One piece of potentially helpful information i think you forgot is, what is your controller?

A few things.

A laptop with 2-way HDMI, so i can plug it into a game console and use it as a small TV. Note that i’m aware that HDMI might not work like this.

A wearable soundboard with speakers and batteries hidden in my pockets, and controlled by chorded buttons in my shoes. Use cases include crickets, canned laughter, the Seinfeld theme, and audible air guitar riffs.

A handheld computer that:

• Has physical buttons instead of a touchscreen
• E-ink display for all the benefits of that – Physical light switch for a backlight for the screen (my phone is e-ink but i have the backlight turned off by default, a side effect is i can’t see the screen to turn the backlight on when i need it) – Button to refresh the screen, instead of relying on automatic refreshes (Light Phone II) or updating what’s on screen to get it to refresh (Sony PRS 505) – Solar panel, if the OS is light enough to permit it. Ereaders are totally low-power enough that if one had a small solar panel like a calculator you’d almost never need to charge it. A full handheld computer could probably also benefit from this.

A music player / DAC that:

• Has physical buttons, non-touch screen, & light switch for screen backlight like the above wish.
• Lets you mark some files as audiobooks/podcasts, so it remembers your place in those
• Isn’t just an Android phone that can’t make calls
• Has a reflective or transflective display, so you can use it outdoors without fighting the sun
• Can listen to the radio, if you unfold or plug in an antenna
• Has a headphone jack There’s more to this one because i’m planning to actually make it someday, simply because i don’t expect anyone else to make one that does what i want it to.

Somewhat ergonomic keyboards in laptops. I know split keyboards are hard because the screen has to be about as wide as the keyboard, but i’m sure there’s a way and i intend to someday prove it. I know we can do better than typewriter shaped keyboards with QWERTY by default, even ortholinear boards would be an improvement because layouts can be done in software.

An electric notebook with a touchscreen that instead of using OCR to turn handwriting into text, stores handwriting as vector graphics as a middle ground between OCR and images with huge file sizes. Probably with a slider for how much to simplify lines, and an option to select areas of a page to convert to text via OCR so you can still have diagrams and doodles alongside plain text that’s easy to export and edit.

A device like a generation I pokedex, but for real world animals and plants. This one probably won’t happen because stuff like this is only done as smartphone apps anymore, not as standalone toys.

HUD goggles that are the display of a full portable computer.

• Keyboard input could be done through a split keyboard that hooks onto your belt, with half on each thigh
• Mouse input could be done with a trackpoint / trackball on the keyboard (simple option) or with a bracelet that emits IR light from multiple points so it can be tracked by sensors on the goggles (if you don’t understand what i mean, kind of like a Wiimote and sensor bar), with a ring that goes around your middle finger attached by a wire to the bracelet. When you tug the ring down by bending your wrist or fingers down, that’s a mouse click. (complicated option)
• Two or more hot-swappable batteries, so you can change one out without the device having to lose power
• Transparent LCD over one eye, so the background of the image is just what’s actually in front of you
• Gyroscope somewhere on the head part, so you can turn your head to access different windows like it’s a VR headset. Imagine there’s a bubble around your head with program windows projected onto different parts of it. Large windows look curved around the surface of the bubble. You can drag them around with the mouse, or turn your head to move them relative to your eyes. Probably also makes this good for AR stuff.
• Headphone jack and bluetooth for audio, but not necessarily built in speakers This one might never happen, apparently making any kind of HUD is very hard and expensive and this one is asking for a lot. But it would be so cool. It would finally be a portable computer with a good input system (keyboard) and a display at the same time.

And there’s more stuff i want to exist that doesn’t fit the question. Software (why hasn’t anyone mad a 3+ D spreadsheet program?) and non-technical products.

A lot of dumbphones have pretty small screens. My Light Phone II is about half the size of my old Something-Or-Other brand smartphone.

But if you want a small pocket supercomputer that can make calls, someone else already linked to https://www.unihertz.com/

Nope. I checked three hardware stores for solder wick but i can see if there are any more in town.

Hard to say, i’ve never used reWASD. There’s another program called Input Remapper that i haven’t used for games but which is supposed to be like AntiMicroX but for keyboard, mouse, and gamepad inputs and outputs going both ways. So i can make my keyboard an Xbox controller, my Wii U controller a keyboard, my mouse a pair of DK Bongos probably, and so on. But i don’t know how to make it work without sudo access (apparently some programs need that and some don’t to mess with inputs) so i don’t like using it.

Some people don’t like Steam running in the background. My last computer was so weak it couldn’t run light weight games through Steam because of the extra resource usage.

AntiMicroX for converting gamepad inputs to keyboard inputs. I pretty much only use it for Super Smash Flash 2.

Thank you.

No mention of M&M Kart or Super Bombad Racing⸮

I forgot how frustrating Blender’s boolean modifiers can be sometimes. I did try but Blender crashed my computer.

I’m about ready to give up on solving this problem that i have no personal stake in, but here’s what i was planning to do.

1. Open a blank keycap model in Blender and import that SVG.
2. Convert all the line segments to meshes and join them into a single object.
3. In edit mode, extrude Tux to make him 3D.
4. In object mode, line him up with the top (or front, i guess) of a key and shrink and rotate him so he sticks into the cap.
5. Select the key and make a boolean difference modifier on it with Tux. This should cut a Tux-shaped hole into the cap.
6. Export as STL and import into a slicer program for 3D printing.

I found suitable caps for MX and Choc V1, though i didn’t get around to trying the Choc files.

The SVG i used is based on the flat one here, and my monochome single-object version is here, since i can’t upload an SVG in a comment here. It’s text but you can copy that into a plain text editor (xed, Notepad, etc.) and save it as an SVG file.

On the custom keyboard i’m designing, my plan is actually to use U+2756 ❖ as the legend for my super key if i ever put legends on the keys. That key doesn’t have a standard symbol but this one works well enough.

It looks out of place as a sculpted key next to keys with printed legends. I think what would be better is a slightly simpler picture of Tux with thicker lines that can be filled in like a normal key legend. Or the lines could be filled in with a different color on the printer, for printers that support that.

But no, i haven’t seen any better Tux caps. I also haven’t looked, so for all i know they’re out there. I could probably throw something together in Blender if people really want this.

It’s been an interesting project so far. I’ll probably write about the whole process once i’m done as someone who was new to this stuff. The community here and in adjacent Lemmy communities is kind and helpful.

I’ll just say that i started by drawing up a design for what the final board could look like in Inkscape. I started with squares for each key that all looked about the size of a keycap.

If i were to do this again i’d definitely do some stuff differently. I still think Inkscape is a good place to start (or GIMP, or a pencil and paper. Whatever you like to use for drawing.), but some parts would have been easier if i’d made the keys there actual size. That was before i knew how to set Inkscape’s scale to match my monitor, so that 1cm in the program at 100% zoom is 1cm on my screen. If i’d done that i think i could have imported the drawing into KiCad as a reference.

I also think i’d use a different CAD program. I didn’t know of any when i started this besides KiCad but it has been quite frustrating to work with. I had to reinstall it in version 7 instead of using the current v9 because so much stuff just doesn’t work or doesn’t work easily in newer versions.

I hope not with how much it cost after shipping.

Thanks. Traces are updated, DRC passes, and i’m ordering the board now.

JLC PCB, only because i already have an account with them. Are you trying to start your own custom keyboard?

That’s the plan, yeah.

Kailh Choc V1. I’m very used to super flat laptop keyboards so i picked those over the taller MX switches.

I see upvotes. Does that mean it’s fine?

Can i wire up every row to a ground pin as well as a normal IO pin or do i need to do something more with that?

Not without moving some switches to fit the trackpoint and diodes to fit the Pico. But how hard can hand wiring that one part be⸮

I’m still not clear on how the ground should work. Is it enough to just wire every row to a ground pin as well as a normal input pin?