{"id":1466,"date":"2015-03-05T23:25:10","date_gmt":"2015-03-06T04:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pappp.net\/?p=1466"},"modified":"2016-02-28T21:33:46","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T02:33:46","slug":"new-chorder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/?p=1466","title":{"rendered":"New Chorder"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been playing<\/a> with chorded input devices for years, and got the itch again recently.<\/p>\n

\"CNChorder\"<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n

I decided that I needed a decent chorder to put on my Spiffchorder electronics, and did a bit of shopping and design to that end. I bought a set of 10 Cherry MX Brown switches and “R2” shape caps from WASD Keyboards<\/a> and some 0.060″ HDPE sheet<\/a> from Sibe Automation via Amazon, which is exactly the right thickness to mount<\/a> Cherry MX switches. <\/p>\n

\"FoamProto\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I went through 5 generations of layout prototypes CNC routed on my Shapeoko in EPS foam from a Heeks model<\/a> until it was comfortable and interference free before investing real materials. That incurred a bit of delay while I sourced a single flute endmill (from my usual supplier<\/a> to cut thin HDPE without melting it (see fail below). Mounting the switches is basically a matter of whacking out 14mm (yeah, mixed units, suck it) square holes with a 1.6mm endmill for a bit of corner radius. The lower lamination is currently just EPS foam milled (then knife cut to adjust for wires) to fit, eventually I’ll make a new one out of cutting board<\/strike> inexpensively sourced 1\/2″ thick HDPE stock with an internal cutout for the electronics, but have a board with a ATMega32u4 coming that I might rebase on first.<\/p>\n

\"Badcut\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Some of the standard NASA\/Alphadot (aka. BAT<\/a>) chords are a bit mystifying, lots of 3-4-5 key chords for common letters, and w,y on single keys; I think there is a flow I haven’t quite mastered yet. It’s fucking hipster enough without messing with custom chordsets. You won’t be gaming (directionals suck even remapped) on one of these, and I suspect programming will always be awkward due to buried symbols, but I can see it for everyday text entry. The promise of two static hands on chorder and pointer (trackball) is as amazing as advertised (think The Mother of All Demos<\/a>), especially when recumbent; as a related side-note, my raised, splayed hand gets cold easily, but it works just as well covered, as in “at my side, under the covers.”<\/p>\n

\"InUse\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The 45cN force and 4mm throw of the MX Browns is a little much for chords, I might “need” some purpose-made switches<\/a> for another revision. AFIK the BAT uses down-sprung MX Blacks<\/a> for similar effect.<\/p>\n

This post was typed almost entirely on the pictured chorder as an exercise in pain<\/strike> training experience. I’m slowly improving, but the claims of easy learning in the literature<\/a> (60% of an individual’s qwerty speed in 5 hours on a precursor device) are overstated for the qwerty habituated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been playing with chorded input devices for years, and got the itch again recently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,37,1,10],"tags":[148],"class_list":["post-1466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers","category-diy","category-electronics","category-general","category-objects","tag-spiffchorder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}