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Alice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️

I wonder what the most computing power anyone has put into a keyboard is?

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Like, slab computers like the c64 don't count. I'm defining "keyboards" something like "devices intended as input devices for other bigger computers, which have over 26 buttons"

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It's probably one of these modern mechanical ones which are using arm cortex m0 chips instead of the usual atmels.

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Anyway I was wondering because I was thinking about putting a whole raspi (not a pico) into a keyboard

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A pi zero might work well. Plenty of pins, and it has usb gadget mode

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@foone regarding Raspberry Pi working as keyboard and input device, there's USB4VC: a board that let you connect modern USB (and bluetooth) input devices (keyboard, mouse and gamepad) and then the Raspberry Pi emulates old protocols for vintage computers: e.g. PS/2, AT or XT keyboard, PS/2 or Serial mouse, and Gameport joystick.

(With optional remaping, i.e.: USB gamepad input events are mapped to key presses. Though that specific combination fails the 26 buttons criteria you mentionned)

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@dryak oh yeah, that thing! I keep meaning to get/make one, and then forgetting

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@foone I once used a teensy 4.1 (cortex M7) in a keyboard. It was what I had on hand.

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@Matt I mean, that's probably not THAT uncommon these days. So many keyboards were designed around Teensy 2.0++ or Teensy LC boards, and now that you can't get them, Teensy 4.x is the closest replacemetn

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@foone excluding projects that use general-purpose stuff like raspberry pis, my serious guess at an answer to this question is one of Art Lebedev's OLED button keyboards

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@foone I've mentioned in the past that a keyboard with macros programmable in BASIC (via built-in character display) would be pretty great.

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@curtmack ooh, that'd be fun

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@foone yeah, just seemed like vast overkill even at the time. The thing has Ethernet for crying out loud

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@Matt who among us doesn't want a keyboard that can type over TCP/IP?

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@foone i don't know but i do happen to know the IBM model M had the same CPU as the Philips Videopac (Oddysseus²)
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@foone I’m literally in the middle of exactly this project! Pi Zero is going into an older PS/2 Keytronic.

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@kerrybenton nice! Have you written up anything about that project?

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