Having helped grossly over-fund the Atreus Kickstarter earlier this year, a small box arrived pretty much on-time:
I did get the blank keycap set, but have yet to screw up sufficient courage to install them. The caps sit atop the stock Kailh (pronounced, I think, kale) BOX Brown soft tactile switches; they’re clicky, yet not offensively loud.
Removing a dozen screws lets you take it apart, revealing all the electronics on the underside of the PCB:
The central section holds most of the active ingredients:
The Atmel MEGA32U4 microcontroller runs a slightly customized version of QMK:
Of interest is the JTAG header at the front center of the PCB:
I have yet to delve into the code, but I think those signals aren’t involved with the key matrix and one might be available to drive an addressable RGB LED.
For future reference, they’re tucked into the lower left corner of the chip (the mauled format comes from the original PDF):
The alternate functions:
- SCK = PB1
- MOSI = PB2
- MISO = PB3
I don’t need exotic lighting, but indicating which key layer is active would be helpful.
Love the key feel, even though I still haven’t hit the B key more than 25% of the time.
Which one will survive longer (will be available) on a PC mobo, the PS/2 port or VGA connector? Your educated guess, please?
VGA, definitely!
The latest off-lease Dell boxen I’ve bought no longer have PS/2 ports, but there’s still a good old VGA connector next to the Displayport.