Preview of New Keyboard Designs!!

[Datamancer]

Doc, I've just been hit with one of my Flashes of Inspiration^(tm), and may see about comissioning you for some custom keyboard work.... After seeing your steampunk laptop mod and the $72 PC in Popular Science (the same issue where Jake von Slatt's original keyboard is featured), I put two and two together and didn't get a floating point error.... Basically, since I'm tired of having to buy a whole new laptop everytime the old one gets obsolete, I figured that I could build a fairly compact (as in suitcase sized) portable PC from readily available parts and a standard motherboard (which I can replace when I need to upgrade).

Basically, once I get the motherboard and a few other things together (I just bought a low-profile HP power supply for $10), and get the dimensions set, and figure out where/how to mount the keyboard (I'm going to get a PS/2 USB keyboard, such as what you use and either wire it directly into the USB controller, or come up with some kind of internal USB plug thingy), I'll send it to you to steampunkify the keys.

It's definitely doable. I made something similar a long time ago (back before I had a website and was documenting anything, so sorry, no pics) where I built a PC into an old DeWalt cordless drill case that I dumpster-dived from a plastics-forming factory near my house. I eventually ditched the design because there was NO way I could afford an LCD screen to put inside it (they were still pretty new tech) and I refused to compromise on my design and eliminate the LCD. Everything actually fit in there surprisingly well with standard-sized components. With all of these tiny components they have now, you could definitely stuff them all inside something at least "briefcase-sized". If you wanted to make it REALLY small you could use a mini power supply from mini-PC.com, and use all laptop (mini)IDE components (HDD, DVD-ROM) with adaptors to feed the cables into a standard mobo (with on-board integrated video, nic, usbs, etc). You could get that thing down to damn-near "lunchbox-sized" if you went that route.
Keep me posted and I'll help you out when you get to that point.
For preliminary measurements, on the mech-switch keyboards I use, once you strip all of the extraneous plastic off of them, you get a nice, enclosed single chunk of electronics and switches that measures 17" x 5" and would drop right into your mod.

-~D~-

[Triton]

for small portable computers advantech industrial boards are the way to go! 4" by 5.75" are the dimensions of many of them and they can be had for under 200$ on ebay, also some of the mini itx boards can be had fairly cheap as well with dimensions of 6" by 6" i think

[Blinding_Gold_Goggles]

for small portable computers advantech industrial boards are the way to go! 4" by 5.75" are the dimensions of many of them and they can be had for under 200$ on ebay, also some of the mini itx boards can be had fairly cheap as well with dimensions of 6" by 6" i think

Indeed.  Mini-ITX boards also come in all sorts of flavors.  I'd start looking at those here:

http://www.mini-itx.com/

Industrial SBCs (single board computers) are cheap if you don't need horsepower but don't expect one to be cheap and run current software or even be upgradeable.

[Hikaro Takayama]

It's definitely doable. I made something similar a long time ago (back before I had a website and was documenting anything, so sorry, no pics) where I built a PC into an old DeWalt cordless drill case that I dumpster-dived from a plastics-forming factory near my house. I eventually ditched the design because there was NO way I could afford an LCD screen to put inside it (they were still pretty new tech) and I refused to compromise on my design and eliminate the LCD. Everything actually fit in there surprisingly well with standard-sized components. With all of these tiny components they have now, you could definitely stuff them all inside something at least "briefcase-sized". If you wanted to make it REALLY small you could use a mini power supply from mini-PC.com, and use all laptop (mini)IDE components (HDD, DVD-ROM) with adaptors to feed the cables into a standard mobo (with on-board integrated video, nic, usbs, etc). You could get that thing down to damn-near "lunchbox-sized" if you went that route.
Keep me posted and I'll help you out when you get to that point.
For preliminary measurements, on the mech-switch keyboards I use, once you strip all of the extraneous plastic off of them, you get a nice, enclosed single chunk of electronics and switches that measures 17" x 5" and would drop right into your mod.

-~D~-

Yeah, I was planning on getting the Mini IDE to IDE adaptors (saw them on this one site that also had IDE to CF adaptors).  As for the Video Card, etc.... I was planning on either (a) just putting it straight in if it is small enough to fit the dimensions (my Power supply is 3" tall), or (b) making a sort of right angle adaptor somehow that'll allow me to mount my Geforce 4 (or whatever I decide to use) horizontally (like in the old Packard Bell machines).  Ditto with the few other cards I'll be adding (USB 2.0, if it doesn't already have one, and at least 1 PCMICA slot, since I've also found an AT-PCMICA adapter as well).... I appreciate your offer of help, and will be willing to take you up on it.  Its too bad you couldn't press standard-type keys out of brass or something, since I'm not exactly hot on the whole round key thing, but who knows.....

Needless to say that thiss will be fully steampunk... I'm going to be using Stainless steel or Nickel Diamond plate (like what they make toolboxes for trucks out of), with Brass angle irons along the seams to hold them together (and cover up any slight uneveness in my cutting of the steel), and brass or Brass plated steel steamer trunk style corner pieces on the lid and the bottom...

Triton and Blinding_Gold_Goggles: I'm not going to go with the mini-itx board, due to the fact that they are (a) realatively expensive, and (b) hard to find, and (c) I'm not sure if they even MAKE them anymore (outside of Japan, anyways)... I want something that I can upgrade with STANDARD parts (well, mostly standard desktop parts and some easily obtainable Notebook parts, such as Hard Drives)

[Hydrargyrum]

Triton and Blinding_Gold_Goggles: I'm not going to go with the mini-itx board, due to the fact that they are (a) relatively expensive, and (b) hard to find, and (c) I'm not sure if they even MAKE them anymore (outside of Japan, anyways)... I want something that I can upgrade with STANDARD parts (well, mostly standard desktop parts and some easily obtainable Notebook parts, such as Hard Drives)

The site they listed earlier has a large list of boards for sale, though yes, they are somewhat more expensive than some regular ATX boards. They use standard devices such as normal PATA/SATA hard drives, DDR2 RAM, and have PCI (Though not PCI-E) expansion slots. The main issue would be a low number of the above, but it has just as much or more upgradability than many laptops, which have no ports for expansion, and most items in them are either proprietary or hardwired into the system.

[Hikaro Takayama]

The site they listed earlier has a large list of boards for sale, though yes, they are somewhat more expensive than some regular ATX boards. They use standard devices such as normal PATA/SATA hard drives, DDR2 RAM, and have PCI (Though not PCI-E) expansion slots. The main issue would be a low number of the above, but it has just as much or more upgradability than many laptops, which have no ports for expansion, and most items in them are either proprietary or hardwired into the system.

True, but since I'm going to be installing a 15-inch LCD monitor into the lid, and a standard keyboard (stripped down) into the bottom, I should have plenty of space for a regular motherboard, which I can get cheap from local computer shops (one of my aims is to support small, local buisnesses as much as possible as part of my way of thumbing my nose at the big mega-corporations that are trying to take over the world with their Chinese slave-labor-in-all-but name-only-produced products).

Still, I need to shop around for motherboards, but if I can't get at least a Pentium 4 for cheaper than what I saw for the Mini-atx boards they have for sale at the DamnSmall Linux project website, then I'll just order one from them (since I also believe that an efficient 50 MB OS with a GUI that's FREE is a cause worth supporting). 

Edit:  I checked out that Mini-ITX website, and found a link about one of my company's old products , the case of which was used to build a Mini-ITX server: http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/Hirschmann/

I never expected to see something from work show up on any site linked back here 

Anyways, to get back on topic, I've managed to track down the three Steampunky Final Fantasy fonts (well, two are TT fonts and one is a set of scanned images that can be made into fonts).  When I get my keyboard customized, I'd like either the Al Bhed or the Ivalice font..... I'll post images tomorrow.

[Hydrargyrum]

Somehow the retrieval of steampunk-y fonts hadn't occurred to me for the keys... I suppose I was thinking Times New Roman was enough, though now that I put thought into it, Times is extremely bland... I'll have to do some browsing.

[Sir Theodore Catchpole]

they are very nice looking

[Datamancer]

By all means, folks. Keep the font suggestions coming. I'm always looking for good fonts to use on the keyboards and other things.


Hikaro, I'm going to be experimenting with a few different key shapes in the future. There are "tombstone" keys in the same metal-ring-glass-insert kind of style that I could use but I also plan on trying to find a solid method of mounting square keys to the original keyboard stalks. I had an email request recently from someone wondering if I could use the keys from a Hermes 3000 which got me thinking about it.

[kerry63]

Perhaps,

CU-29 (element name and atomic number) or some derivative for the copper one.

k

[Datamancer]

Perhaps,

CU-29 (element name and atomic number) or some derivative for the copper one.

k

I like that. Maybe as a model number or something... "The Something CU-29."
Thanks!

[Datamancer]

Have you looked into water jet cutting at all for the cases?  I'm curious too if you've priced the etching of the letters.  I am still trying to get price info for my own laser/water jet projects and the smaller, more defined you go, the more expensive.  I've been told that the only way to "etch" is with a CNC lathe, and the smaller the cutting head, the more costly.

Not just yet. I figured I'd wait until got to Cali where there are tons of water-jets/cnc billet cutters/laser cutters because of the huge car scene and all of the fab shops.
It might not be very expensive considering I can do all of my own design work (and more-or-less already have templates made), and just feed the vectors into their software and have it turn them into cut paths. Once you eliminate the costly design work, you're just paying for straight machine time.

-~D~-