What is SpaceFN and why you should give it a try
The SpaceFN concept - setting up your space key as a layer switch when held - is probably one of the most useful tweaks in the keyboard hobby. Let me explain how it works. My SpaceFN article on kbd.news made some rounds recently - quite surprisingly given the age of this concept. This piece you're reading is a condensed version of the full post. If you're left with unanswered questions, you'll most likely find the info you're looking for in the original write-up. On my imaginary top list of the most useful keyboard features, tweaks and hacks, SpaceFN would deserve a podium finish for sure. But what makes it so special? In short: SpaceFN is easy to implement, easy to learn, costs nothing, can be used with any keyboard, and can improve your productivity instantly. I will list its benefits below, but can state right at this point that the SpaceFN concept, setting up your space key as a layer switch when held, is clearly one of the most useful tweaks in the keyboard hobby....
Apr 30, 2024
Some comments in this forum express disappointment that you can't get the programming software running on a Mac. Firstly, I seem to be having the opposite problem to everyone else. I got the programming software working but not the keyboard itself in run mode (at least not yet). I notice it's showing up as a 250 mA USB device so that may be the reason (except it's also not working through a powered USB hub so maybe not), or it's the age of my MacBook, or my Falcon-8 config itself which I have set to F13-F20 keys (see comments below on how to set that up), or my Falcon-8 firmware version. I bought it at the last Falcon-8 Massdrop. Anyway, here at least is how you get the programming software working using Crossover 16.
1. Macbook tested on:
4. Setting up Crossover. Crossover is Codeweavers version of wine. Wine/Crossover are tools for running windows exe's on OSX. They are kind of hit and miss but the probability of success greatly increases as the windows exe gets smaller. Each year they're getting better at the bigger apps etc. Crossover adds (at the very least) a simpler gui to wine but still uses wine underneath. I'm not a wine expert so I bought Crossover one day on special in case it helps at all to get things done a bit faster. I'm sure the wine experts would eat this in seconds. I started with using the Crossover gui (selected Win 7 64 as the environment for the new bottle) to run Max's programming util. It didn't it didn't work. After turning on on logging, I received this error message:
Google suggests Vendor ID C251 is Keil Software, one of the big embedded compiler vendors. Maybe that's the default Vendor ID in the USB code of the compiler environment used to write the firmware. Probably time to email Max. I'd like to know if anyone has these running on any Mac, and which specs (hardware/software), thanks, Spiro
---------- Edit. Here is the Keil page for this processor: http://www.keil.com/dd2/nxp/lpc1343fbd48/ no driver listed there though.
Also I just tried the Falcon-8 on Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS and it's working great. lsusb -v says:
------------------- 2016-12-30. God I'm an idiot. Max tech support fixed this with a one line email .... REBOOT THE MAC. Works like a bought one. That's it I'm retiring. S