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20 Articles

Tiny Typing Tutor Tuts At Your Incorrect Shift Usage

February 13, 2025 by 16 Comments

There are a wide range of typing tutors out there that will educate you in the glorious skill of touch-typing. Many just focus on the basics, ranking you on accuracy and speed. However, there’s a nifty little online tutor that can help you with one skill specifically—it’s aim is to teach you to use the Shift keys “properly.”

The tutor is the work of [KaarelP2rtel]. The unnamed tool is intended to guide you into instinctively using both the left and right Shift keys as you type. Many typers default to using one or the other. This can lead to fumbles and slowdown when one hand is trying to hit both the Shift key and a letter.

[KaarelP2rtel]’s belief is that the “correct” method is to press the Shift key with the opposite hand to the one typing the letter, and this typing tutor enforces that practice. You must type repeated capitalized words one after the other, and you’ll only progress quickly if you’re hitting the opposite Shift key each time. Unconventional keyboardists fear not—you can convert the tool to work with Dvorak or Colemak layouts if necessary.

Is this a crucial tool for the fast typist? The jury’s out on that one. It’s entirely possible to hit in excess of 120 wpm without this technique for most normal passages of text, using dynamic finger reassignments when hitting Shift with the same hand. Still, the diligent may find it a useful upgrade to their existing typing abilities.

Source code is on GitHub for the curious. Notably, it’s a very small website that weighs in at just a few kilobytes; it would be a rather fitting part of the Small Web, which we’ve explored before!

A Tiny Computer With A 3D Printed QWERTY Keyboard

February 11, 2025 by 10 Comments

The ESP32 family are the microcontrollers which just keep on giving, as new versions keep them up-to-date and plenty of hackers come up with new things for them. A popular device is a general purpose computer with a QWERTY keypad, and the latest of many we’ve seen comes from [StabbyJack]. It’s a credit card sized machine whose special trick is that its keyboard is integrated in the 3D printing of its case. We’ve seen rubber membranes and push in keys, but this one has flexible print-in-place keys that line up on the switches on its PCB.

It’s not complete yet but the hardware appears to be pretty much there, and aside from that keyboard it has an ESP32-S3 and a 1.9″ SPI LCD. When finished it aims for an ambitious specification, with thermal camera and time-of-flight range finder hardware, along with an OS and software to suit. We like it a lot, though we suspect it might be a little small for our fingers.

If you like this project you may appreciate another similar one, and perhaps your version will need an OS.

The UMPC powered up, case-less showing the black PCB, with the display standing upwards and showing a blue colour scheme desktop with a CLI terminal open. To the right of it is one of the UMPCs that served as an inspiration for this project.

Bringing The UMPCs Back With A Pi Zero

August 3, 2024 by 12 Comments

Miss PDAs and UMPCs? You wouldn’t be the only one, and it’s a joy to see someone take the future into their own hands. [Icepat]’s dream is reviving UMPCs as a concept, and he’s bringing forth a pretty convincing hardware-backed argument in form of the Pocket Z project. For the hardware design, he’s hired two engineers, [Adam Nowak] and [Marcin Turek], and the 7-inch Pocket Z7 version is coming up quite nicely!

The Hackaday.io project shows an impressive gallery of inspiration devices front and center, and with these in mind, the first version of the 7-inch UMPC sets the bar high. With a 1024×600 parallel RGB (DPI) touchscreen display, an ATMega32U4-controlled keyboard, battery-ready power circuitry, and a socketed Pi Zero for brains, this device shows a promising future for the project, and we can’t wait to see how it progresses.

While it’s not a finished project just yet, this effort brings enough inspiration all around, from past device highlights to technical choices, and it’s worth visiting it just for the sentiment alone. Looking at our own posts, UMPCs are indeed resurfacing, after a decade-long hiatus – here’s a Sidekick-like UMPC with a Raspberry Pi, that even got an impressive upgrade a year later! As for PDAs, the Sharp memory LCD and Blackberry keyboard combination has birthed a good few projects recently, and, who can forget about the last decade’s introductions to the scene.

Long-Distance Text Communication With LoRa

May 25, 2022 by 50 Comments

Affordable and reliable cell phones have revolutionized the way we communicate over the last two decades or so, and this change was only accelerated by the adoption of the smartphone. This is all well and good if you’re living in a place with cellular infrastructure, but if you’re in more remote areas you’ll have to be a little more inventive. This text-based communications device, for example, lets you send text messages without all of that cumbersome infrastructure.

While [Arthur] didn’t create this project specifically for off-grid use, it’s an interesting project nonetheless. The devices use a physical QWERTY keyboard and a small screen, reminiscent of BlackBerry devices from the late 2000s (partially because they are actually using BlackBerry keyboards). One of the other goals for this project was low power consumption, and between polling the keyboard, the memory LCDs, and receiving and transmitting messages using LoRa, [Arthur] was able to get the current draw down to 12 mA.

Between the relatively common nRF52840 and SX1262 chips, plus the fact that [Arthur] made the schematics available, this makes for an excellent off-grid device for anyone who likes to drive off into the wilderness or lives far enough outside of town that cell phone reception is a concern.

Looking for something a little easier to put together before your upcoming camping trip? This similarly styled LoRa communicator from [MSG] uses off-the-shelf modules to greatly reduce the part count. Another option for off-grid communications is to use existing smartphones paired with a LoRa network like we saw in this project.

Raspberry Pi And ESP32-S2 Team Up For MutantC_V4

August 30, 2021 by 12 Comments

Back in 2019 we first came across the mutantC, an open source 3D printable Raspberry Pi handheld created by [rahmanshaber] that took more than a little inspiration from Sony’s VAIO ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs) from the early 2000s. It was an impressive first effort, but it clearly had a long way to go before it could really be a practical mobile device.

Well after two years of development and three iterative versions of this Linux powered QWERTY slider, [rahmanshaber] is ready to show off the new and improved mutantC_v4. Outwardly it looks quite similar to the original version, with the notable addition of a tiny thumbstick and a pair of programmable buttons on the right side that can be used for input in addition to the touch screen. But inside it’s a whole other story, with so many changes and improvements that we hardly even know where to start.

Inside the mutantC_v4, showing off the ESP32-S2

Probably the most notable improvement is the addition of an ESP32-S2, specifically a bare ESP-12K module, to the main PCB. Previous versions of the hardware used an Arduino Pro Micro to interface with all the hardware, but the added horsepower of the ESP32 should come in handy with the array of sensors, controls, and NeoPixels that [rahmanshaber] has tasked the chip with. There’s even a buzzer and a coin-style vibration motor in there to provide some feedback to the user. While the board has changed significantly, it still retains compatibility with the Pi Zero, 2, 3, and 4.

Another notable addition is the expansion connector on the bottom of the handheld that has pins for I2C, UART, and 3.3 V. In the video below, [rahmanshaber] mentions that this feature was previously implemented with a standard 2×6 female header block, but is now using a far slimmer female USB-C port. We do wonder if it’s not a bit confusing to have this faux-USB port right next to the real one that’s actually used to charge the system, but with such cramped quarters occasionally you’ve got to make some tough decisions like that.

It’s quite inspiring to see how [rahmanshaber] has honed his skills since releasing the first version of the mutantC. The 3D printed parts and PCBs have matured considerably over the last two years, showing how quickly a dedicated hobbyist can advance their abilities. The most recent version has been entered in the 2021 Hackaday Prize. But the show isn’t over yet, as we hear v5 of this impressive handheld may tackle the Raspberry Pi 4 Compute Module.

Continue reading “Raspberry Pi And ESP32-S2 Team Up For MutantC_V4” →

World’s First RP2040 QWERTY Computer

May 28, 2021 by 21 Comments

Independent hardware developer [bobricius] is at it again, making what he claims is the world’s first Pico RP2040 QWERTY + IPS development kit — the PICOmputer. This is a palm-sized computer of sorts. It integrates a keyboard made from tactile push button switches, a TFT IPS display, and a RP2040 Pico computer module. At 100 x 65 mm size, it is slightly bigger than your typical ISO-7810-ID-1-sized credit card, and slightly smaller than an A7 piece of paper.

One of [Bobricius]’s goals for this project was to minimize the number of external components, thus maximizing the use of the RP2040’s internal features. And if you peruse the schematic posted on his GitHub repository, you can agree he’s met this goal for sure. There’s a filter capacitor for the optional LoRa module, and two MOSFETs and three resistors to drive a speaker and the TFT backlight. Aside from connectors, the switches, and the submodules themselves, that’s all of the external circuitry.

The arrangement of two USB connectors, type C for power and micro-USB for data, is an interesting aspect of the connector / module placement. He plans to add an Ethernet module in the future, and issue some more revisions to fix small errors and to make the front panel fit more sizes of displays. We wonder if a battery module add-on is in the works, as well.

If you recognize [bobricius], that’s because his previous ARMACHAT handheld LoRa messenger project was among the Hackaday Prize Community Vote (Bootstrap) winners last year. We think tiny keyboards may be an obsession for him — indeed, he freely admits to being blinded by his own enthusiasm. Check out his mini (Pi)QWERTY USB keyboard from 2018, for example. Thanks to [Itay] for bringing this project to our attention via the Hackaday tip line.

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LoRa Messenger Does Its Best BlackBerry Impression

February 5, 2021 by 23 Comments

While the de facto smartphone design ultimately went in a different direction, there’s no denying the classic BlackBerry layout offered some compelling advantages. It was a gadget primarily designed to send and receive emails and text messages, and it showed. So is it really any wonder [MSG] would build his pocket-sized LoRa messengers in its image?

Of course, he did have some help. The communicators use the Keyboard FeatherWing by [arturo182], which puts a surplus BlackBerry Q10 keyboard on a custom PCB designed to accept a board from Adafruit’s Feather collection. [MSG] ended up pairing his with a Feather M4 because he wanted to work with CircuitPython, with a 900 MHz LoRa FeatherWing along for the ride. He notes that switching his code over to Arduino-flavored C would allow him to use the Feather M0 that features integrated LoRa; a change that would allow him to make the gadget a bit thinner.

Inside the 3D printed enclosure, He’s made room for a 3.7 V 1800 mAh pouch battery that should provide plenty of runtime. There’s also an external antenna with a uFL pigtail for connecting to the radio. The case is held together with heat-set inserts, which should make it more than robust enough to handle a few adventures.

[MSG] says slight variations in hardware versions means his STLs might need a little tweaking to fit your components, and warns that his code is basically just a mashup of examples he found online, but he’s still sharing the goods for anyone who wants to reach out and touch someone without all that pesky infrastructure in the way.

Continue reading “LoRa Messenger Does Its Best BlackBerry Impression” →