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A description, a board, and a repo

A project log for Unhappy Hacking Keyboard

Why have a Happy Hacking Keyboard when you can have an Unhappy Hacking Keyboard. Real programmers only need a 1 and 0 key.

benchoffBenchoff 05/29/2014 at 09:440 Comments

The point of this project is to do something useful with those Cherry MX switch sampler packs you can pick up at places that sell mechanical keyboards. The idea behind these sampler packs being that you can try out each of the different 'flavors' of Cherry switches without committing to buying a whole keyboard loaded down with one type of switch. It's a neat idea, but why not make something useful with those switches?

A Brainfuck keyboard would require at least five keys, so I'll have to settle with my version of a 'true programmers' keyboard. There's a 1 key, a 0 key, return, and a space bar. That's all you need. Oh, and it'll actually be a working keyboard.

There's the board. I'm using an ATtiny85 with V-USB to create a USB keyboard. No switch matrix, just simple pullups on each of the switches. Standard V-USB schematic with zeners and such.

The switches will be mounted to an acrylic or delrin plate unless I can find someone to cut some 16 gauge stainless for me. Switches will be soldered onto the board. it should look pretty nice when it's all put together. So far, the plastic plates are ordered, the PCB is heading for fab, and I'm here dicking around looking for some nice keycaps for this thing. If anyone has any suggestions, drop a note.

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