Hardware Projects

I'm a computer programmer with a soldering iron: The most dangerous beast.

Terrible Keyboards

I like to take apart kid's toys which have keyboards on them and turn them into Real USB Keyboards.

Successfully Keyboardized

• Children Intelligent Learning Machine
• Fisher-Price Linkimals A to Z Otter
• LeapFrog My Own Leaptop
• LeapFrog LeapBuilders Construction Blocks
• Oregon Scientific Barbie Laptop, and follow up thread
• VTech Alphabert and Sprocket
• VTech Pull & Learn Alligator. See also videos in the follow up thread
• VTech Princess Fantasy Notebook. Videos in the followup thread
• VTech Thomas & Friends Learn & Explore Laptop Teardown. See also the videos in the follow up thread.

Not Yet Keyboardized

• CIDE toys Kidz Delight
• LeapFrog Alphabet Pal
• LeapFrog AlphaPup
• LeapFrog ClickStart My First Computer
• Radio Shack Computer Typing Instructor
• VTech Alphabet Town
• VTech Little Apps Tablet. See also thread 2, with the second keyboard
• VTech Nitro Web notebook™
• VTech Super Color Whiz
• Vtech Tote & Go Laptop Web

Built From Mostly Scratch Bad Keyboards

• Binary Keyboard (7-switch)
• Binary Keyboard (2 button)
• Unary Keyboard (1 button)
• The Furboard
• Rotary Phone Numpad
• Rotary Phone SMS Dialing
• Analog Dial Keyboard
• Random ASCII Keyboard
• The FlopKey Floppy-Disk Keyboard
• Clock Keyboard

Bad Keyboard Layouts

• Vertical QWERTY
• 4-Line QWERTY
• Left-handed QWERTY
• Flipped QWERTY
• Real DVORAK
• Real COLEMAK
• Linotype
• Michael Crichton's Sphere keyboard

Projects

• Floppyizer