For the sake of this article, I’m going to assume you know nothing of chorded keyboards. If that’s not the case, you may want to skip down a ways, or just go over here: https://github.com/TristanTrim/asetniop-keyboard

Concept

I’m a bit of a fan of human computer interaction, and I’ve found myself quite interested by touch typing and the history of the keyboard. It seems the basic layout for keyboards that is in use today got started on mechanical typewriters. Cool machines, but the concerns involved in making a mechanical typing machine which influenced the keyboard layout are definitely no longer relevant. You can read more about it on wikipedia if you’re interested.

So obviously there are other ways we can be handling input now that input is handled by digital machines. Ultimately I’d like to do some quite radical experimentation in computer input, but I feel building a chorded keyboard is a good first step. On a normal keyboard letters are represented by keys. You press a key, you get a letter, you press a different key, you get a different letter, you press two keys, you get two letters. On a chorded keyboard letters are represented by combinations of keys, or ‘chords’. You press a key, you get a letter, you press two keys, you get a different letter. In this way you can represent many more letters (inputs) with much fewer keys. I’ve taken this concept reasonably far by making a keyboard with only 8 keys. Not very many, but those 8 keys can represent 2**8 – 1 = 255 different inputs. More info on chorded keyboards can also be found on wikipedia.

Implementation

I started out with a sketchy concept of what I wanted to make.

I made sure I was capable of compiling and flashing code to the teensyduino. Then I went to blender and made 3d files for 3d printing.

Then, while 3d printing the things, I hacked on the teensy code to get it working in a chorded schema.

Finally, everything came together with a bit of solder and the usual things.

I’m still pretty slow, but I’ve been getting better at typing on them, and it’s a really cool, comfy typing experience.

PS: I wrote this article using this chorded keyboard.