Anyone in NYC/ LA know how to reprogram a keyboard?

[holodekk]

Does anyone in NYC or LA know how to reprogram a mechanical keyboard to do specific things? I'm thinking that you would have to use arduino or max processing but I'm really not sure. I'd like to be able to make each button on the mechanical keyboard do something besides its normal task, (imagine pressing the 'q' key and an image pops up on the screen, the 'w' key and a song starts playing, the numbers each represent an emoji, (these are random examples but you get the idea)). Another thing that I'm interested in is programming the keyboard to control the electricity on something besides a computer, (the lights in a room for example). This might sound crazy but it is for an art project and I know it is totally possible!

[luisbg]

I'm not in the NYC or LA areas, but, do you need this to happen in the keyboard or can you attach the keyboard to a small machine (Arduino, or Raspberry Pi) that translates the keys to commands?

[ezrahilyer]

I would recommend you find a local hackerspace, and maybe take a few arduino or other micro controller courses. There are a lot of things involved in what you described, from circuit design ( in controlling other devices switches ect ) and then of course the programming itself. I think you would need a more solid definition of what you wanted each key to do before going further.

If you want a key to make something pop up on your screen, you don't need to do anything special to the keyboard, but if you want the keyboard to turn lights on and off in your house by itself (i.e. not simply sending commands to your computer controlling a hue light or something like that) then you will need to do more.

you say art project, do you have just an idea, or a plan?

[dorkvader]

easiest to do this in software using programs like autohotkey.

some things are likely not possible to implement in hardware due to limitations on the HID scancodes that can be sent over USB & PS/2, so you'd need to write a client side driver to do them anyway and you might as well use autohotkey at that point.

I think you would need a more solid definition of what you wanted each key to do before going further.

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you say art project, do you have just an idea, or a plan?

This. Once you have a clearer idea as to what exactly you want to do, then you can start figuring out how to do it. We can help with the second part but the first is up to you and your imagination.