[HN Gopher] Show HN: Mathpad - Physical keypad for typing math s...
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Show HN: Mathpad - Physical keypad for typing math symbols
Here's something different than your usual fare: A physical keypad
that lets you directly type math! Ever tried typing mathematical
equations in your code IDE, email, or on Slack? You might know it
can be tricky. Mathpad solves this with dedicated keys for Greek
letters, calculus symbols, and more. Press the [?] key and get [?],
in any application that accepts text. It uses Unicode composition,
so it works everywhere: Browsers, chat apps, code editors, Word,
you name it. Basically, anywhere you can type text, Mathpad lets
you type mathematics. I built Mathpad after getting frustrated
with the friction of typing equations in e.g. Word, and what a pain
in the ass it was to find the specific symbols I needed. I assumed
that a product like Mathpad already existed, but that was not true
and I had to build it myself. It turned out to be pretty useful!
Three years of solo development later, I'm launching on Crowd
Supply. One of the trickiest parts of this project was finding
someone who could manufacture custom keycaps with mathematical
symbols. Shoutout to Loic at 3dkeycap.com for making it possible!
Fully open source (hardware + software): https://github.com/Summa-
Cogni/Mathpad Campaign: https://www.crowdsupply.com/summa-
cogni/mathpad Project log:
https://hackaday.io/project/186205-mathpad-the-math-keypad
Author : MagneLauritzen
Score : 48 points
Date : 2025-08-02 20:43 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.crowdsupply.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.crowdsupply.com)
| tonetegeatinst wrote:
| Amazing project and glad to see something like this exits. While
| my current setup dosnt allow for this, if that ever changes and I
| start taking more latex notes I will be ordering one of these.
| MagneLauritzen wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| The killer feature of Mathpad is not LaTeX (although that is
| supported) - it's letting you directly type mathematical
| Unicode symbols practically anywhere you can type regular text.
|
| Mathpad will remain available on Crowd Supply long after the
| campaign ends (albeit at a higher price), so just come back
| later when you need one!
| RossBencina wrote:
| In some circles "not typeset in LaTeX" is a strong smell, and
| not a pleasant one. Simple use of Unicode symbols will not
| overcome that.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I think this is super cool and intend to donate because I love
| the love and thought you've put into this. With that said, did
| you consider using something like an Elgato Stream Deck
| programmable control pad?
|
| https://www.elgato.com/us/en/p/stream-deck
| MagneLauritzen wrote:
| Thank you for the kind words. I did orginally consider using a
| programmable stream deck, but quickly realized that it would
| not be sufficient. My requirements were:
|
| 1) Over 100 symbols immediately accessible
|
| 2) Single-hand use
|
| 3) Small size
|
| The elgato stream deck meets some of these requirements, but it
| would not have been possible to support the amount of symbols I
| wanted.
| wduquette wrote:
| I do use an Elgato stream deck for entering Unicode symbols,
| and I think what's really needed in this space is a cross
| between a stream deck and the Mathpad: programmable keys with
| LCD key caps, and some shift keys to increase the number of
| available symbols. Then it could support configurable symbol
| sets.
| westurner wrote:
| How much faster is Mathpad than creating a per-document table of
| symbols with their Unicode numbers and/or latex values and
| copy/pasting until you remember the Ctrl-Shift-u nnnn sequence?
| MagneLauritzen wrote:
| Not much faster if you only need a few symbols, and if you only
| work in one document. I used to make such tables for large
| documents before I created Mathpad.
|
| Mathpad's killer feature is working anywhere you can type text,
| not only document editors. I've found it particularly useful
| when putting together technical presentations in Powerpoint,
| and when documenting the algorithms I write at work which are
| rather math and physics heavy.
| olejorgenb wrote:
| 1. Cool!
|
| 2. Why use a staggered layout? Because people are used to it?
| Counterpoint: the numpad is not staggered and people are easily
| able to use both parts of a normal keyboard)
| MagneLauritzen wrote:
| 1) Thank you!
|
| 2) The staggered layout has been carefully chosen to allow for
| single-hand use. The user must be able to press up to three
| keys at the same time (2 modifiers and 1 symbol key). The
| layout I settled on for Mathpad makes this as easy as possible.
| olejorgenb wrote:
| Interesting. Perhaps the fingers do want to go at a slight
| angle so making it a good choice :)
| eviks wrote:
| they don't, lateral moves (especially diagonal) are the
| least ergonomic for the fingers, your numpad insticts are
| closer to reality, though the best would be to "stagger"
| vertically to reflect the difference in finger length
| staplung wrote:
| Very cool. I've long wanted something that's a bit of a cross
| between a calculator and a numpad; something that could be used
| as a calculator or just to send symbols to the computer that are
| easier to type on such a device.
|
| Question: the description says it has access to all the Greek
| alphabet letters but only the lower case ones are shown on the
| keypad: do you get (e.g. [?]) by using the shift key on the
| regular keyboard plus d on the Mathpad?
| threatofrain wrote:
| IMO a software-based search interface is cognitively nicer. I use
| way too many symbols, like i.
| zokier wrote:
| my 2c
|
| * the way unicode input works in qmk is pretty janky imho. this
| is not something you can plug into any random computer and expect
| to always work perfectly without doing any configuring.
|
| * you can accomplish the same thing if you have qmk (or similar)
| based keyboard by throwing the symbols on another layer or
| whatever you prefer. for $140 you can get a whole keyboard.
|
| the keycaps are a nice touch though
| eviks wrote:
| QMK won't allow you to search for the symbols, which is a big
| limitation since there are hundreds of them
| eviks wrote:
| > and what a pain in the ass it was to find the specific symbols
| I needed.
|
| But that's exactly the same issue with the hardware solution -
| you can't use Ctrl+F to find by name and you can't see all the
| many symbols on the keyboard itself. You'd need a software
| solution to show a visual searchable "cheat sheet", and also you
| can map more mathy keys to an existing bigger keyboard, where
| entering some symbols will be way more natural, e.g., for greeks
| you can map most of them to different A and B latin keys instead
| of having both ab on the same key. Similarly, you could do map Z
| to Z and N to N, so these would be simpler to remember/input than
| using a dedicated keypad, so the printed symbols on the keypad
| aren't that useful anymore.
| darthoctopus wrote:
| As an intermediate alternative between a hardware keyboard and a
| graphical symbol picker, I use an .XCompose file with contents
| that look like this: # GREEK
| <Multi_key> <g> <A> : "A" U0391 # GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
| ALPHA <Multi_key> <g> <a> : "a" U03B1 # GREEK
| SMALL LETTER ALPHA <Multi_key> <g> <B> : "B" U0392
| # GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA <Multi_key> <g> <b> : "b"
| U03B2 # GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA <Multi_key> <g> <D>
| : "D" U0394 # GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA <Multi_key>
| <g> <d> : "d" U03B4 # GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA
| <Multi_key> <g> <E> : "E" U0395 # GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
| EPSILON <Multi_key> <g> <e> : "e" U03B5 # GREEK
| SMALL LETTER EPSILON ... # Math Symbols
| <Multi_key> <i> <n> : "[?]" U2208 # IN <Multi_key>
| <f> <a> : "[?]" U2200 # FOR ALL <Multi_key> <t> <e>
| : "[?]" U2203 # THERE EXISTS <Multi_key> <a> <n> <d>
| : "[?]" U2227 # AND <Multi_key> <o> <r> : "[?]"
| U2228 # OR <Multi_key> <less> <parenleft> : "<" U27E8
| # MATHEMATICAL LEFT ANGLE BRACKET <Multi_key> <greater>
| <parenright>: "> " U27E9 # MATHEMATICAL RIGHT ANGLE BRACKET
| <Multi_key> <d> <d> : "[?]" U8706 # DEL <Multi_key>
| <n> <b> : "[?]" U8711 # NABLA
|
| I've used this for perhaps the last 10 years now and I don't
| think I could go back to working on a machine without
| configurable compose key functionality at this point.
| delusional wrote:
| Compose functionality is absolutely awesome. I don't understand
| why it's not more widespread. I use it for all sorts of stuff,
| from emojis, to symbols, to diacretics. It's great!
| layer8 wrote:
| This. Using a Compose key [0] covers a vast range of input use
| cases and is eminently customizable. For Windows there is
| WinCompose [1]. For macOS there is [2].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key
|
| [1] https://github.com/SamHocevar/wincompose
|
| [2] https://github.com/Granitosaurus/macos-compose
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| $140, lol. How about just selling the keycaps for an existing
| numeric pad or even small mech keyboard, and that's only if the
| physical keys are really needed.
|
| The main slowdown I face as an occasional TeX user is remembering
| the TeX names of less frequently used symbols. For that purpose
| there is detexify (draw the character and find the name, doesn't
| work all that well) but a popup graphical menu or (if you must) a
| phone app would be fine.
| crinkly wrote:
| Low tech solution here. Found a cheat sheet and printed it and
| stuck it on the wall next to my monitor.
| RossBencina wrote:
| That looks very cool. I wonder how hard it was to get those
| printed keycaps made.
|
| Ideally you want access to everything without moving your hands
| off the keyboard. The DIY keyboard scene makes a lot of use of
| layered keymaps. It seems like the endgame for this kind of thing
| is not separate "keypads," but rather wider support,
| standardisation and adoption of multiple-layer keymaps. Half the
| problem is designing good maps and the other half is learning
| them. Sharing maps, and better software for learning/practicing
| the maps would help. Then you might need a few more keys to
| select layers. A minimum implementation might be adding a two
| thumb buttons below the space bar to select layers.
|
| EDIT: inserted more text
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(page generated 2025-08-04 23:01 UTC)