Mechanical Keyboards

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8bitdo made a Commodore 64 variant of their keyboard (shop.8bitdo.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The 8bitdo keyboard has been pretty well-received as a ~$100 wireless keyboard with ABS keycaps. I love the way this C64 color scheme looks.

I have an 8bitdo arcade stick, which looks like it uses the same knob as this keyboard for selecting the wireless mode. I love the way it feels every time I turn it on.

Unfortunately, the keyboard doesn't use QMK -- it uses their own mapping software, which is Windows only. This makes it a non-starter for me, since I rarely use a Windows computer these days. But I just might have to copy that color scheme for my next build.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

No PETSCII?!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Geez, no authenticity from these guys. Hard pass!

Although, if it did support QMK, I bet you could recreate PETSCII. I'm pretty sure QMK lets you bind a key to any unicode character, and I'm assuming all of the PETSCII characters have a unicode equivalent.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Shut. Up. And. Take. My. Money.

Also low key want an external USB raid 1 array housed in one of those old 5" floppy drives than would just be perfect

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Windows only... Does this mean the maps created won't work on Linux boxes? If I create the map on my windows burner, can I then use those maps on other, non-win devices?

Edit: I contacted support. To manage and create new maps, you need windows. However, those maps are then stored on the keyboard, and will work with any system (granted it supports kb entry, of course).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Oh nice, that's good to know. I wonder if it's possible to run their remapping program in a Windows virtual machine. If it works, it still wouldn't be convenient, but you wouldn't have to do it often, either.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I wonder if it’s possible to run their remapping program in a Windows virtual machine.

That should work if you can pass through the entire USB host device to the VM.

I do this with my QK80, which also has Windows only software. I have a KVM virtual machine with Windows, and when I want to configure the QK80, I use the "pass through USB host device" option to give it direct access to the keyboard, and run the software in the VM. It works fine.

If you do this, you temporarily need to connect a second keyboard though because as soon as you pass through the keyboard to the VM it becomes inaccessible for the host OS.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Nice, it's good to know that the software being Windows-only isn't a dealbreaker for keyboards.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Shoot, I'd take that over booting up my burner for this. It would be cool if it worked inside Wine at least. Actually, if we're doing drathers, I'd rather it be native to Linux (even as an appimage or snap).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I wonder how the keycaps will compare to SA Retro.