I'm typing this on a brand new Leopold FC660M (https://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1496) which, to be frank, is a rather pretentious keyboard. I mean, totally into the whole mechanical keyboards are a superior typing experience and all of that, but it's also a $110 keyboard in a world of 20 buck keyboards. I want to use this mini computer once it's done, and I have a hipster vision of toting it down to the local coffee shop and setting up in a corner with my homemade computer and type some great manifesto on irony and crappy garage bands. It's expensive. It's less noisy than I expected (Brown Cherry switches). It's a statement.

It's not a cheap keyboard. The original one I had picked up for this project (before it was even really a project) was a mini keyboard that cost 30 bucks (https://www.adafruit.com/products/857). It was cheap, and did the job while testing out a few Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone boards. But the keys were painfully small.

With this new keyboard and the last update talking about deciding to get a PCB made, I realized that money really isn't an issue for me on this project. Which is a departure for me, a normally pretty frugal person. But for this project I'm definitely placing build quality and learning first.

But if you are a frugal person (through choice or consequence): no worries. Buy the cheap keyboard. And skip the custom laser printing. And the PCB board. And the whole useless extra computer to begin with.

I'm not actually going to take this thing to coffee shops.