21st Century Utility, 19th Century Swagger - DIY USB Typewriter

there are all sorts of keyboards on the market today from elaborate gaming platforms to sleek utilitarian designs but what about a keyboard for the discerning gentleman the kind of keyboard that says my other car is a semi-rigid dirigible well don't pop a monocle but a while back a tech enthusiast by the name of Jack at Silk'n created an open-source project detailing how you can convert one of the several antique typewriters you no doubt have cluttering up your boudoir into a perfectly functional USB keyboard and we're going to show you just how to do it old bean [Music] tunnel bear is the simple VPN app that makes it easy to browse privately and enjoy a more open Internet to Tritonal bear for free check out the link in the video description to start with let's do a brief primer on how a typewriter operates every key press you'll notice there extremely deep results in a mechanical action involving Springs and levers that causes the arm corresponding to the struck letter to make contact with an ink ribbon and stamp the letter onto the page as you type in theory the contact point for each letter is identical and it's the page itself that moves back and forth more on this later so this should be pretty simple then thanks to the enduring QWERTY standard there's a convenient backwards compatibility of sorts so we could just take the existing letter stamps put contacts where they strike and add some kind of digital interface and boom it's off to the races right well no back to the point before about all the arms hitting the same spot every key on the keyboard would hit the same spot typing the same letter over and over so you'd only look like a badass until someone started reading your screenplay over your shoulder in the local Starbucks so the way to get around this while preserving the original aesthetic and as much of the original feel as possible is with this the sensor bar it consists of a series of flexible metal contacts laid out like piano keys across a circuit board that intercept the input directly under the keys themselves so each actuation drops a corresponding bar in this row which strikes a contact and alerts the microcontroller to a key press cool right let's show you how to do it before we can install the sensor bar we need to displace the space bar for access and then remove the crossbar now ideally the way you're supposed to do this is by unscrewing the two stops on the space bar and loosening the screw so the space bar can swing out of your way unfortunately thanks to mr. rust our screws are all stuck fast you can try to solve this by applying a liberal dose of hydrogen peroxide and a few firm taps to let the liquid seep into the threat which worked for one of the screws we needed but even after more taps than fred astaire second best pair of shoes the screws on the space bar stops and the ones holding the crossbar in place remained firmly jammed so naturally we gave up I'm just kidding fortunately we have the skills and tools appropriate for this sort of delicate operation success with unimpeded access our next step is to remove the layer of paint on the bottom of the keys to expose the electrically conductive metal underneath a lot of people would recommend using a coarse grit sandpaper to strip that away but what am i a monkey banging rocks together that would take way too long I'm gonna use a machine now we're supposed to move the crossbar at this point so we can repurpose it into a holder for the sensor bar but with the amount of corrosion and rust on this thing it's not going anywhere time for more improvisation this chunk of metal we procured has three qualities that are crucial to us one it's a flat surface to it's rigid enough to be used as a support and and perhaps most importantly it was within arm's reach in our recycling pile so we sliced a thin strip out of it to hold our sensor board now though we're gonna need some way to prop it up beneath the undercarriage ha glory be these two empty threaded holes on either side of the typewriter frame are exactly where we need them to be and currently woefully underutilized so we liberated these two eye bolts from some large clanking machine near our electrical box I'm about 80% certain they were structure II superfluous and they fit perfectly in these slots so all we need to do then is twist them through to the right depth a wallah super firm with barely any gift like a fashionable whalebone corset now it's crucial at this point to visually check the alignment of the dots on the back of the censor board with each metal bar then once we were sure it was perfectly positioned we've glued the censor board on to our makeshift supports better use a little more just to be sure maybe a touch more I don't want this going anywhere and perfect well put the control panel here on the side where it's close enough to the censor bar for an easy connection and where we can easily reach it and we're almost ready to flip it back over but there are just a few housekeeping items to take care of these eye bulbs extend way past where we need them and the scuttlebutt is they made some disparaging remarks about the Queen so I'm afraid it's off with their heads it'd be a shame if we cut the cord to our control panel though so we're gonna make sure that that's tucked nicely out of the way and move our space bar back in position we also need to attach the control panel directly to the electrically conductive metal of the frame with a grounding wire the best and by best I mean the only one not so thoroughly rusted that we can actually remove it screw for this job looks to be this one in the back now a modern keyboard has keys that you won't find on any typewriter ctrl alt and command being among them you can just press the control box but the cooler way is to use magnetic switches on the four auxiliary puts that it allows so we set ours up on the space bar shift and carriage return which means that when we press ENTER we get the satisfaction of slamming this lever every single time and as any early 20th century typist will tell you that never gets old the wires are a little all over the place at this point but after a quick round of cable management we are pretty much done everything looks as tight and rigid as late-victorian gender norms and the end result is a piece of hardware that is more than just another disposable peripheral but rather an interesting alchemy of antique and modern machinery not to mention a beautiful centerpiece for a desk an elegant keyboard the blue screen of death if you type too fast but it's great if you're interested in a tactile typing experience that even the best mechanical keyboards can't match if you enjoy technology with a unique aesthetic or if you just want to show up all the wannabe hipsters at your next poetry slam we're teaming up with rocket to give away three of their skelter keyboards their membrane keyboards that you can use seamlessly with both your phone and your PC at the same time so you type directly to your phone / tablet and then switch back to your PC with the touch of a button you can utilize rockets swarm app to enhance your gaming experience with a secondary screen / control system using your phone as well you can play games in full screen while watching a stream or a video on your phone you can answer incoming text messages well that's a phone but don't worry too much about that without having to minimize your game or look away for too long and you can even accept phone calls see you now see how I turn that around there with your headset and switch audio between your phone and your PC so enter at the link below for a chance to win so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured usually at Amazon but somewhere else this time because it's not available on Amazon in the video description also linked in the description is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one our community forum which you should totally join now that you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so check out that little button in the top right corner to sort of check out click that little button whatever check out our latest video over on channel super fun [Music]

Channel: Linus Tech Tips

Views: 1,176,754

Rating: 4.8703713 out of 5

Keywords: diy, usb, keyboard, typewriter, mod, modification, typing, typist, mechanical, features, ancient, oldschool, cool, do it yourself

Id: EZMNaT2NjXk

Length: 9min 8sec (548 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 02 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/pomstazlesa]

so, any up on /r/MechMarket soon?

[u/ColHannibal]

Now it just needs a thunderbolt adapter so I can use it with my MacBook.

[u/ripster55]

http://www.usbtypewriter.com/products/easy-conversion-kit#gs.lwzgZGA

[u/Hatefiend]

Blue screen if you type too fast? What?! How? Why? Why was this not shown? To me that's so interesting. How do regular keyboards avoid that problem? Why does windows crash?

[u/awesomeificationist]

I like Linus usually, but he is just such a hack sometimes. Angle grinder, eye bolts, and hot glue. I'm surprised he didn't break out the glitter

[u/fgsfds11234]

you can get one of those for about 100 bucks on ebay... although it hurts me to see something like that cut apart