ThumbsUp! Keyboards

In this post I will quickly go through the major design milestones which lead to the current ThumbsUp! keyboard design.   For years I used ThinkPad laptops and external ThinkPad Travel keyboards like the one below. I even used them together, i.e. as a split keyboard. The laptop was on the right and the external keyboard on the left, with a display between then. So my left hand used the left side of the external board, and the   right one - the right side of the laptop. A bit excessive, but otherwise quite comfortable, especially with the original version of Travel keyboard, with its trackpad and trackpoint, so either hand could use the mouse navigation.       There were some issues with the cursor control, and I rather refer to my article on All Things Ergo for details. So I started to look for other options.   There was some generic mechanical 60% keyboard, a Mistel Barocco, a Ergodox EZ, and an Ergodox Infinity (the group buy arrive...

ThumbsUp! keyboards can be made wireless.  Not all of them, but those driven by ProMicro controller. There are multiple options, so far I only used one of them, the nice!nano v2 with ZMK-based firmware. Nice!nano is a drop-in replacement for AtMega32U4-based ProMicro units. It got a compatible pinout and is quite simple to use. Here is how it looks fully assembled: These are the parts: nice!nano v2 in the middle, the battery on the left and the pin headers on the right. Also there is a power switch on the PCB - it physically disconnects the battery from MCU/USB. I use pin headers/sockets to allow MCU swap. The default/standard sockets are too tall, so I have to pull the pins from headers and cut them so they are flush with the board surface. Make sure solder balls are small enough to  allow the raisers/connectors to actually connect. Notice the MCU goes components towards PCB. Make sure the B+ and B- holes are not used, they are added in nice!nano, but the ProMicro does not ha...

  You can actually try it on your Windows computer. May be that's all you need, and that's ok.   My layout is based on two things: - tri-state layers used in Planck/OLKB boards, - and SpaceFN layout.   The former allows to have four layers controlled by two keys. It works only if you have a programmable keyboard.   The SpaceFN layout can be used on its own, on any regular computer, provided you can install a program to it.   The idea is to turn space bar into a modifier key. That is when you hit it once it works as a space bar. But when you press and hold it - it activates another layer, like Shift or Control. This post on Geekhack.org describes this idea in more details.   For SpaceFN (when I don't have my ThumbsUp! keyboard) I use TouchCursor utility. You can download and use it for free.   To use my layout - launch TouchCursor double click on its icon in the clock area to open the configuration window. Change any of t...