50 points NotARoomba 1 day ago 15 comments

NotARoomba 1 day ago | parent

A while back I was frustrated when wanting to buy a keyboard that there were no triangle-shaped keyboards or circle-shaped keyboards. This lack of peculiar keyboard shapes gave me the idea to make a keyboard that could be reconfigurable into any shape my heart desired. I’m still working on the firmware and making more keys but I wanted to share my progress so far. Heres the source if anyone’s interested in how I made it: https://github.com/notaroomba/keybytes

trollbridge 1 hour ago | parent

I’ve wondered when someone would do this (which gets rid of the annoyances of scanning).

The real breakthrough would be reprogrammable key legends in something like e-ink.

kaipereira 1 hour ago | parent

This is awesome!

How does the rigidity of the keyboard hold up with many keys and what's the cost of the materials at higher order quantity?

NotARoomba 6 minutes ago | parent

Thank you!!

It’s really rigid with 2 keys so far but I have yet to test with longer configurations. At a higher order quantity, each key comes out to be around 6 USD but I’m trying to minimize that as much as possible with future revisons!

fitsumbelay 1 hour ago | parent

this is extremely cool. would love to see full board

jasonjmcghee 1 hour ago | parent

This is very cool.

It needs spacers / extensions so it can be laid out as desired.

aghuang 1 hour ago | parent

Very cool, would really like one

pparanoidd 50 minutes ago | parent

Now give them all wheels so they can rearrange themselves on my desk

IllIIlIlIlIIIIl 48 minutes ago | parent

This is a really neat idea for a macro keyboard. If it supported staggered rows and row heights, not to mention structural rigidity it would be good for everyday use too.

NotARoomba 5 minutes ago | parent

Thank you! I am currently thinking about adding those in the next revision and it would definitely make it more practical.

eviks 43 minutes ago | parent

Is there a mouse module? Can you connect in a "staggered" manner rather than in a linear grid?

NotARoomba 3 minutes ago | parent

There isn’t a mouse module yet, but I am going to make more modules that include screens, finger print sensors, and I’ll add in a mouse one too :D. Currently there isn’t support for a staggered manner but I am going to work on it for the next revision.

SV_BubbleTime 38 minutes ago | parent

I looked over the PCB and schematic and it looks well polished. Not a first draft obviously.

I sort of don’t get the 4x I2C busses. I’m probably missing something obvious but it isn’t immediately apparent how the units all have addressing worked out.

kvakvs 19 minutes ago | parent

Sometimes my keyboards get dropped and lose a keycap or two, but never anything serious. If this is dropped on the floor, my trusty keyboard will turn into a bag of puzzle bits, right in the middle of heated gameplay or a meeting...

NotARoomba 7 minutes ago | parent

The magnets are strong enough that most of it should survive lol. I will be doing drop tests to test that theory out soon