At least one of the screenshots[1] has him entering a value such as
1001 1010
which isn't ASCII (the 8th bit, the MSB, is set; ASCII is composed of 7 bits).
It seems to give him Ü, which is that bit pattern in at least CP 850[2] (the character encoding used by DOS by computers sold in America / western Europe). Which every time I look up that Wikipedia article brings back the nostalgia of seeing [3] on the screen, and playing games like Hack[4].
For someone who works with hardware a lot, it's probably trivial to switch endianness mentally.
From the description:
"Each byte can either be typed from most significant bit to least significant bit (left to right), or least significant bit to most significant bit (right to left)."
This is such a cool hack. I love it. I want to make one, too. This guy is a true hacker.
Now it's time to nitpick. It doesn't seem that there's any way to generate key-codes.
Entering text is nice, of course, but that's not all that a keyboard does. How about cursor control (arrow keys, PageUp, etc.), function keys, or scroll lock?
One can make control-key combinations, but that limits one to what's available in ASCII. For instance, there's no way to distinguish Ctrl-j from the Return key.
That last point brings up something related. In ASCII, the Control key modifies the bit representation of the key pressed. That's why Emacs in terminal mode can't tell the difference between Ctrl-j, Ctrl-J, and Return. In modern user interfaces, the Control and Alt keys are specialized shift keys that let the OS and applications tell the difference.
Of course, one could do the same workarounds that terminal emulators perform, like using escape sequences and such. Then, while using this device, one would have to know the proper sequences for xterm, or vt420, or, or, or…
Still, nice hack.
EDIT: By the way. Some poor lost soul should be forced to use Emacs with this keyboard. Any suggestions on who should be condemned?
> Entering text is nice, of course, but that's not all that a keyboard does. How about cursor control (arrow keys, PageUp, etc.), function keys, or scroll lock?
I'd heard about stenography keyboards, but I hadn't seen any good demonstrations of them at high speed, so I went looking. This is a really great side-by-side comparison of QWERTY versus a steno keyboard, playing 'Steno Arcade', a game where you have to type lyrics as they're being sung:
Does anyone use one of these? I was looking for one for a long time and ended up just getting an Ergodox since I couldn't find one I could actually buy(twiddler3 wasn't on sale at the time).
If I'm understanding this project correctly, it requires that you type the binary code for the ASCII character. E.g. for A, you need at least 8 keypresses for 01000001. In Morse, you would need two: .- (short-long).
It seems to give him Ü, which is that bit pattern in at least CP 850[2] (the character encoding used by DOS by computers sold in America / western Europe). Which every time I look up that Wikipedia article brings back the nostalgia of seeing [3] on the screen, and playing games like Hack[4].
[1]: https://camo.githubusercontent.com/3b29cbd1b405af4a2991e1955...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_850
[3]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Codepage...
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_(video_game)