[HN Gopher] Rotary Keyboard ___________________________________________________________________ Rotary Keyboard Author : christoph-heiss Score : 407 points Date : 2022-12-24 10:56 UTC (12 hours ago) (HTM) web link (squidgeefish.com) (TXT) w3m dump (squidgeefish.com) | trinsic2 wrote: | LOL. That is a crazy project, but I smiled al the way through | reading about it. Its going to be slow going doing numeric key | input though. :-) | layer8 wrote: | It might motivate someone to implement an IME for Roman number | input. | ChewFarceSkunk wrote: | Nice, but not hardcore enough! Here's the real deal: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA | Mister_Snuggles wrote: | The best part of that is that they actually made a bit of a | wheel-centric UI just for this gag. | PopAlongKid wrote: | "everything is just a few hundred clicks away" - | unintentionally hilarious! | college_physics wrote: | The slowness of the rotary dial might be actually a strength in | certain use cases, like when its critical to get the number right | the first time around. Consider attaching it to a Bloomberg | terminal to eliminate the "fat finger" problem. | euroderf wrote: | No more mistaken multi-billion-dollar bank transfers and stock | trades ! | HALtheWise wrote: | Nice project! | | > Due to debouncing troubles, it seems to be double-reading each | pulse. At some point I should throw a scope on it to confirm what | the problem is, but it works quite adequately as-is. (My first | try only had a 10ms delay, which empirically resulted in | septuple-reading each pulse...) | | Needless to say, this is _not_ the canonical way to count pulses. | A more typical and accurate loop would look like | if digitalRead(pin): count +=1 # register the pulse | sleep(0.01) # debouncing delay while | digitalRead(pin): # wait for end of pulse pass | sleep(0.01) # debouncing delay | [deleted] | zamadatix wrote: | I'm more used to "while pin hot in the last devounceDelay | consider held" approach. This double sleep method has a larger | minimum for a given debounce delay and triggers multiple | presses if you get any contact drops at all during a long hold. | Not sure if there are other upsides I'm missing though. | blamazon wrote: | Had a chuckle at "the rotary dial is mightier than the number | keys" | JadoJodo wrote: | Part of me had hoped that this was some sort of insane mechanical | keyboard, where every single key was on the rotary. | axiolite wrote: | That's been done: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA | leetrout wrote: | "Everything is just a few hundred clicks away" | | I am glad you shared the video because it was exactly what I | thought of when I read the parent comment. | bqmjjx0kac wrote: | Let's see, for 104 keys 3/4" wide, the fully-rotary keyboard | would have a circumference of 78" and a diameter of ~25". At | that size, it should probably be oriented like a steering | wheel. | defanor wrote: | The holes on my rotary phone are about 1 cm. One can make | them nested, since it would have to be custom anyway: | starting with the diameter of, say, 3 cm, adding a bit more | than 1 cm on each side (3 cm, 4.5 cm, etc), and assuming that | at least floor (pi * (1.5 + 2.5 * n - 2) / 1.5) keys fit in | the nth such nested ring (1.5 + 2.5 * n is the outer | diameter, - 2 is there since the holes won't be on the outer | diameter, / 1.5 cm is to leave some space around them; that's | not meant to be optimal, just a quick estimate), that'd yield | 101 holes/keys with 6 rings, with the outer diameter of 1.5 + | 2.5 * 6 = 16.5 cm for the last one. That's a rather small | keyboard. | | Edit: nested rings would also work for modifier keys. | | Edit 2: fixed the formula. | tdeck wrote: | There were a bunch of cheap typewriters that worked this way, | collectively called index typewriters. Here's an example, the | simplex: | | https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/simplex.html | layer8 wrote: | It doesn't make sense for the modifier keys to be on the rotary | dial, but the rest you code encode by a pair of dials (for | 10x10 keys). Labeling would be a challenge. | | I wonder which of Emacs and Vim would have the advantage here. | benj111 wrote: | A modifier dial would be cool. You could have capslock for X | number of seconds. | | Vim could have a mode dial. Which mode should be the default | is possibly the thing that flame wars are made of though. | 0xmarcin wrote: | Rotary phones where used with | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strowger_switch - so they have very | simple interface - just generate the number of pulses that is | either N or 10-N (I don't remember exactly which one is right). | There is also a nice back-story about how it was invented. | | This is a nice DIY project, but its practicality is questionable. | Choosing a number on rotary phones is very slow, as you need to | wait til the wheel returns to its start position. | stavros wrote: | It's N, from what I recall from my rotary mobile: | | https://www.stavros.io/posts/irotary-saga/ | tdeck wrote: | In New Zealand it was 10-N! | ismokedoinks wrote: | Not sure practicality is the goal--Being inconvenient might | actually be the intent. | ComputerGuru wrote: | You could redesign the rotary dial to return to zero much, much | faster with shorter pulses and smaller intervals between them | given advances in high frequency signal counting. | veganjay wrote: | This is so cool, especially for those of us who've used rotary | phones. | | I'd like to see a video of a google voice or other call made | using the rotary number pad :) | kmoser wrote: | Just use a rotary cell phone: | https://skysedge.com/unsmartphones/RUSP/index.html | no_time wrote: | Tangent, does anyone know where can I buy a small mechanical | ringer module like that? I'm probably feeding the wrong terms | into ebay but the best it can do vintage doorbells. | layer8 wrote: | It would be fun for it to support texting using T9 on the | dial. | melling wrote: | We had a rotary phone when I was young. | | What would be really cool is to see some version of "Minority | Report" actually work in my lifetime. | | https://youtu.be/PJqbivkm0Ms | | Sort of like people who lived during the invention of the | airplane and got to see humans land on the moon | nordsieck wrote: | > What would be really cool is to see some version of | "Minority Report" actually work in my lifetime. | | I suspect that that will come swiftly once VR headsets get | good[1] enough to be used as a replacement for a | laptop/monitor setup. I don't personally have a device, but | people who do have told me that the resolution and weight | just aren't there yet. | greenbit wrote: | An interesting twist on numeric entry, for sure. | rgoulter wrote: | What an impressive project. | | One thing this design demonstrates about the standard keyboard | design: | | - In order to disallow using the number row, a giant 10U keycap | is placed over the number keys. This deliberately restricts | usage. It's funny because it's unexpected. | | - 3 rows down, you've got a giant 6U keycap. But, most keyboards | just look like this, even though it's as impractical as this joke | keycap above. | lencastre wrote: | Click wheel FTW | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | That's a fun hack! | memling wrote: | The friction stir weld! | pedrovhb wrote: | That's awesome. Given the effort that went into it, it's kind of | a shame to use a cheap $10 board as a base. I think it'd be | worthwhile to spend a bit more and get a keyboard running QMK, | which also saves the headache of jerry-rigging an Arduino to | control the thing and the complications that come with it (USB, | custom logic in the firmware, etc). | paulkrush wrote: | Test it on kids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OADXNGnJok | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | This is insane. Fun to watch them. | fbdab103 wrote: | A gentle reminder that nothing is intuitive. | benj111 wrote: | No. | | I recently noticed on my local canal the mile markers show | how many miles you are from the place youre traveling from. | | This is the Leeds Liverpool canal. So as you travel to Leeds | it says Liverpool with increasing miles. | | From the pov of the Liverpool side of the sign being the | Liverpool side this makes sense, and on a barge it's easy to | look back to see how many miles to Leeds. But to modern eyes | it's completely backwards. | | Even traffic signs are 'intuitive'! | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | > While one could use a pin-change interrupt, the timescale is so | large that busy-waiting is acceptable. | | You should never use interrupts for this sort of input with lots | of inherent switching noise. At best you could wait for one | interrupt then disable it while polling in a debounce routine. | Interrupts are a red flag that someone hasn't investigated what | the switching is doing to their micro. | bilekas wrote: | Definitely a fun project and great read! I only worry it may | catch on with the hipsters and we'll be hearing the rotary bells | in cafes soon. | darkhorn wrote: | Apple had wheel keyboard https://youtu.be/9BnLbv6QYcA | oritsnile wrote: | The most interesting for is the USB 3.0 connection, on the hub. | Didn't know the lanes are totally independent. | anyfactor wrote: | I NEED a rotary dial as a fidget toy. | _tom_ wrote: | eBay's got plenty of them. With or without the phone. | anyfactor wrote: | Checking them right now. Thanks. | user3939382 wrote: | Time to use it with a SIP client :D ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-12-24 23:00 UTC)