Mechanical Keyboard Sound Isn't That Simple
Figure 1: I couldn't think of a more literal way to represent this article if I tried... Looking back just a few years ago, there’s no doubt that the huge influx of people that joined the hobby at the peak of the COVID pandemic were drawn to keyboards by way of YouTube, TikTok, and other audio-visual content platforms. Even as the output from these content creators has waned in recent months, their collective impact and legacy on the keyboard hobby is rather firmly etched in the history books. As a result of all of their sound tests, build logs, and opinion videos, the message is clear to any new person joining the hobby: mechanical keyboards are all about the sound. Thock this, clack that. Whether it’s keyboards, keycaps, or even singular switches, seemingly everyone new to the hobby meticulously pores over each component of their keyboard not in an attempt to figure out how it will feel in hand, but how it will sound as they’re furiously grinding their way out from...
Mar 27, 2024
This means that some of the drops (Ergodox, Infinity 60%, keycaps, etc) are produced on demand after the drop completes. This drop took much longer than expected by anyone, including Massdrop. People are entitled to their displeasure at the delays and at the lack of clarity around the state of the product at the time of the drop. But saying that this kind of drop is not appropriate is shortsighted, and I hope the Massdrop team doesn't listen to those comments.
I'm personally thankful to the Massdrop and Input Club teams for providing us with access to an exciting new keyboard that I would not have otherwise been able to source. I hope they keep doing these sorts of drops, and imagine they've learned a lot about the language to use for new products like this on the initial drop pages so that there won't be any confusion in the future.
Anyway, this has already been discussed ad nauseam. If you didn't realize what you got yourself into, Massdrop gave you the option to back out. Take the refund and stop beating this dead horse.
I've also been having a chat with HaaTa about the LED implementation. Apparently there's no way to control the LEDs with KLL ATM, but he said he will be implementing something basic soon. If I have some time, I'll get to work on a more advanced way to control the LEDs with the firmware. My hope is to be able to show the layer by highlighting a home row for each layer (ex: aoeu htns for Dvorak, wasd for gaming on QWERTY, highlight the numpad keys in the numbed layer, etc...).
Heres the layout as it currently stands: https://keyboard-configurator.massdrop.com/ext/ergodox/?referer=GYNDV5&hash=3a2832f8e0f708bf3da187ab4522b236
Any other reason for developing your own firmware?
Any chance you can point me to some info on how to write a simple macro in KLL?
Anyway, it's my own interpretation of Colemak on a Dox, and similar to this one (except that I removed the QWERTY layer and added more media and aux functions in the IC one):
https://keyboard-configurator.massdrop.com/ext/ergodox/?referer=ESBS5V&hash=c68ce2b42ac26d7e5c914ff50e09cb59
(I'm doing the same thing, actually... the hardest part is figuring out the design of how the LEDs *should* work. Once that's ironed out, the rest is implementation detail.)
My conversation with HaaTa took place on the kll forum on input.club, so you can read it if you want. He said the LED controller is powerful enough that you should even be able to play animations on it at 60fps.
I'm not planning on developing my own firmware, I'm going to expand on HaaTa's. If I come up with something useful, I'll request that it be pulled into kiibohd/controller.
"If you didn't realize what you got yourself into, Massdrop gave you the option to back out. Take the refund and stop beating this dead horse." Why ? Is there any other place where I can buy this keyboard ? Don't make me wrong, I'm still very excited about this keyboard, just very disapointed how this drop is made.
Without Massdrop, I don't think this keyboard would even exist. I'm grateful for the guys at Massdrop who are working hard to mass produce these fancy new keyboards even if things don't always go as smoothly as we would like. At the end of the day, they are still bringing these projects to life.