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I crashed out like a 747 when I got home after some dinner last night. Maybe tonight I’ll finish desoldering that keyboard. I also should start building my keyboard template.

I desolder more keys. Tomorrow the world.
Or I at least start laying out my fifty-plus keys. I should start figuring out my layout.

Teensy
Stick and this

I should probably order a Teensy also…

Started desoldering the keyboard. This was actually quite an accomplishment because it involved me finding my soldering iron and flux. I want even sure I had flux. Successfully removed about twenty switches with another five or so fatalities. I’ll be busy tomorrow night, but I expect to get the other thirty plus I need Tuesday.
I broke the screen of laptop one. This might be a lost cause.
I’m also considering how to add a better storage option. Obviously I could go USB, but I wonder about a more elegant solution.

I think I’ll build my own. It seems that I’d rather build my own, take responsibility for the faults, the fate by its hoary head. I detest the throwaway nature of electronics. If I build my own, I can fix and repair my own.
Soo… desolder keys. I need to make sure I can get a keyboard up and going.
Thumbstick from Sparkfun. I need to look up that part.
Dismantle a laptop or two for a screen. If none of them is up to the task, than I whip on one of the 10″ screens from Adafruit. I do wish that Pixel Qi’s were still being made. I hate the idea idea of tying myself to dead technology, but the description of their displays were dope. I shall divert how hard it is to make my own custom OLED. The funny thing is, I actually kinda want monochrome.
Slave the Thing to the Beaglebone. I want the Thing’s wifi and much more sacrificable gpio pins.
Last, add up the kludge I’ve built, find a battery and power regulation circuit that gives me the juice.

This might be the kicker. That and the juice. A laptop without the juice isn’t much of a top. I still have the world’s tiniest Vaio that I’m going to pry the screen from, but the question is, how much power is out going to take. Some nice (but expensive) new screens are available, but even they take a chunk of power. Going off of AC is easy, but if I want to maintain mobility, I need to have the power to take care of business. Decisions.

Ceramic tiles? Looked into it, not feeling the aesthetic. What about glass. I can cut glass relatively easily and accurately. I could cut it, paint the back side white, grind the edges and sand blast in the characters. This sounds tempting. Better yet, do an overlay before they’re cut and blast em all at once. It might look dope and would have the tactile sensation I’m thinking of right now. I’d use baby teeth, but that sounds crazy expensive. I might look at mother of pearl also. If only ivory cane from a tree…
Ebony with white wax might be fun.

Square layout, none of this staggered bs. Dice style font for the keys. Number lock adds in a backlight for them. Backlighting in general for status updates? In the corners of the ten-key keys use small dots like on dice. Engrave or whatever the keys and fill in with crayon 1st Edition style.

During the commute, which took way too long and had people who stank of radishes, I started to research reverse engineering LCDs from the abstract perspective. It’s painful. Now then, the BBB has plenty enough juice it should be able to directly drive one, of only just, which got me thinking. I wonder if I could get away with only tackling single colour? I’ll confine on this line while also researching a holy grail of LCDs. This weekend it might be time to desolder that keyboard…