Since I have all of these new folks stopping by to look at the typewriter mod, maybe one of you will have an idea of how to do the other nifty thing I want. I want a USB carriage return. You know? I mean, how perfect would that be to be able to plug that in for those occasions when I need a hard return.
On the whole, I must say that having this at Readercon is very strange. I had it out today because I needed to print out the story for my reading, and people stopped with a double-take, pointing, because they had seen it on BoingBoing. (For my regular readers, be patient, the surge in traffic will die down shortly.)
Hi Mary
For your USB carriage return, you need something light and chrome-looking, that can be bent. How about finding one of those long, pseudo chrome-plated throwaway forks or spoons and hacking the spooned end off? Use some low heat to bend it into the shape of a carriage return arm, then glue it onto the USB stick and make it look good. Or, use a USB stick with a removable outer shell and attach the handle to that instead.
The PNY Attache 1Gig sticks have a removable shell. http://reviews.cnet.com/sc/31157133-2-200-0.gif
Ah, but see, I can just salvage a carriage return off a parts machine. The thing I don’t know how to do is how to make it actually work. I’d want it to actually be able to enter a line break.
Ah, that’s what you’re after. Then google ‘usb brando’. They make novelty usb items (including the infamous usb-powered pole dancer, i believe) which include mechanical actuators. Once you rewire one of those it is only a matter of finding someone who can write some code to interpret the signal as a carriage return. You might also want to add a bell sound. 🙂 C++ programmers tend to be the best at working with the hardware/software interface.
Since brando also makes novelty usb items to order, you might get them o help out.
>Ah, but see, I can just salvage a carriage return off a parts machine.
Thanks, Mike. I’ll check into that.
Or you can disasemble a cheap usb keyboard. ($10) The mini keyboards have a small circuit board with a chip apoxied on. You should be able to trace out the wires on the board to determine the X and Y scan lines of the return key. Run these 2 wires to a contact switch and you’re set. You can even cut the circuit board down to a much smaller area if you’re good a soldering to small traces.
I’m doing something like this to build a keyboard out of a vintage typewriter. only in my case I’m having to trace and wire up 81 keys!
Hey! Good luck with that. Make sure you come back and show me pictures. This is exactly what I wanted to do, but decided that I didn’t have the skills.