Wireless Das Keyboard Modification

http://www.ivanyu.ca/blog/2014/2/2/wireless-das-keyboard-modification

by rayshan • 11 years ago

54 48 11 years ago

As someone with an affinity for both wireless devices and mechanical keyboards, I am saddened that wireless mechanical keyboards are few and far between.

There are two reasons for this. First, mechanical keyboards are generally larger than other keyboards, which makes them less portable.

Secondly, mechanical keyboards are oftentimes used by professional gamers, and for their use case, wireless just doesn't cut it. Higher latency (and more importantly - higher variance latency), as well as multi-key rollover[0]

That said, as someone who owns two Das keyboards and hates typing on laptop keyboards (or, worse, on tablet screens), I'm very happy to see this!

[0] Even the Das keyboards don't support n-key rollover over USB; you need to use PS/2 cables, IIRC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollover_%28key%29

archagon5• 11 years ago

I think "professional" gamers tend to be needlessly fussy about their equipment. I beat Super Meat Boy 100% with a wireless gamepad with no issues at all. I also use a wireless gaming mouse to play Counter-Strike and other FPS. These are both Logitech products so they use their own receivers instead of Bluetooth (presumably for better performance), but it looks like this keyboard mod is doing the same thing.

rcthompson• 11 years ago

I know someone who looked into Logitech's wireless protocol. He said it was just Bluetooth with some magic numbers changed to separate it from real Bluetooth.

nightski• 11 years ago

For me it is batteries. Why deal with connection issues/batteries for a peripheral that never leaves the desk? Seems ridiculous.

Dewie3• 11 years ago

There is no need for scare quotes since professional gamers are a thing. Unless you meant serious or hardcore gamers, in which case I don't know why you didn't just write that.

I don't think professionals are playing SMB. CS though, probably.

noeleon• 11 years ago

New Das Keyboards do support nKey Rollover via USB [1].

[1] http://www.daskeyboard.com/daskeyboard-4-ultimate/

MaulingMonkey2• 11 years ago

Older das keyboards supported 6-key rollover via USB (running into protocol limits) or 12-key rollover via PS/2, IIRC.

darklajid3• 11 years ago

Interesting that this site states

Just press shift + mute to toggle NKRO.

I understand why you would want this enabled. I'm not sure I understand the negative implications, so - what are potential reasons to _disable_ that?

Dylan168072• 11 years ago

Latency is bad, but it's pretty trivial to build a short range ultra-low-bandwidth wireless connection that will never have a latency of 1ms or greater. And for a human inputting via a mechanical device into a desktop operating system, that's as good as zero.

The default on a USB keyboard is polling every several milliseconds anyway.

ksk• 11 years ago

If it is so trivial, then why do all wireless keyboards not do this?

Nullabillity• 11 years ago

I'd like to know, on the other hand, what's the supposed benefit of wireless? On a laptop the cable length shouldn't be an issue anyway, and on a desktop you can, in the worst case, get an extension cable for a couple of bucks. And what do you get in exchange? Batteries that need to be swapped and slightly (though arguably neglegible) worse performance.

kedean• 11 years ago

Well, no cables, for one. It's not a huge complaint, but fewer cables on the desk is a beautiful thing. Also, easier transport.

walterbell• 11 years ago

Goldtouch (IBM/Lexmark heritage) makes a foldable bluetooth ergonomic mechanical keyboard, http://www.goldtouch.com/go2-goes-wireless/ & http://www.amazon.com/Goldtouch-Wireless-Bluetooth-Mobile-Ke...

Splendor• 11 years ago

Wow, that ball joint is pretty ingenious. Thanks for sharing.

melling• 11 years ago

That has a scissor switch like on most Mac keyboards. It doesn't have Cherry MX switches like those found on the Das Keyboards.

Encosia3• 11 years ago

I've love to see some sort of blind visual latency test between a wired and quality wireless keyboard. I've been using wireless keyboards since around 2005, am fairly allergic to latency in any device, but couldn't imagine going back to the shackles of a wired keyboard or mouse now.

clebio• 11 years ago

I'm confused as why you wouldn't just use a USB breakout board and a bluetooth or serial modem (e.g. [1]). Having to desolder every key seems like an immense amount of work and risk of error. At any rate, an awesome hack. I love my Das Keyboard, and wireless wouldn't hurt (gaming isn't my use-case).

[1] https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12700

nacs2• 11 years ago

Perhaps it would help with latency a bit?

    Key signal > USB > Wireless
               vs
    Key signal > Wireless

entee• 11 years ago

I too wish there were more out of the box solutions for these. I also wish more keyboards separated the keypad from the main keyboard. I like to stay centered in front of the monitor, which means necessarily the number pad makes the whole thing asymmetrical and knocks into the mouse (I have a very narrow desk).

I'm surprised they're not more common, because many of my programmer friends also prefer mechanical keyboards. At that point latency seems irrelevant? It doesn't appear mechanical keyboards are intrinsically less suited to being wireless...

abroncs• 11 years ago

There are quite a few tenkeylenss or 60% boards that exist for this very reason.

sashk• 11 years ago

I have different problem - keyboard I love doesn't come as wired keyboard, only wireless. I want something to turn into wired one. Why? Because wireless microsoft keyboards aren't secure. And I'm talking about Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic keyboard...

PebblesHD3• 11 years ago

An interesting project, and a nice result, but I'm curious about the goal of not having inscriptions on the keys? You may not look down at the keyboard when typing but what if someone else needs to use it or for whatever reason you cant focus? It seems like needless one-upping, even their website seems to acknowledge that its really only for showing off...

jen729w• 11 years ago

If nothing else, it means they can make one version without annoying half the population - in this case me, as a Mac user. It's simple enough to remap the Ctrl/Win/Alt cluster to their Mac equivalents.

It's also forced me to be a better touch-typist; I'd never really bothered learning the numbers up until now. I didn't even realise it but I was looking down at them each time I needed them. No more!

Aaaaand it does look cool.

Encosia3• 11 years ago

To be fair, using PC keys might annoy ~10% of the population if you include Linux users, not half. They actually make an Apple version of the variant that does have printed keycaps.

But yeah, the stated purpose of the blank keycaps is to force you to become a better typist (citation needed as to whether it actually works).

djtriptych• 11 years ago

I own an unlabeled Das and I did find it helped me type because it completely takes away the ability to cheat. I ended up having to learn how to type a lot of special symbols w/o cheating.

PebblesHD3• 11 years ago

Fair enough, I hadn't really considered the learning aspect that you and @jen729w mention. Neat!

GuiA• 11 years ago

I have a keyboard without key inscriptions. I prioritize aesthetics over other people being able to use my keyboard (and using a non-conventional layout, most people would be confused by my keyboard anyway).

PebblesHD3• 11 years ago

An equally valid reason, I use the Bluetooth Apple keyboard for the same reason.

mrmondo• 11 years ago

If you really want to make your Das wireless - why not just use a wireless USB hub?

darklajid3• 11 years ago

Off-topic, but something that surprised me: This site comes up blank/empty here. I assume it's ublock - haven't tested that.

I did look at the source of the page and .. whoa. Can someone explain to me what

meta og:description (more or less the whole text, I guess)

meta itemprop="description" (as above, a full copy)

meta twitter:descrption (a third one..)

are? Is that normal? Sane? I've never seen that before.

Plus, meta description is .. present but empty. The body starts roughly 600 lines into the document.

bdchauvette• 11 years ago

og:description is metadata for facebook's OpenGraph. [1]

twitter:description one is metadata for Twitter Cards. [2]

itemprop="description" is metadata in the microdata format [3]

----

[1] http://ogp.me/

[2] https://dev.twitter.com/cards/overview

[3] https://schema.org/docs/gs.html

darklajid3• 11 years ago

I know I'll pay for derailing this, but thanks a lot. My biggest confusion was that these overlap so much, and that they contain the full content.

Again, apologies. I just got curious and was hoping the author might share why this is the case.

Even after following your links I'm confused, but - I got the gentle nudge and understand that this isn't the right place to continue this.

og:description - "A one to two sentence description of your object."

twitter:description - "Description text will be truncated at the word to 200 characters."

itemprop="description" - "A short description of the item."

meo2• 11 years ago

since no one has mentioned it, there's this http://matias.ca/laptoppro/mac/. IMO, it's the perfect solution for a portable mechanical keyboard. It's small, so you can throw in your bag and have it with you always, and the rechargeable batteries inside this thing are seriously impressive. I last recharged mine about 9 months ago and I use it all day every day.

Wireless Das Keyboard Modification

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