When word first got out that the Chinese board houses were experimenting with full color silkscreens, many in our community thought it would be a boon for PCB art. Others believed it would be akin to cheating by removing the inherent limitations of the medium. That’s not a debate that will be solved today, but here we have an example of a project that’s not only making practical application of the technology, but one that arguably couldn’t exist in its current form without it: a single-PCB ZX Spectrum emulator developed by [atomic14].
There basics here are, well, they’re pretty basic. You’ve got an ESP32-S3, a TFT display, a micro SD slot, and the handful of passives necessary to tie them all together. What makes this project stand out is the keyboard, which has been integrated directly into the PCB thanks to the fourteen pins on the ESP32-S3 that can be used as touch sensor input channels. There are issues with detecting simultaneous keypresses, but overall it seems to work pretty well.
The keyboard matrix takes 13 of the 14 touch input pins on the ESP32-S3.
But what makes the keyboard really special is that [atomic14] has used the color silkscreen capability to put all the necessary labels directly onto the keys. Technically this could have been done using a traditional single color silkscreen, but it would have been a hell of a lot harder to fit all the necessary information on there while keeping it readable. Plus, you’d miss the little rainbow in the corner.
As good as it looks already, the project is still in the early stages of development. Some components, such as the TFT display, still need to be better integrated into the board. In terms of software, the board is running a ZX Spectrum emulator that [atomic14] developed previously. Judging by the gameplay in the video below, it’s doing a solid job of bringing this classic system (and its games) back to life.
A perk of writing for Hackaday comes in the vast breadth of experience represented by our fellow writers. Through our colleague [Voja Antonić] for example we’ve gained an unparalleled insight into the cutting edge of 8-bit computing in 1980s Yugoslavia, of his Galaksija home computer, and of software being broadcast over [Zoran Modli]’s Ventilator 202 radio show.
Some of our younger readers may never have experienced the joy of loading software from cassette, but in those days it represented a slow alternative to the eye-wateringly expensive floppy drives of the day. The software was represented as a serial bitstream translated into tones and recorded on a standard cassette recorder which was standard consumer electronics back then, and when played back through a speaker it was an ear-splitting sound with something in common with that of a modem handshake from a decade or more later. This could easily be transmitted over a radio station, and a few broadcasters tried experimental technology shows doing just that.
We haven’t heard from any listeners who managed to catch the game and run it on their Spectrum, but we hope that Slovenia’s retrocomputing community were out in force even if Audacity and a n emulator replaced the original hardware. Given that more than one hacker camp in our community has sported radio stations whether legal or not, it would be nice to hear the dulcet tones of 8-bit software on the airwaves again.
ZX2040, as it is known, is a port of [Andre Weissflog’s] existing ZX spectrum emulator. It’s designed for use on the compact embedded Pi Pico platform, using ST77xx TFT displays. To that end, it has a UI optimized for small, low resolution screens and minimal buttons. After all, very few Pi Picos come with a full QWERTY keyboard attached.
Certain hacks are necessary to make it all work; the chip is overclocked to get things humming fast enough. The emulator also runs upscaling or downscaling in realtime as needed. This allows the emulator to run with a variety of displays, almost none of which are a direct match for the ZX Spectrum’s original resolution of 256×192 pixels.
Code is on Github for the curious, including a great run down from [antirez] on everything that makes it tick. If you want to play ZX Spectrum games on a keychain, you’d do well to start here. There are other projects to emulate it on the Pico, too! Video after the break.
[SrBlonde]’s wonderful micro Spectrum project has only the essential inputs, which makes for an interesting-looking keyboard for sure. Inside you’ll find an Orange Pi Zero 2 board loaded with Batocera so [SrBlonde] can play all their favorite childhood games on the 5″ IPS display.
Something else that’s interesting is that the switches are a mix of blues and blacks — clickies and linears. I can’t figure out how they’re distributed based on the numbers in the components list, but I could see using clickies on the alphas and linears everywhere else (or vice versa). At any rate, it’s a great project, and you can grab the STL files from Thingiverse if you’re so inclined.
[Olga] is using this bad boy in an educational setting, so the hot keys are set up as follows: raise/lower hand, mute/un-mute audio, and show/hide the in-meeting chat panel. Simple plus useful equals elegant in my book. This keyboard is built on the ATtiny85, and you can find more details on GitHub including the code.
I’m quite drawn to the interesting design of this one, and I’m not quite sure what it reminds me of. Maybe an upside-down Steam logo. What do you think it looks like?
The Centerfold: Peel Slowly and See
Image by [ItsameDoody] via redditYep, this time we’re going with nature’s energy bar, the KBDFans banana desk mat. Although there’s no edible banana for scale, there is a nice Mammoth75 keyboard, and a really lovely wrist rest that totally blends in with the desk. Believe it or not, those creamy keycaps aren’t from a group buy or anything crazy, they’re just some milky white PBTs from the Bezos Barn.
Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad? Send me a picture along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!
Historical Clackers: the Yetman Transmitting Typewriter
The remarkably heavy Yetman Transmitting Typewriter of 1903 was a bit like a laptop of its time in that you could hook into the telegraph wires and send a message from anywhere. (Well, anywhere with telegraph wires.) And, at the same time, if you wanted, you could produce a hard copy of that message. Or, you could just use the thing as a normal typewriter.
And as far as normal typewriters go, the Yetman isn’t too outstanding aside from its transmitting capabilities. In order to transmit, you simply pressed the lever on the left side of the keyboard. To engage the typebars, you pressed a lever on the right.
You may have noticed the shelf above the keyboard with the strange knob. That is a Morse keyer for sending messages the traditional way. Many sources claimed that the Yetman could also receive transmissions, but that’s not the case.
The red light means an invalid combination was pressed. Image by [Mac Cody] via Hackaday.IOWant to input a little Japanese here and there on your computer? Normally you’d need to switch languages, but why not switch peripherals instead? That’s the idea behind [Mac Cody]’s KanaChord, which generates Unicode macros that render Japanese Kana characters by way of chords — multiple keys at once, like on a piano.
It’s simple, really, as long as you know your table of Kana — that’s how the Hirigana and Katakana elements of the Japanese language are collectively known. There’s also the Kanji, or Chinese characters that round it all out. This version of the KanaChord lacks the Kanji, but the KanaChord Plus Keyboard will have 6,000+ characters.
KanaChord uses color to differentiate between character types, to indicate Kana mode, and even provide error feedback whenever an invalid chord is pressed. Inside you’ll find a Raspberry Pi Pico and an Adafruit NeoKey 5×6 Ortho Snap-Apart keyboard PCB, which simplifies things considerably. Underneath those cool 3D-printed keycaps are thirty Cherry MX switches of unknown color, but which I choose to believe are blue.
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