that you see the whole dial at once.
| rrgok wrote:
| I wanted to thank the author for the thorough blog post on how to
| create a new keyboard from scratch. Just a note, please add where
| you print the PCB, Case ecc..
|
| Thank you.
| [deleted]
| tbran wrote:
| Ben Valleck has an ultra-approachable video on building your own
| keyboard [0].
|
| PCBs are incredibly cheap to print (<$25 shipped for me to print
| at https://jlcpcb.com, IIRC), and he shows you how to do some
| mods to the schematic using KiCad [1].
|
| BV also has some crazier minimal keyboard designs like this
| 18-key split one with lots of layers:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNOGEtqn85o
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqpBKuEVinw [1]:
| https://www.kicad.org/
| gigaflop wrote:
| I'm also gonna link the ai03 tutorial I used to design/build my
| own custom board. Text based, multiple pages:
|
| https://wiki.ai03.com/books/pcb-design/page/pcb-guide-part-1...
|
| Once you build your first little macropad, and verify that your
| design is generally correct, you can fork the repo you created
| and pretty much copy/paste your MCU region, and build a new
| grid of keys around it. The guide also gave me good tips on
| what to have assembled, and what to hand-solder, to be able to
| cut some costs.
| riskable wrote:
| I made my own tutorial about how to design your own analog
| keyboard: https://youtu.be/TfKz_FbZWLQ
|
| It's ultimately the same process I used to create my Analog
| Hall Effect Keyboard that was reviewed by Chyrosran22 recently:
| https://youtu.be/iv6Rh8UNWlI
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Slightly off topic has anybody found a small footprint touchpad
| to keep close by to a split keyboard?
|
| Similar to the touchpad on the 'Ultimate Hacking Keyboard v2' but
| standalone without the pogo pins coupling part? [0]
|
| [0] https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/product/touchpad
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| I just put the mouse in the very middle :)
|
| That thought felt weird in the beginning, but trust me: it
| works.
| squidbot wrote:
| Not sure how small you're wanting, but Kinesis sells the Cirque
| EasyCat AG which is 3.3"x2.6". I've not used it myself, but I
| do have the Freestyle Pro keyboard, which I absolutely love and
| is very high quality, so I'd guess the rest of the products are
| similar.
|
| https://kinesis-ergo.com/shop/cirque-easycat-ag/
| mathgorges wrote:
| I use an Apple Magic Trackpad 2.
|
| Probably not "small", but it fits between the two halves of my
| Moonlander quite nicely :)
| Analemma_ wrote:
| I also have a UHK and a Magic Trackpad and just keep it
| between the halves. It enforces proper separation, since
| without it I tend to default to keeping the halves too close
| together, and while the modules partially overlap the
| corners, there's still more than enough usable space.
| 1-more wrote:
| Same with an Iris
| sithadmin wrote:
| Not a touchpad, but gutting off-the-shelf trackballs to
| populate custom casings is a popular option, e.g. this mod for
| ZSA Moonlander boards:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/wp1db9/m...
| cgwu wrote:
| I tried giving "split" keyboard a shot a few years back, but
| unfortunately it never worked...
| rychco wrote:
| I've been toying with the idea of designing my own keyboard too.
| I'm in love with the keeb.io iris & ergodox EZ. They're both
| pretty awesome, but now I'm thinking I would love to be able to
| take my split/iris everywhere by using choc low-profile switches
| & a case that would let me snap the two sides together, face-to-
| face, such that I could slip it in my backpack along with my
| laptop (and maybe some extra keys here & there).
| gigaflop wrote:
| If you don't _need_ to have the halves be fully separated, you
| can have an easy time designing a custom PCB, assuming that you
| can get good /accurate footprints for the switches you want to
| use.
|
| The below PCB is meant to be 'like a Preonic, but with 2x2u
| spaces, and full 5x12 grid'. Diode placement is aesthetic, but
| serves as a way to fill the 'dead space' between the main
| halves.
|
| https://i.imgur.com/Krd3dfE.jpeg
|
| https://i.imgur.com/78KWmuV.jpeg
|
| Whether you use 2d design to make a stacked/layered case, or 3d
| printing, you could probably jank-design a top cover to go
| along with your own custom build.
| jurassic wrote:
| The latest iteration of the Preonic already supports 2x2u
| configuration. But some extra space between hands would be
| welcome.
| gigaflop wrote:
| Oh, but here's the thing: I wanted 5x12, _and_ 2x2u. I also
| wanted to make it compatible with existing 5x12 keymaps,
| for ease of firmware tweaking.
|
| I have an assembled proto, and while it was rough around
| the edges, it was fun to use. The case was made of laser-
| cut sheet metal bolted together with standoffs, and the
| switch plate had a cutout in the center to show off those
| banked diodes.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| I upvoted because of the PostScript, which has nothing to do with
| keyboards.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| Yeah, next to the actual article I really thought people might
| notice that more. I'm glad they seem to be in a slightly better
| place now at least...
|
| The patreon is currently mostly empty, seems like a good
| candidate if you're into keyboards and other nerdery. :)
| nix0n wrote:
| In Gamecube modding it is common to cut apart a Wii motherboard.
| Would it be possible to create a split keyboard by cutting apart
| multiple cheap full keyboards?
| gigaflop wrote:
| You totally could, if you were willing to re-solder all of the
| cut traces. But at that point, you'd be better served by buying
| a kit to assemble.
|
| Custom firmware, choice of key switches, and choice of keycaps
| are _not_ going to be available if you apply the hacksaw method
| to cheapo $5 boards.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| this is really nice and I am actually designing a very similar
| board right now. People online kept telling me that 'Ergo' means
| it should have <40 keys, but sorry no, the desk real estate is
| very cheap and I can use a 70-80 key keyboard as a 40-key
| keyboard just fine. Having a tiny finger-cramping device just so
| it looks "clean" is worse than Apple slimming down their phones.
|
| I forsee a minor surge of full-size split ergos and that's a
| great thing.
| jurassic wrote:
| I haven't quite reached this level yet with the keyboard hobby,
| but reading this post feels a bit like looking into my future.
| I've soldered together a few kits designed by others and have
| been itching to try my hand at designing my own layout fully from
| scratch. Not that I need it, I'm quite happy with my current
| stable of keyboards, but because I think it would be a fun way to
| learn more about electronics.
|
| In case anyone is interested, there are also people who hand-wire
| keyboards. This lets you explore funky custom layouts without
| having to learn the circuit design and manufacturing side. I came
| across this pretty detailed guide recently.
| https://www.crackedthecode.co/a-complete-guide-to-building-a...
| UI_at_80x24 wrote:
| I currently use a Model-M clone. It's 75% of the way to perfect
| for me. This is my gold-tier wish list:
|
| Bucking-Springs
|
| split-keyboard
|
| WHITE backlight under the keys (I can touch type, but after 35+
| years I still "gaze unfocused" and take in all the keys)
| gigaflop wrote:
| If you can settle for MX-style switches that have a very
| satisfying click, then I'd like to point you to Kailh Box
| switches. There's a bunch of variations, but Box Jade or Pink
| (from NovelKeys) have been my favorites.
|
| The tactility is very well defined, and the tactile mechanism
| (click bar) is IMO better than Cherry-style click jackets, like
| seen in Cherry Blues.
|
| A split keeb with a white backlight that accepts MX-footprint
| switches should be simple to find.
| digitallyfree wrote:
| I use an actual IBM Model M from the 90s and absolutely love
| the feel of the buckling springs. Modern Cherry mech switches
| are obviously better than membranes, but they simply can't
| replicate the sound and tactile "jump" that occurs when the key
| triggers.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| No idea about the white backlight but...
|
| > This is my gold-tier wish list:
|
| > Bucking-Springs
|
| > split-keyboard
|
| Model M M15: it's split. It's a collector item though.
| rgoulter wrote:
| > One can try to get away with very few keys ... The first thing
| I added was two columns on the right side that kinda just bring
| back the punctuation
|
| I'd say if you look at a layout like miryoku
| https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku .. in miryoku, the []
| keys are one row up from home row, accessed on a layer. Whereas,
| putting [] on outer columns, your hand has to move and reach over
| two rows.
|
| That is, I'd emphasise layering brings more keys to within easy
| access of the fingers (at the cost of added complexity to use the
| keyboard, - which not everyone has the taste for).
| ctvo wrote:
| Aside: Anyone know of a thoughtful ~36 key layout similar to
| Miryoku but with less reliance on home row mods?
|
| For those not familiar, to get down to this low number of keys,
| some layouts will place modifiers (ctrl, shift, alt, meta) as
| secondary actions (when the key is held down vs. tapped) on
| home row keys (asdf, jkl; on QWERTY). The problem is to
| distinguish a tap from a hold, there's a minimum delay before
| the key is sent, making it very annoying for fast typists as
| there may be visible input lag when hitting one of the home row
| keys.
| yes_but_no wrote:
| Are you familiar with the Ignore Mod Interrupt option of qmk?
| That solved that issue for me, depending on your typing style
| it might solve for you too.
|
| Another option is moving those keys to bottom row, or moving
| layers to combos to free thumb keys to for mods or move mods
| to combos as one shots.
| ctvo wrote:
| I just flashed one of my keyboards with the "official" ZMK
| layout and it's so much better. I must have missed quite a
| few settings when I tried replicating it myself. I can't
| notice the delay at all.
| arathunku wrote:
| Maybe you'll find my post
| https://arathunku.com/b/2023/moonlander-keyboard-layers-
| tour... helpful with oneshot modifiers across layers but also
| keeping Shift and Ctrl accessible. I really hated any timers
| / held vs tapped on home rows, it prevented me from fast
| typing and rollovers. Now I really only have space bar on
| hold/tap that's used in usual writing but it's on my right
| thumb and have never been a problem.
| 1-more wrote:
| My strategy on my Let's Split and now Iris is that I select
| layers by holding down left hand Homerow keys, then type with
| my right hand. Holding f turns my right side into Vim style
| arrows. Holding s turns it into a number pad, and holding s
| turns it into a symbol pad. Modifiers are where you'd expect
| but holding them types my most commonly used symbols {} under
| Options, Esc and Enter under Commands, <> under Hypers.
| Control is where you'd expect caps lock and ' but tapping
| those are " and ' respectively.
|
| So what I'm saying is use home row hold/tap just for layer
| selects that will only affect the other hand, and use
| hold/tap modifiers for programming symbols.
| rollcat wrote:
| This idea falls apart in games that use complex key
| combinations, or a lot of different keys (like in case of
| StarCraft 2). I have an ErgoDox and I wish it had an extra
| dedicated row for F-keys; my current use of the bottom row for
| camera hotkeys is a very poor compromise.
|
| http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/8b8dcd36c0abcc...
| https://gist.github.com/rollcat/8b8dcd36c0abccf430b4160ad899...
| rgoulter wrote:
| Yeah.
|
| For two-hands-on-keyboard tasks, relying on layering is good.
|
| For gaming, I make use of a number row.
| gigaflop wrote:
| I pity the poor soul who needs to use multiple key layers in
| a game, especially SC2. But if you got past Silver League,
| then you're better than I was in Wings of Liberty.
|
| I remember using AutoHotKey back then to swap caps lock and
| CTRL (or was Backspace in there somewhere?) to cycle through
| my hatcheries and spam larvae injects, since they weren't
| queue-able at that time.
| rollcat wrote:
| I have a single, dedicated layer for SC2. I didn't play
| WoL, non-queuing injects sounds like a nightmare!
|
| Backspace (next base cam) inject is still a thing, but it's
| not really recommended: it tends to send different queens
| towards different hatcheries, delaying the injects. Again I
| didn't play WoL so I don't know which keys were re-bindable
| in the client at the time, but currently you can use almost
| anything for anything (except you can't change the
| modifiers like ctrl, shift, alt); those who use base cam
| inject will sometimes bind it to space.
| Bedon292 wrote:
| Layering can be great. I have arrow keys on a layer under my
| right hand, which I constantly use. I have mostly forgotten
| what the rest of my layers do at this point because I never
| really needed them. My keyboard has a lot more keys than that
| one though.
| lawn wrote:
| Another great thing is combos where you press two or more keys
| at the same time to produce another key.
|
| So you can have keys like escape, enter, ctrl or similar right
| on the home-row.
| ctvo wrote:
| With my hybrid work schedule I'm looking for more portability,
| and less keys. This isn't for me, but neat.
|
| I also use an ortho layout, but find the whole community trying
| to justify it as better for you ergonomically to be unconvincing.
| There's little data that says ortho has any health benefits over
| staggered. We have data on the position and alignment of the
| wrist being the biggest factor, and you can achieve this with
| either style.
|
| > This is the physical layout, so you see QWERTY here. I actually
| type on Colemak though!
|
| How do you know if someone uses an alternative key layout?
| They'll tell you.
| squeegee_scream wrote:
| If you're looking for portability with ergonomics I've been
| very interested in following Ben Vallack's advice in this video
| https://invidious.weblibre.org/watch?v=iOupyi-lQZM, which is to
| take a small keyboard like the gergoplex[0] and strap it to
| your thighs with a giant rubber band.
|
| You may also be interested in
| https://southpawdesign.net/collections/all as they have a few
| small, ergonomic keyboards.
|
| [0]: https://www.gboards.ca/product/gergoplex-heavy
| 83 wrote:
| I've been looking for a gergoplex but gboards.ca has been
| down for a long time. If you read the later blog posts on
| web.archive it's a sad situation, I doubt it'll be back
| online.
| rgoulter wrote:
| > There's little data that says ortho has any health benefits
| over staggered.
|
| Sure.
|
| But the standard row-stagger is asymmetrical; the way a hand
| types with the left hand is not mirrored by the right hand.
|
| I'd be very surprised if that was as ergonomic as a symmetrical
| layout.
| ctvo wrote:
| > I'd be very surprised if that was as ergonomic as a
| symmetrical layout.
|
| The body is complex, and movements build on top of that. It's
| hard to reason about it as a system in this way.
|
| For now though, what matters is it's more _fun_ to type on an
| ortholinear keyboard. I wish the focus was on that aspect and
| not health benefits until there 's data.
| rgoulter wrote:
| :o) I can agree that a discussion about health benefits
| would be more compelling with data.
|
| As an anecdote, I'll say I find my ortho keyboard using a
| Dvorak layout much more comfortable to type on than row-
| stagger QWERTY; and certainly looking at videos show that
| the latter looks much busier at the same WPM.
|
| The main thing I'd argue is that many of the design
| features of a standard keyboard (asymmetry; big spacebar;
| row stagger, with different stagger for each row..) don't
| seem to be good design decisions compared to even a grid of
| keys all the same size.
| 323 wrote:
| > But the standard row-stagger is asymmetrical; the way a
| hand types with the left hand is not mirrored by the right
| hand.
|
| How is it asymmetrical? Unless you consider the right hand
| typing on the numpad/cursor keys.
| the_gastropod wrote:
| On a QWERTY keyboard, think about the letters "I" and "E",
| which the middle fingers on your right and left hands
| respectively would hit. _Both_ require your middle finger
| to reach up and slightly left. It 's not a mirrored
| movement--both skew left. The stagger breaks symmetry of
| any non-home row finger movements.
| 323 wrote:
| I think I see it, it seems to me that my finger naturally
| wants to hit in between "E" and "R", but it hits exactly
| on top of "I".
|
| So ortho fixes this, but could it then introduce problems
| for other pairs? It seems hard to believe that there is a
| layout which is 100% better for all combinations.
|
| Regarding symmetry, our hands are already asymmetrical
| due to handiness (left-handed, right-handed), and the
| brain naturally adapts, and there is also the risk of
| Hawthorne effect if you A/B test ortho/staggered. Some
| real studies on layouts would really be useful.
| gigaflop wrote:
| Ortholinear can be interpreted as 0 stagger, but still
| takes time to adjust to. However, when I was using ortho
| at work and ANSI at home, it didn't take much effort for
| me to alternate.
|
| Ortho layouts are also most often used on compact boards,
| and the Preonic (5x12 grid, '50%' form factor) is
| probably the most 'plug and use' friendly ortho I've come
| across.
| rgoulter wrote:
| Consider the index-finger columns:
|
| On the LHS, the index-finger RFV. The finger rests on the
| homing key F, with R to the left.
|
| On the RHS, the index-finger column is UJM. The finger
| rests on the homing key F, with U also to the left of F.
|
| I'd consider (say) a Katana keyboard to have a symmetrical
| row-stagger.
| gigaflop wrote:
| Standard keyboards use a mix of 0.25u and 0.5u stagger,
| depending on the row.
|
| The Zlant is a uniform-stagger board I got once as a fun
| project, but you'll see the stagger difference right away:
| https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/blob/master/keyboards/z
| l...
| jurassic wrote:
| I have no problem admitting my interest in ortho layouts is
| mostly an aesthetic preference.
|
| At home where I can spread out I'm quite content with my
| Ergodox. But for travel, I find my 2x2u Preonic quite comfy...
| all the keys you need, none that you don't, with only a
| minimimum of layers needed.
| ilyt wrote:
| I just bought cheap mechanical keyboard and left it at work
| Symbiote wrote:
| I bought an expensive mechanical keyboard and left it at
| work. (My current job would have paid for it, but it's from
| before that.)
|
| I type at work far more than at home.
| Bedon292 wrote:
| Yeah, a split keyboard and traveling back and forth is not so
| fun. When I was in the office full time it just stayed there,
| since 95% of my typing was done there. Now I am home the vast
| majority of the time, and it stays home. I just have a 60%
| keyboard I use for travel, not my favorite but it gets the job
| done and travels easy.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > How do you know if someone uses an alternative key layout?
| They'll tell you.
|
| It is a post about a keyboard; if you don't want to hear about
| keyboard related topics, maybe consider reading different
| posts.
| bool3max wrote:
| Pipe down, it's just a joke.
| gigaflop wrote:
| When I worked in an office, one of my favorite boards to bring
| to/from was a Tokyo60. 60% HHKB-ish layout, split backspace,
| ctrl-instead-of-caps, and a classy aluminum case.
|
| If you're curious enough to get into designing your own, there
| are much simpler guides than the OP here, if you know what you
| want to accomplish.
| jollyllama wrote:
| >goes to all that effort
|
| >not cupped
|
| Probably better off going with a Matias then.
| wussboy wrote:
| I'll always upvote a Colemak user. Looks nice!
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| I think Dvorak is the only alternate the makes sense to use
| because it's supported most places. You can easily get a new
| device and set it for Dvorak. Anything else and you are now
| Googling for guides. I have Dvorak on my Mac, iPhone, Windows,
| and Chromebook. If I have to help a co-worker on their machine
| I can quickly switch it over.
|
| That said I will not purport that Dvorak is better in any
| technical way that the other alts.
|
| For me the switch was to force me to break my bad typing habits
| and learn to touch type.
| sokoloff wrote:
| How long did it take to get to the point where Dvorak wasn't
| frustrating? (Not necessarily to equal speed, but to at least
| non-distracting/non-aggravating.)
| amalgamated_inc wrote:
| Colemak user, maybe a comparison: 2 weeks until I could
| "type" but it was frustrating as hell. About 1 month to
| 70wpm, which was the bare minimum where my thoughts would
| no longer outrun my fingers. After about 6 months I was
| back at 110-120wpm consistently, but ever since then I
| notice that I'm regaining little micro-skills I remember
| having, like hitting the right key upside down with my left
| hand while walking past the desk. So I suppose the learning
| never stops ;) About 7 years now.
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| About two months of typing. If you are remotely ever
| interested print out a keymap of Dvorak and have it
| somewhere visible. Just seeing it over and over and over
| again will build that familiarity. Just do it today, even
| if you'll never end up trying it.
|
| Without that it took me like two weeks of it actually being
| painful where I was closing my eyes and mentally moving
| each finger deliberately. After about 6 weeks I got to 30
| WPM which I felt was sufficiently fast to work as a
| developer unimpeded. 2 years later I'm up to 60 WPM which
| is faster than I ever was with QWERTY. What I do is three
| 120 second long sessions of www.MonkeyType.com at lunch
| each work day.
| deliriumchn wrote:
| For me personally it took 2 months to "fully" adjust
| (meaning I can type without looking at the keyboard but
| every now and then I make a typo and need to correct it). I
| used this -> https://www.keybr.com/ almost every day. You
| can just set preferred layout without actually changing
| your keyboard's settings and it have very nice "teaching"
| sessions. Tbh I don't notice a huge difference, its more
| comfortable but sometimes I have a brain lag when I need to
| type on my phone since its on qwerty. Ergo layouts tends to
| be worse on mobile (because ergo usually have common
| letters close to each other and its not very cool on a
| small screen, qwerty is suprisingly one o f the best for
| smartphone's 2 thumb style)
| hersko wrote:
| Very cool site! Thanks for the recommendation!
| Yujf wrote:
| It does not really matter if you have a programmable
| keyboard, you just set the layout to qwerty on your device
| and then remap on the keyboard
| amalgamated_inc wrote:
| I use Colemak and it's available by default on Mac and Linux.
| I think it's vastly superior to Dvorak.
| 323 wrote:
| All keyboard should have volume wheels. I couldn't live without
| one now.
|
| The ones oriented like a mouse wheel, but wide (as opposed to the
| ones sitting like a volume knob on a mixer) are very natural to
| use and unobtrusive.
| ilyt wrote:
| I remember ages ago I had keyboard with big scroll wheel on the
| left , super convenient.
|
| Currently due to many sources (PC, console, occasional
| synthesizer, BT receiver) I just have small mixer between my PC
| and speakers and it is super convenient. I actually considered
| hacking something akin to 3-4 encoders with display showing
| current app making sound and giving option to change the volume
| of that app
| gigaflop wrote:
| If you were to get your hands on a QMK/VIA-powered keyboard,
| you could tweak the firmware for your own Fn+(anything) to map
| to Vol+, Vol-. Not the same, but you could have this 'under
| your fingertips' at all times.
|
| I tried this a while ago, but never used it much. I end up
| leaving my system volume at predictable levels most of the
| time, and ended up rebinding my arrow cluster's extra layer for
| Prev/Next song, which got much more use.
| bloopernova wrote:
| I love my QMK Ploopy mouse. I use on of the buttons as a
| layer change, which gets me access to extras I added. Stuff
| like paste and plain text paste are super useful. (On MacOS
| plain text paste is shift+option+command+p)
| bschwindHN wrote:
| Not sure if the author of the post is around, but I guess this is
| a question for anyone who has designed keyboards: have you ever
| tried using shift registers for reading all the keyswitch inputs,
| and is it worth it? Does it mean you don't have to use a diode
| per switch?
|
| I've designed my own as well but just went with the traditional
| key matrix with a diode per switch. Works well enough for the
| current size.
|
| https://github.com/bschwind/key-ripper
| jsmith45 wrote:
| Shift registers are an interesting option. They are obviously
| feasible, especially if using ones with a built in pull-down.
|
| They do avoid having a diode per key, in exchange for needing a
| chip for N keys, where n is the number of of parallel inputs in
| your parallel to serial shift register.
|
| They can also save IO lines. Obviously with if using chainable
| shift registers, you can have an unlimited number of keys with
| just 3 IO lines.
|
| More realistic of course, would be to use several IO lines in
| parallel. For a 64 key matrix, one could say use 8, 8-bit shift
| registers, each connected to one input line, plus one output
| latch line and one output clock line (for a total of 10), vs
| the 16 lines needed traditional matrix.
|
| 8 input lines is nice, because if you pick the I/O lines right,
| retrieving the values is just a single port read. Making the
| procedure: latch, (toggle clock twice, read port, write to next
| location in memory buffer) x8.
|
| There are of course downsides, like shift registers needing
| more board space than tiny surface mount diodes, but this is
| not necessarily a deal-killer.
| mzzter wrote:
| Last time i researched adding shift registers was over a year
| ago and I didn't find many examples (I vaguely recall one
| possibly with qmk), and very little public discussion besides a
| reddit question. Popular guides like ai03's at the time
| recommended upgrading to a microcontroller with more gpio
| before introducing shift registers.
|
| Searching again, looks like zmk added support for the common
| 595 shift register:
| https://github.com/zmkfirmware/zmk/pull/1325
|
| Edit: You could avoid using diodes, but diodes increase the
| number of switches possible via a matrix more than shift
| registers do by giving you more gpio. I'd imagine one can use
| both together.
| gmbuell wrote:
| This kind of thing is really common in the DIY synthesizer
| world. Here's a great resource:
| http://www.openmusiclabs.com/learning/digital/input-matrix-s...
| riskable wrote:
| My analog keyboards use analog multiplexers (74HC4067) which is
| _similar_ to how shift registers work. Except they 're full of
| flip-flops (2-way) instead of digital logic.
|
| I made two videos talking about how I design my analog keyboard
| PCBs and how I'm using analog multiplexers here:
| https://youtu.be/TfKz_FbZWLQ
| jjcm wrote:
| You may want to be careful with naming, as Nice Technologies LLC
| makes very similar PCBs for mechanical keyboards:
| https://nicekeyboards.com/
|
| IANAL, but if they have a trademark for "NICE" in relation to
| keyboards, yours may be in violation.
| izzydata wrote:
| Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who can't type on this
| kind of keyboard because I often use my left hand to type some
| right side keys and my right hand to type some left side keys.
| I'd constantly be clicking off into the air on this thing.
|
| I can type near 150wpm, but it is a completely random style that
| mostly only follows using whatever finger happens to be closest
| to the next key regardless of which hand it is after leaving
| every finger wherever it was last used.
| ZeoUnis wrote:
| I did have this issue with the 6 key specifically, but as a
| single key that was easy enough for me to get used to
| eventually.
| yes_but_no wrote:
| You can check unified orthos like planck. But imo selling point
| of these keebs is comfort not speed.
| Skeime wrote:
| I think you'd be constantly doing that for like two days. Then
| you would adapt and stop using the wrong hand. (Provided that
| you don't use another keyboard simultaneously that let's you
| keep going with the old habit.)
| jrkatz wrote:
| I was in a similar position, but highly motivated to switch due
| to advancing RSI symptoms. I waited to switch until a low-code,
| long-duration project came across my desk and was pleasantly
| surprised by how quickly my old habits were replaced. The trick
| seems to be that with split keyboards (especially orthilinear
| models) the finger closest to the next key is usually the one
| you ought to use anyhow. When home-row is mandatory, it's easy.
|
| After a month or so at most, I was back to full speed. It did
| ruin me for laptop keyboards, though, I can't type on those at
| all anymore.
| 3np wrote:
| Similar experience, except I was surprised to find that my
| laptop typing have actually been improving without trying
| despite (or due to?) also using a qwerty but otherwise quite
| different layout.
| wishinghand wrote:
| I'm a bit of a n00b for QMK firmware based keyboards, but I
| think there is a function for flipping the mapping of each side
| so you can do stuff like that.
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