Category: Old

2003 to 2010

2005 Keyboards CK1,2 ⌨️
⏱️Overview

This is an older topic with less information, just for history purpose. If you’re interested see my newer keyboards or the newest ones, with more explanation, own controller and display.

These were my first modifications for keyboards.

They were both done on a Logitech Ultra X Flat, a well done, solid keyboard. Surprisingly different for same model made after 1 year.

✍️Motivation

Originally most keyboards have about 50 gram force needed to press keys, and probably 4 mm distance. After first step of cutting rubber domes the distance is about 1-2mm, the force was about 22 gram for CK1 (bottom) and 33g for CK2 (top). This can also be varied per key.

📊Features

The second step was removing the middle part with arrows. Which I find unnecessary and worse (less keys) than the same from numpad. In CK1 I’ve bent the foil and hid it under. It was risky, but the foil survived. The CK2 was different, it was made from two identical keyboards, thus no need to bend, only cut the metal and foil. That too was risky since the foil could have connections around the cut off part. It was only for numpad, the bigger part had whole foil under.

Years later I modified CK2 further and bent the foil to create CK4 keyboard. And that’s 11 years already, so this would answer any doubts for longevity of such modifications. The number of times I disassembled it, changed something, and put it together is also quite high.

The third step was adding extra keys. Using my oldest program for showing pressed keys and their codes, I figured out that there are more possible keys in keyboard matrix, that are just not connected. So I added them with wires and glued on keyboards. First as regular switches with metal domes, small and hard to press. Later using rubber switches, lighter to press. But turned out to be an even bigger fail since they wear out and stop connecting. They have some resistance too (like maybe 300 ohm) in addition to the resistance of foil traces (maybe 150 ohm). So finally I ended with the smallest metal dome switch I found, with force 0.5 N (50gf). It feels different than other keys but otherwise is good.

📷Galleries

The old galleries from my keyboards:

CK2 final (2008)
CK1 and 2 making of (2005 and 2006)
17/04/2005
2005-20 Keys light press mod
⏱️Overview

This is a guide about my modification of reducing rubberdomes in keboards to acheive a light press effect. After this procedure keyboards can have much less actuation force (needed to press keys). It is separated from my other projects which describe my keyboard controllers.

✍️Motivation

My motive is pretty straightforward: I want my keyboards to require as little effort to type as possible. And I don’t want any injuries from using my keyboards. These come from fatigue, which comes from more effort to press keys. I found once a pdf writing about this in detail, but don’t have a link.
Fatigue also comes from lots of repeated pressing, but this is another thing. I can’t change it (much) if my hobby or work needs it. I do have helpers on display in my controllers (K.C. and K.C.4) showing: total/daily key press count, rate of key presses per minute, a graph with rate over time, and time I’m active typing without a break.
So back in 2005 I saw those rubberdomes and thought: “how about I reduce them”. Then there was immediately this problem that they need to be glued back. Well after I did all that, it actually took like 2 weeks to get used to my modified keyboard. I wasn’t sure if this mod will last, but it did. After a while of using, it was easy to understand, that keyboards are really badly and cheaply made and I think it’s just a history thing (just like the thing about this idiotic Qwerty layout), surely not a sum of only intelligent decisions.
I’m glad I did this process, and just before writing over 120 pages of my master thesis on this modded keyboard, which now was nice to use and wasn’t meant to injure me. I did a second one for work at some point.
I remember once on a keyboard back there was a warning about possible injuries, seemed unreal to me back then, yet it is true, I even once made such mod for a person, who paid and even later thanked me numerous times, because he is suffering from that injury and such keyboard makes less pain to use.

ℹ️Information

Originally most keyboards need about 50 gram force to press keys, and probably 4 mm distance. After cutting, the distance is about 1-2mm, the force gets lower (and depends more on keyboard foil), e.g. 9 to 18 gram for CK5 (but 23 g for CK3, 33 g for CK4 etc). This can also be varied per key (more detail can be seen on pictures (galleries below), but ultimately the lowest 9 g value comes from keyboard’s foil thickness (and those 23 and 33 g values are higher because the foil was thicker in those keyboards).

🛠️Modifications

The first operation I do, is cutting off most of all rubber domes. I aim at minimized key pressing (actuation) force and also travel distance.
This makes the keys much softer to press. If pressing needs less effort then it will cause less fatigue. It is simply more pleasant and comfortable. Also healthier, since the risk of keyboard injuries decreases.

The second is glueing them back to keys. It’s required because they are glued to foil (mostly always).

Everytime (except once in 2020) after doing the process, I am using the keyboard myself constantly. Thus if done right, there is no risk of any key failure.

📜History

I already did this first on my two oldest keyboards in 2005 and 2006.
Then in 2015 for this keyboard (originally A4 Tech KV-300H) named CK5, and again later in 2020 (another same keyboard) making the process the video.
Next for CK3 and CK4 in 2016, which later became CK6 and CK7, and CK6 became CK9 with KC4 in 2020.

▶️Videos

Video guide showing the process here, for just a few keys.
Another video of testing force with weights after.

🪛Steps, guide

Steps needed, shown in video:
- Getting keys off from keyboard, using a tiny flat screwdriver.
  Pushing gently (but firmly) and leveraging tiny screwdriver in 1 corner, to pop the key’s scissor lift (white) out of its “half socket” from keyboard (not from top of key).
- Getting rubberdomes off from foil, using just fingers, pinching with force.
  In laptop keyboards, the rubberdomes are separate and small.
  But on old very cheap keyboards there is 1 big rubber piece with them all. I didn’t try modding them.
- Cutting off rubberdomes, using small side cutters.
  The more you cut off the less force and travel. But caution for bigger keys, especially Spacebar, they need a bit more rubber width left (or in 2 places) for same force, becuase they are heavier.
  I did reduce modifiers (Shift, Ctrl, Alf) keys and arrows completely, without that short supporting width, they’re just resting on keyboard foil, this gives only 9 g force. Value depends on foil, and not at all on rubber because there is none left.
  For most keys usually few mm width and height (3-5 mm or so) is holding it above foil.
- Removing scissor plastic (white) from key (black), using a tiny flat screwdriver.
- Optionally (if present) scraping that (stupid) star * pattern made on keys, to be flat. Can be scratched with cutters or screwdriver, may be even better so for glue.
- Glueing (reduced rubberdomes) back to keys, using any superglue (cyanoacrylate based).
  Holding with tweezers or smallest pliers for a few seconds.
- Waiting (best about 1 minute) until glue gets solid and ready.
  On video I’m actually making this too fast. Depends also on how good or fresh (after opening) the glue is.
- Lastly mounting keys back, rather easy after knowing how the scissor keys work
- Repeating for each key. Unfortunately it is really boring and tedious. Took me about 2 days for 1 keyboard.
📷Galleries

Light press mod 9-18g (CK5, from 2015)
12/03/2005

2003-04 Composed Music 🎵

⏱️Overview

I’ve assembled my best music tracks from 2002-2004 into an album on jamendo, called Eye of the Pharaoh.

The style is quite original if I may say so, but generally it is somewhere in the area of Symphonic Metal with lots of solos and slightly oriental (Egypt) influences.

🔍Detail

Played on electric guitar and the rest composed in my own tracker SXIV. Solo is using a mix of violins and other fitting instruments from a keyboard. Background keyboards usually have brass like tubas, trumpets etc.

It must be said that I didn’t play the keyboard by hand. I once recorded samples from it and then always used my tracker with them. So actually used PC keyboard to practice and input notes.

🎵Tracks

The tracks from oldest to newest are:

1	A deep ride inside	4:54	quite heavy at start, later fast and lively, had bass guitar
2	The Princess of Black Egypt	11:59	2nd best, slow but very varying song, with feel
3	Intro	2:16	1st best, short but quite oriental
4	When Cyan Sun Glances	7:25	quite fast and basically a never ending solo
5	Through the Eye of black sand	2:46	very slow, keyboard only, didn’t record guitar

📜History

I was playing electric guitar from 2001 to 2005, almost only backgrounds, with my friend who played solos. We made many awesome tracks together. Mainly 2 guitars with constant solo and sometimes percussion from my tracker. Of course no vocal. Those were some pretty good times, we got few hours of recorded fun to remember.

At the times (of technical high school) I was also into electronics and analog guitar effects. I started with electronics about age 16. Later it proved very useful for us as we were using my stuff a lot when playing. Also learned a lot about sound effects this way and triggered the development of my tracker SXIV.

30/08/2004

2003-04 Distortion X 🎸
⏱️Overview

“Distortion X – The Great” was my final version of an analog guitar effect from 2004, and looked similar in 2003 already.

📊Features

It had a Distortion, Reverb / Echo and 2 Equalizers (9 and 18 bands).

The Distortion featured such regulations:
- Switch for Clean / Distorted mode, pink LED
- Clean Volume
- Drive (i.e. Distortion, Amplification)
- Low Pass (filter frequency)
- High Pass (filter frequency)
- Balance (mix between the two filters)
Reverb was made on the longer analog line MN3008.

It had only 3 potentiometers (knobs):
- Delay (i.e. Length: short would do Reverb and long did Echo, at reduced bandwidth)
- Feedback (how much from output was summed back to input)
- Volume (output mix between Reverb and clean)
- Switch to turn on/off, white LED
Equalizers were used only one at once. By default the Narrow one (9 bands) was for Clean mode and Wide (18 bands) was for Distorted, thus allowing more customization. Narrow had violet LED on left, and Wide had orange, on right.

It also had 2 switched, one would exchange Narrow with Wide (so the opposite to default, Narrow for Distorted). And other switch was to turn equalization off, mainly just to check the difference, most left, red-orange LED.

For a moment it had also the short Reverb / Flanger board with knobs, visible on pictures. But I didn’t use it. Power supply for it was different (not symmetrical) and that added more noise.

📜History

I was developing analog effects for electric guitar since we started playing in 2001. There were several versions of it. The 1st was just a distortion. The 5th had one 9 band equalizer and I think also a Reverb / Flanger on short delay line MN3007. The 8th was similar but had 18 band equalizer and long Reverb / Echo.

Since I was playing backgrounds and my friend solos, we needed 2 effects. The 5th and 8th were separate and best combination. I was naming them using Roman numerals, so this one, X was the 10th and last version.

⏳Conclusions

In 2004 I bought a digital effect, Digitech RP 200A, and first realized the huge difference between analog and digital effects. It was very feature rich and the sound quality was much better (probably like 20dB more, I guess my analog could be about 70dB SNR at best). Digital also had many more effects like Chorus, Detune, realistic Reverb, high quality Echo, Cabinet models etc, and was stereo. But that model was very poor in regulations, there was only one parameter for each effect that could be changed (had only 3 nobs).

So even though it was higher quality and had more features (but less regulations), I still used my Distortion for some time. Also since the digital sound and because we started college we stopped playing together so often and then at all. Also we had the digital one so I could just put all equalizers and reverbs in one. Then I finished it with a better case (from an Audio CD Recorder, which internals I moved to a worse case ?).

➡️End

I sold it recently. For a ridiculous price, maybe just summing up to what parts had cost me. But there was a lot of time dedicated to developing it and making PCBs. But still, I’m glad I freed up cabinet space and didn’t have to throw it out (too sentimental to do that). Also got some money for it and somebody could find it useful or maybe even educational. I sold my guitars that year too. They were just gathering dust for too many years.

📷Gallery

Also with pictures of inside and schematics.
10/08/2004
2004 Frogs III 🐸
⏱️Overview

This is the 3rd and last version of my Frogs game for 2 players. Programmed in Delphi.
Done on college, subject was Programming (I think). I’m glad I could use my existing experience to pass it easier and more creatively.
Previous 2 versions were in DOS and Turbo Pascal, shown here. It had exactly the same game style.

Gameplay

Player controls a frog, jumps to reach and catch flies with tongue. After game time, the player who had more flies wins (or there is a tie).
It could be a slow and tricky game if flies were appearing rarely, or a fast game with lots of flies. Still, splashing flies made them fall down. Catching a falling fly would make the frog loose 3 and vomit. This was pretty hilarious.

The screenshot is composed of few, but this is shown.

📊Features

Sadly, it had no sounds at all. A huge flaw compared to earlier Frogs II, which was even more hilarious with funny sounds.
It featured:
- Nice looking menu (my own logo art)
- Many options, for:
  - Flies – max count, increase over time, width and height of appearance, resistance to water)
  - Frogs – jump height, resistance to water (made jumping harder), tongue speed and idle time
  - Game – game, time, showing a counter (of flies, particles, etc.)
- Lots of particles for:
  - Water splashes (like 500 was already enough for big ones)
  - Vomit (this even had extra keys to test)
- Waving grass blades
- Water changing direction and look, depending on direction of frogs landing in it (e.g. always dropping from 1 side made water more fuzzy and moving faster).
  Strangely this doesn’t work at all now. But anyway I’m surprised this game still starts and works 15 years later.
25/04/2004
2003 Shooter 🚀

⏱️Overview

This is my first game in C++. Done as a project on college, subject was C++ Programming, I think.
It was a top down space shooter and had just 1 level. Without game end, just no more enemies.

🔍Implementation

It was using purely Direct3D9 calls for rendering and WinAPI for Window.
I drew the textures myself, not many.

Player ship had 4 weapons, auto gained with game progress: main 2 dots, small lasers, main thick lasers and side dots.
There were 6 enemy types and the layout with their movement paths was already quite nice. Enemy weapons were actually just 1 type of orange dot. One ship fired a dot, auto directed at player. Others fired 2 to 4 dots in certain directions.

➡️Comments

I’m glad I managed to create a game (2nd actually) at college, where the major was basically Industrial Software for Metallurgy. It was still my main hobby back then. Since I had experience in games I wanted more to use it and develop. Was also quicker, easier and more fun to make a project for that subject.
Code looked cryptic, I was still coding in my own way of not doing a single space if not required, and using 1 letter abbreviations for keywords and types.

21/12/2003
2002-03 Tracker SXIV 🎶
⏱️Overview

This is the music tracker program I wrote around 2002-2003, in Delphi 5.

It was 800×600 on a 17″ CRT back then, so already 4 screens fit now.

✍️Motivation

I was having fun with Scream Tracker on DOS before, so it felt best for creating music and using only keyboard for that.

I called my program simply the same way, but started with version 6 and increased until 14. Then shorted it to just S and used Roman numerals XIV.

This was such an awesome program to use and look at. Mainly because keyboard shortcuts were customized to what I wanted, and also I implemented many quite useful operations in it, e.g. in patterns editor.

🔍Implementation

It was using GLScene package for Delphi and my colored bitmap fonts from another program (it was the predecessor to Crystal Font), hence so varying and colorful texts everywhere.

By default I also used colored image backgrounds, since pages felt really empty. It even had animated text transitions for title pages text and a toggleable fire animation in corner 🔥.

But it was complete garbage at the way sound creation was done. It simply relied on a system timer event and triggered sound playing from DirectSound buffers. I know, nobody does that for music. I didn’t know any other way to code this then.

Timer was more or less stable, but I had to render very little while playing, mostly empty screen and 1 bottom line of info.

🎵Music

I made about 5 songs with it, more here. Also used it for percussion patterns when we were both playing electric guitars.

Later I was checking out Renoise, but eventually my interest faded away from creating music.

📷Gallery
07/10/2003