Issue 162 / Week 15 / 2024
This is a hand-picked selection of last week's content from a keyboard enthusiast's perspective. Posts that may teach you something, make you think and contribute to the common knowledge of the DIY builder community.
There are 7+7 entries in this issue:
Editorial
Behind the scenes #162
Keyboard projects, quick news, in the mailbox, meetups, new vendors and discount codes!
Review
TapXR review
The TapXR is a wrist-worn device: keyboard, mouse & controller in one. It's a fun gadget but works best within its closed ecosystem.
Projects
PNCATEHO
The PNCATEHO by aroum is a 10-key chording keyboard for Russian.
Masonry keyboard
The Masonry by dj_edit is another ergoish columnar keyboard projected on a rectangular keyboard shape.
Kai Simple
Kai H. Chang's next design is the low-profile wireless Kai Simple split.
Wysteria
Wysteria is jwe's split keyboard with lots of features.
Tools
Key-sweep
A keycap generator by Sam Hughes: key-sweep creates multi-axis contoured keycaps.
Quick news
Warning! Highly addictive! Glyphica is a typing survival game by fellow community member Sharde aka xm-zhou/aliasBlack. Type to shoot, level up, survive & hoard coins to buy upgrades. Lots of upgrades. Typing does pretty everything, there is no secondary control mechanic (movement, mouse-aim, etc). The difficulty level of the free demo released last Friday is pretty easy, touch typers will grind on for an hour and get to about level 50-60 where the game crashes when running out of power-ups. :D To be fixed later I guess, but playing Glyphica is lots of fun anyway.
A handwired "split Preonic" made by vanlyndgen using two 6*5 switch testers.
SandwichRising/dyst0pi4 published a new Keeb68 build log.
Closed source: Sweetkb by venisterkr with Gateron low-pro switches and NuPhy caps.
Qazimodo aluminum prototype.
I don't usually feature group buys, but URSA is something different. Custom keycaps for Topre keyboards, brought to you by 23_Andreas and FKcaps.
splitkb.com, MoErgo Glove80, Ashkeebs, ZSA Technology Labs, Aiksplace, @keebio, Upgrade Keyboards, Cyboard, Sean Grady, Jason Hazel, Jacob Mikesell, @kaleid1990, kiyejoco, Mechboards, KEEBD, littlemer-the-second, ghsear.ch, u/motfalcon, TurtleKeebs, Bob Cotton, FFKeebs, Joel Simpson, Richard Sutherland, @therick0996, Christian Mladenov, Lev Popov, Daniel Nikolov, Schnoor Typography, u/eighty58five, Caleb Rand, Skyler Thuss, Yuan Liu, James McCleese, Benjamin Bell, Ben M, zzeneg, Micah A., TALPKEYBOARD, Anatolii Smolianinov, Spencer Dabell, Matthias Goffette, Penk Chen, Hating TheFruit, Felicitas R., Vitali Haravy, Clacky, Davidjohn Gerena, anonymous, Stefan S., Alex Miller, Brendan P., Shnobble, Trey Causey, Jens Woyke, Dylan Ingham, keeb.it., Cloyce, Gordon Diggs, Mario S., koolkeys, s_p_l_o_d_e.
Your support is crucial to help this project to survive.