I made a keycap that runs Doom

[rsheldiii]

Hey everyone,

 I made a keycap that runs Doom!



All processing is done inside the keycap, There's no PC rendering off in the background somewhere. It's a custom PCB based off the RP2040 microcontroller and a fork of the Raspberry Pi Foundation's Doom port. It's a 2u now but I was thinking about making it into a 1.75u so you could have it on the caps lock key.

It has full keyboard support and even a speaker. I have a Youtube short about it:https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YlykSvr83Jc as well as an Instagram for updates: https://www.instagram.com/thekeebproject/

Is this something people would be interested in purchasing?

[Sifo]

wow. well done

[Qwapa]

this guy won artisans. 

[Rafa_n]

amazing

[Udyrstruidor]

wtf this is actually sick

[Moods]

Finally resin worth buying

[___Aihey___]

 

[Morbii]

I assume that this means that you can play doom from the keyboard it's running on?

[rsheldiii]

Thanks everyone! There's still a couple odds and ends to figure out - like how I actually want to manufacture the enclosure - but I'm pretty optimistic about getting a group buy out there at some point.

I assume that this means that you can play doom from the keyboard it's running on?

There's two ways to power the board: from the USB or from some pads on the top of the board. If you had a keyboard with a battery that was configured to be able to supply power via the USB cable, you could theoretically power the keycap and play with the same keyboard, but I'm unaware of any keyboards that do that. Failing that, there's basically 3 ways to power it:

• Via a USB battery, which won't allow you to play
• Via a battery or power supply connected to the pads. If you're supplying 5V you can plug in the keyboard and play
• Via wires attached to the USB chord / receptacle of the keyboard and routed through the LED hole to the pads on the PCB

That last option is the most involved, but the keycap starts up when the board is plugged in, and the USB port is free. Since you're getting power from the keyboard itself, you can't plug the same board into the keycap, but you can plug a numpad or macropad or something similar. I have a board set up like that: https://imgur.com/TDFLrRZ and I have what I call the "big chungus" version of the keycap permanently wired with a wall wart: https://imgur.com/nXF8adl, which I also use to demo the speaker.

[Raenbo]

This is so cool. I see the future now. Keyboards with built in gaming systems. One day I'll be playing Pokemon straight on my keyboard.

[Rhienfo]

Just saw this, sooooo awesome.

Have you considered allowing it to run other things, running doom on anything is funny (you could play it on anything with a screen at this point) but maybe allow custom roms on the pcb so you can play other stuff would be even cooler)

I'd also think that caps lock would be better, especially because some people use don't use split backspace.

[Darthbaggins]

But can it run Crysis? lol

[keyflub]

Such a great project, thanks for sharing

[rsheldiii]

But can it run Crysis? lol

That was almost how I ended the youtube short. It's gonna be a bit longer before that happens, that's for sure

Have you considered allowing it to run other things, running doom on anything is funny (you could play it on anything with a screen at this point) but maybe allow custom roms on the pcb so you can play other stuff would be even cooler)

It's just an RP2040 hooked up to an audio amplifier and an i2c screen, so you can run whatever programs you want, if they fit. A nes emulator already exists for the pico: https://github.com/shuichitakano/pico-infones which is probably the next easiest thing to get running. Doom is going to be the most impressive though, because it's compiled from source, which always runs better than emulated