A hand wired ortholinear mechanical keyboard with a firmware in pure Rust. The case uses a parametric design allowing to create a grid keyboard of any size. The firmware allows you to customize each key as you wish: A layer change (as the function key), a key combo (as one key for the paste shortcut) or a regular key.
You can build this keyboard yourself quite easily.
The OpenSCad files are a totally parametric design. You can generate a grid of keys of any size by modifying the parameters. It is designed to be as low as possible.
The firmware is written in the rust programming language. It is not (yet) as feature full, robust and portable as QMK.
It currently support:
- Layers when holding a key (aka the fn key). When holding multiple layer keys, the numbers add (if you have a layer 1 key and a layer 2 key, when holding the 2 together, the layer 3 will be active).
- Transparent key, i.e. when on a alternative layer, the key have the same behavior of the default layer.
- Change default layer dynamically.
- Multiple keys send on an single key press. It allows to have keys for complex shortcut, as a key for copy and paste, for alt tab, or for whatever you want.
QMK supports the blue pill board. You may have to search a bit, but it should not be so complicated. See for example the BluePill handwired. Maybe the firmwares from Cannon Keys can also be interesting. If you do any progress on this side, feel free to open a PR to share your experience.
You have basically 2 options: hand wire your keyboard with your case (using a plate and case from the market should be OK as long as you can find a place for the blue pill and the USB connector), or you can buy a PCB with support for a STM32F103 micro-controller, as this is the only micro-controller that have a USB stack in rust at the time of writing. Cannon Keys proposes PCB that use the blue pill as the micro-controller, and thus should be fully compatible with the Keyberon firmware (modulo a pin modification, and without support for LED).
Please open a PR if you try anything on this side.
To find new, findable and memorable project names, some persons in the rust community try to mix the name of a city with some keyword related to the project. For example, you have the Tokio project that derive its name from the Japanese capital Tokyo and IO for Input Output, the main subject of this project.
So, I have to find such a name. In the mechanical keyboard community, "keeb" is slang for keyboard. Thus, I searched for a city with the sound [kib], preferably in France as it is the country of origin of the project. I found Quiberon, and thus I named the project Keyberon.
I'm fascinated by isomorphic keyboards. Thus, I've searched a bit which vectors can do a great isomorphic keyboard on a 12x5 grid. After some trial and errors, I found that a major third left, and a minor third up is promising. Then, searching for an origin, I found one that do a great symmetry on the home row using the colors of the piano keys.
So, the black keys on the home row are G#, the whites at left of G# are C, and the whites above G# are B, and so on.
My keyboard doesn't (yet) play any music, that's purely aesthetics.
As an old user of the TypeMatrix 2030, the layout is quite close of the layout of the TypeMatrix. I also maximize the use of the thumbs by having shift, space, enter, alt, alt gr, gui and backspace on the thumbs.
Layer 0:
┌────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────╥────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐
│ ~ │ ! │ @ │ # │ $ │ % ║ ^ │ & │ * │ ( │ ) │ _ │
│ ` │ 1 │ 2 │ 3 │ 4 │ 5 ║ 6 │ 7 │ 8 │ 9 │ 0 │ - │
├────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────╫────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
│ ↹ │ Q │ W │ E │ R │ T ║ Y │ U │ I │ O │ P │ { │
│ │ │ │ │ │ ║ │ │ │ │ │ [ │
├────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────╫────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
│ } │ A │ S │ D │ F │ G ║ H │ J │ K │ L │ : │ " │
│ ] │ │ │ │ │ ║ │ │ │ │ ; │ ' │
├────┼────┼────┼────┼─══─┼────╫────┼─══─┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
│ + │ Z │ X │ C │ V │ G ║ N │ M │ < │ > │ ? │ | │
│ = │ │ │ │ │ ║ │ │ , │ . │ / │ \ │
├────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────╫────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
│Ctrl│L(1)│ GUI│ Alt│ ␣ │ ⇧ ║ ⇧ │ ⏎ │ Alt│ ⌫ │Esc.│Ctrl│
│ │ │ │ │ │ ║ │ │ │ │ │ │
└────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────╨────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘
Legend:
- L(1): layer 1 when pressed
Layer 1:
┌────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────╥────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐
│ F1 │ F2 │ F3 │ F4 │ F5 │ F6 ║ F7 │ F8 │ F9 │ F10│ F11│ F12│
│ │ │ │ │ │ ║ │ │ │ │ │ │
├────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────╫────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
│Esc.│ │ │ │ │ ║ │ │ │ │ │ ⇞ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ ║ │ │ │ │ │ │
├────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────╫────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
│D(0)│D(1)│ │ │ │ ║ │ ◄ │ ▼ │ ▲ │ ► │ ⇟ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ ║ │ │ │ │ │ │
├────┼────┼────┼────┼─══─┼────╫────┼─══─┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
│ ⇪ │Del.│ Cut│Copy│Past│ ║ │ │ │ ⇱ │ ▲ │ ⇲ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ ║ │ │ │ │ │ │
├────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────╫────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
│ │ │ │ │ │ ║ │ │ │ ◄ │ ▼ │ ► │
│ │ │ │ │ │ ║ │ │ │ │ │ │
└────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────╨────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘
Legend:
- D(X): change default layer to X
I use the bépo layout, so this is what I have when I type:
┌────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────╥────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐
│ # │ 1 │ 2 │ 3 │ 4 │ 5 ║ 6 │ 7 │ 8 │ 9 │ 0 │ ° │
│ $ │ " —│ « <│ » >│ ( [│ ) ]║ @ ^│ + │ - │ / │ * │ = │
├────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────╫────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
│ ↹ │ B │ É │ P │ O │ È ║ ! │ V │ D │ L │ J │ Z │
│ │ |│ │ &│ œ│ ║ ^ │ │ │ │ │ │
├────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────╫────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
│ W │ A │ U │ I │ E │ ; ║ C │ T │ S │ N │ R │ M │
│ │ æ│ ù│ ¨│ €│ , ║ │ │ │ │ │ │
├────┼────┼────┼────┼─══─┼────╫────┼─══─┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
│ ` │ À │ Y │ X │ : │ K ║ ? │ Q │ G │ H │ F │ Ç │
│ % │ \│ {│ }│ . …│ ~║ ' │ │ │ │ │ │
├────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────╫────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
│Ctrl│L(1)│ GUI│ Alt│nbsp│ ⇧ ║ ⇧ │ ⏎ │Alt │ ⌫ │Esc.│Ctrl│
│ │ │ │ │ ␣ _│ ║ │ │ Gr│ │ │ │
└────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────╨────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘
Legend:
- L(1): layer 1 when pressed
You can of course tune the layout as you wish easily.