Hay all, it's been a WHILE...
Anyway, I finished a rough prototype years ago, and it remained as a prototype. Fixing the broken piece in my 3d printer is not the highest priority expense on my list.
So for closure, here is the prototype (that ended up being a long term prototype)
One can see the fashionable open air MCU mount, totally made this way for cooling purpose... obviously 😅
what would be this keyboard without its stylish bottom. One can admire the superb feet pads
Impressive, right ? 😄
here is the final layout (final result after applying my custom os keyboard layout)
I also made my own "firmware" in python with CircuitPython, which is a blend of MicroPython made by AdaFruit.
Here is the GitHub repo :
https://github.com/Nlight91/keyboard-rationale-60/tree/masterI have not yet made real docs or include any license for now, so here are some precisions :
- the adafruit folders are made by adafruit with MIT license, I shipped it for convenience (these are old versions, but works perfectly)
- the license for the rest, I guess I'll go with MIT too.
I'd like to say, that I love how plugging the MCU to the computer opens it as a drive, where you just have to copy/edit files onto it for it to restart and run its entry point. Plus python is a real pleasure to use.
As for speed I'm not noticing any issue, but I'm not particularly demanding on that front... I almost don't game anymore, at least no FPS.
As for the keycap thoughts after using for quite some time :
if I had my 3d printer working I would have printed my own keycaps for the bottom row, with heavily rounded bottom edges. Indeed, as it stands, the edges are not comfortable at all on the thumbs. To this day this remain the most annoying thing about this keyboard.
I also tried to turn the right space key into a modifier (AltGr) when held down, for better ergonomics, but in the end that made the space register only when released and sometimes led to not be registered, which was super annoying, so... F*** it, roll back to a dedicated space only key.