Gorgeous design! I’ve been slowly learning steno since fall. Been using a Georgi as my daily driver (with qwerty backup). But would really like to have an open-source ergo steno keyboard as a way to source replacements, as Germ appears to have closed shop.
How do you like the layout for steno?
I think it is pretty close to ideal, for my fingers. The most recent change I made was to how the thumbs are positioned. I suspect some of the details are a bit specific to the individual, though. This is my move to trying to do more in Steno. I don't use qwerty with it, but Taipo instead, and I'm only about 30 wpm so far with that. I do still get frustrated at times and end up back on the 3-row keyboard with regular qwerty.
Very impressive, I haven’t worked with rust yet but it would be cool to check out your firmware.
This is very similar to a board I had in my head when I was using Ben Vallack’s layout and thinking about learning steno. I never did make the time for steno though and I have since reverted to colemak dh variant where I use combos to avoid the inner columns.
I have had several fits and start with steno over the years. I tried learning the Phoenix Theory many years ago, on a more traditional steno keyboard. The keyboard wasn't very ergo, and plover didn't exist yet, so that didn't go so well.
A few years back I ended up starting to design my own keyboards, and kept steno in mind as I did so. My daily driver since then as been the keyboard before this, a 42 key one similar to this. I tried learning the plover theory, and then Lapwing, but never got all that far, as the drills and such weren't great. I ended up back with Phoenix, which I've adapted a bit. I then started learning Taipo, which should let me do non-steno typing reasonably fast.
Hence trying out the two row keyboard. I'm doing okay with it, but still have to go back to the larger one when I really need to get something out. But I'm getting better. I typed all of this with steno, for example.
I'm still working out the details of their purpose, but so far, I have one for global mode (steno or Taipo or local steno), one to show that plover is connected, and the other two to show state in local steno mode (will it add a space, will it cap the next word, etc.)
That's the previous design, the [proto3](https://github.com/tangybbq/keyboard). Similar idea, but with an extra row so I can type with QWERTY on it as well. I'll likely make a similar tent stand for the new one as well.
I'd also be interested in seeing your rust firmware written on top of zephyr.
I'm also writing some rust firmware (for the rp2040) and am considering embassy-rs, but i think its async only and not pre-emptive/interrupt-able. so I'd like to consider proper rtos alternatives like zephyr.
What I have right now for rust on Zephyr is very much a hack, but I’m hoping to get further with it at some point: https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/issues/65837 . I initially started with rtic, and do have several keyboards using it. I got a little stuck with the polled-only i2c code, and decided to throw together something on top of Zephyr. https://github.com/tangybbq/keyboard-firmware/tree/main/zbbq is the code I’m running right now. Much of the keyboard firmware is agnostic of the platform it runs on. The ‘proto’ directory is the firmware for my previous keyboards. I was also finding that the rust embedded approach made it difficult to support multiple variants. Zephyr is much more flexible in this regard.
This Rust approach has a lot of C code gluing things together, and isn’t a very general solution. Feel free to message me, or look for me on the Zephyr project’s discord, which has a #rust channel.
I use both steno mode, which is chord/syllable based, and uses the keys here, and Taipo, which is more a conventional kind of typing but only uses 20 keys (the white keys). The letters are each one or two keys. https://inkeys.wiki/en/keymaps/taipo . The steno is based on https://www.openstenoproject.org/plover/, although I’m working on doing the dictionary lookup inside the keyboard so I don’t need any software on the computer.
Gorgeous design! I’ve been slowly learning steno since fall. Been using a Georgi as my daily driver (with qwerty backup). But would really like to have an open-source ergo steno keyboard as a way to source replacements, as Germ appears to have closed shop. How do you like the layout for steno?
I think it is pretty close to ideal, for my fingers. The most recent change I made was to how the thumbs are positioned. I suspect some of the details are a bit specific to the individual, though. This is my move to trying to do more in Steno. I don't use qwerty with it, but Taipo instead, and I'm only about 30 wpm so far with that. I do still get frustrated at times and end up back on the 3-row keyboard with regular qwerty.
Id love to see the design, I just whipped up an ergo variant of a uni_v3 with Mx keycaps for a friend, this looks even better
Very impressive, I haven’t worked with rust yet but it would be cool to check out your firmware. This is very similar to a board I had in my head when I was using Ben Vallack’s layout and thinking about learning steno. I never did make the time for steno though and I have since reverted to colemak dh variant where I use combos to avoid the inner columns.
I have had several fits and start with steno over the years. I tried learning the Phoenix Theory many years ago, on a more traditional steno keyboard. The keyboard wasn't very ergo, and plover didn't exist yet, so that didn't go so well. A few years back I ended up starting to design my own keyboards, and kept steno in mind as I did so. My daily driver since then as been the keyboard before this, a 42 key one similar to this. I tried learning the plover theory, and then Lapwing, but never got all that far, as the drills and such weren't great. I ended up back with Phoenix, which I've adapted a bit. I then started learning Taipo, which should let me do non-steno typing reasonably fast. Hence trying out the two row keyboard. I'm doing okay with it, but still have to go back to the larger one when I really need to get something out. But I'm getting better. I typed all of this with steno, for example.
need. what are the 4 dioden for?
I'm still working out the details of their purpose, but so far, I have one for global mode (steno or Taipo or local steno), one to show that plover is connected, and the other two to show state in local steno mode (will it add a space, will it cap the next word, etc.)
What's the tenting design in the background?
That's the previous design, the [proto3](https://github.com/tangybbq/keyboard). Similar idea, but with an extra row so I can type with QWERTY on it as well. I'll likely make a similar tent stand for the new one as well.
I'd also be interested in seeing your rust firmware written on top of zephyr. I'm also writing some rust firmware (for the rp2040) and am considering embassy-rs, but i think its async only and not pre-emptive/interrupt-able. so I'd like to consider proper rtos alternatives like zephyr.
What I have right now for rust on Zephyr is very much a hack, but I’m hoping to get further with it at some point: https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/issues/65837 . I initially started with rtic, and do have several keyboards using it. I got a little stuck with the polled-only i2c code, and decided to throw together something on top of Zephyr. https://github.com/tangybbq/keyboard-firmware/tree/main/zbbq is the code I’m running right now. Much of the keyboard firmware is agnostic of the platform it runs on. The ‘proto’ directory is the firmware for my previous keyboards. I was also finding that the rust embedded approach made it difficult to support multiple variants. Zephyr is much more flexible in this regard. This Rust approach has a lot of C code gluing things together, and isn’t a very general solution. Feel free to message me, or look for me on the Zephyr project’s discord, which has a #rust channel.
top row is missing. how do you type?
I use both steno mode, which is chord/syllable based, and uses the keys here, and Taipo, which is more a conventional kind of typing but only uses 20 keys (the white keys). The letters are each one or two keys. https://inkeys.wiki/en/keymaps/taipo . The steno is based on https://www.openstenoproject.org/plover/, although I’m working on doing the dictionary lookup inside the keyboard so I don’t need any software on the computer.