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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: matt-taco on Tue, 26 September 2023, 08:26:44

Title: Xwhatsit Controller on other, non-capacitive keyboards
Post by: matt-taco on Tue, 26 September 2023, 08:26:44

Does anyone know if an xwhatsit controller will work on any keyboard matrix? I personally love the GUI and the ease of remapping keys.

Title: Re: Xwhatsit Controller on other, non-capacitive keyboards
Post by: NathanA on Fri, 29 September 2023, 05:09:41

Quote from: matt-taco on Tue, 26 September 2023, 08:26:44

Does anyone know if an xwhatsit controller will work on any keyboard matrix? I personally love the GUI and the ease of remapping keys.

I remember seeing a thread -- it was probably on DT? but can't remember at this precise moment -- of somebody who took an Xwhatsit, stuck it in their Model M, added the solenoid driver + a solenoid to it, and used that as the means of populating their M with a solenoid.

So at least from a hardware perspective, the answer is yes.  It can apparently be used to drive non-capsense matrices.

What I can't remember is what *firmware* was involved.  I'm not sure this is really doable with the original Xwhatsit firmware, if that's the part you are mostly interested in.  For all I know, the person I'm thinking of used an Xwhatsit board but flashed it with QMK, or even something else entirely.  My guess is that they did...

If you are looking for ease of remapping keys, have you checked out Vial?  Can practically be made to work on nearly any QMK-compatible controller, though if a Vial firmware doesn't already exist for the controller + matrix in question, a little elbow-grease will be required up front to get Vial working smoothly with it, granted...