Have we been doing it flawed all these years? Are we a bunch of suckers for accepting that typing out phrases, one letter at a time, on a keyboard is “simply the best way it’s?” In spite of everything, it could be far sooner if a single keypress might spell out a complete phrase. Think about the velocity and effectivity of such a keyboard. Lastly we might compute on the velocity of thought! Simply when synthetic intelligence began to suppose it was getting the higher hand, we got here storming again in opposition to the machines! Mwah-ha-ha!
After all with a number of milliseconds of reflection, anybody can see that having a key for every potential phrase is definitely a horrible thought. With near 800,000 phrases within the English language, that might be some keyboard. You would need to trip a motorcycle from one finish to the opposite to sort a sentence. However the truth that it’s a horrible thought didn’t cease YouTuber Attoparsec from constructing one anyway, as a result of it’s nonetheless a cool venture, even whether it is vastly impractical.
Irrespective of how fascinating of an thought it’s, 800,00 keys continues to be not going to occur. So as an alternative, Attoparsec determined to give attention to the 1,000 mostly used phrases within the English language. For the reason that phrase “thousand” was not included in that listing, the construct was named “the keyboard with ten hundred keys.” That units the tone for the venture, as a result of if you wish to use this keyboard, you’ll have to be able to make some compromises.
Even at a thousand phrases, this can nonetheless be a really massive, desk-sized keyboard. As such, it was break up throughout 5 separate PCBs. After figuring out that every phrase might match fairly comfortably on a 1.25-unit key, a 12-column by 17-row structure was settled on. With 5 boards, that might make for 1,020 keys, which is sufficient for every phrase and a few utility keys like enter and escape.
Due to its small dimension, Attoparsec determined to make use of an Arduino Micro to interface the keyboard with a pc. For the reason that Micro solely has 24 digital GPIO pins, but 77 can be wanted, MCP23017 port expanders have been included within the construct. A management board with 5 of those chips, every able to including 16 GPIO strains, was designed to feed all the key presses into the Arduino.
Subsequent, a technique to supply all the keycaps was wanted. At over 1,000 keys, this wanted to be a quick and environment friendly course of. That dominated out 3D printing and another frequent approaches. Finally, switch sheets have been used to print the phrases on clean keycaps. With a 3D-printed mould that would maintain 16 keys at a time and a used warmth press, the job was made manageable.
Naturally, nothing truly labored the primary time the electronics have been fired up. After some head scratching, Attoparsec discovered a variety of the same old varieties of errors all of us make on an enormous PCB design. The info and clock likes on the I2C interface, for instance, didn’t have the required pull-up resistors. It was additionally found that the SDA and SDL alerts bought swapped. After resolving a number of different comparable points, the keyboard was lastly doing its meant job.
To complete off the venture, a customized case was constructed from six-foot-long aluminum extrusions and laminated plywood. The circuit boards have been then put in on standoffs. After that, the monstrous keyboard was prepared for some extremely gradual typing.
The keyboard with ten hundred keys labored precisely as designed, however bringing it to life strengthened simply how unhealthy of a design it’s. Just some minutes of enjoying with this beastly factor ought to be sufficient to make anybody lengthy for a superb outdated 104-key keyboard. However it’s positively one thing to see, so you will not need to miss the video under.
Now THAT is what I name a keyboard! (📷: Attoparsec)
A more in-depth take a look at the keys (📷: Attoparsec)
Assembling one of many 5 PCBs (📷: Attoparsec)
Sizzling off the warmth press (📷: Attoparsec)
