Using a generic RJ-11 foot switch with a Kinesis Advantage

[incrediblemath]

Greetings Geekhackers,

I've been reading through a number of the Kinesis Contoured/Advantage threads here... quite the amazing resource!

So, long story short, I've been using a standard Advantage USB for over 6 years, best investment I've ever made. However, now that I'm learning how to program, I am pinky-reaching a lot more often for the Shift key and various symbols/brackets. I've already mapped some of them to the thumb keys, but I'd really like to get a foot switch for Shift, as well as easy access to the second logical keyboard layer.

I've seen a few posts here and elsewhere about people using run-of-the-mill RJ-11 foot switches, which are significantly cheaper than the triple-action Kinesis model (I'd rather save the money and put it toward that mysterious cherry/LF Advantage model). However, I've seen some examples where rewiring is required to get these 3rd-party switches to work. I don't want to accidentally break my trusty (and expensive) 6-year old keyboard, so I wanted to consult the knowledgeable hackers here first to get an idea of what might work or what might not.

The Dictaphone IN-765 and its generic equivalents seem to be the most widely-available option. Is this model wired so that I can just hook it into the RJ-11 port of the Kinesis and be off to the races, or will some rewiring be required?

Thanks for any insight you can provide!

[Collective]

Hi incrediblemath,

I don't really know about the RJ-11 foot switches, but I have a MIDI footswitch, it's the Line 6 FBV MKII, costs around $80, and if you use Bome's midi translator with AutoHotkey I'm sure you'll be able to get it to do what you need.

Also, just some links I dug up that I had seen earlier on changing scancodes by installing a keyboard filter so you can differentiate the keys on a second keyboard.
deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11
http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic10416.html

[sordna]

Since the keyboard as well as most footswitches have a male RJ11 port, you need a female-female adapter. In most cases, you would need to rewire the adapter, so that the footswitch engages the leads you want. You can even employ a 1-to-3 splitting adapter and rewire it so that each "port" does a different action with the same footswitch. I think the black lead on the RJ11 cable in the keyboard side is the common ground, and making a connection between it and the other 3 leads produces the 3 available footswitch actions, which are remappable of course.

I too wanted easier access to both Shift and the 2nd layer, and having tried footswitches decided I wanted those functions on the keyboard itself, so I added extra keys to do all that and more. Check my wiki to see how to add extra keys to your Kinesis Advantage.

Note: it will probably void your warranty :-)