from Hacker News

Rotary dialer as USB keyboard

by eniac111 on 1/12/23, 8:57 AM with 20 comments

  • by Gravityloss on 1/13/23, 10:24 AM

    The rotary dialer was designed the way it was not from human input point of view but to mechanically generate the different number of pulses for each number, necessary for dialing. Phones thankfully moved on with the arrival of electronics which allowed a more human friendly interface.

    But we still use keyboards with the same form factor that was dictated by mechanical typewriter constraints. I'm not talking about QWERTY but the whole device. Think about your unnatural posture when writing both hands on a keyboard. We could do a lot better but for some reason things like split keyboards haven't caught on. Path dependency is one tremendous force.

  • by eniac111 on 1/12/23, 8:57 AM

  • by aussieshibe on 1/13/23, 5:54 AM

    This reminds me of this project replacing the tenkeys with a rotary dial on a mechanical keyboard:

    https://squidgeefish.com/projects/rotary-keyboard/

  • by jsjohnst on 1/13/23, 1:26 PM

    Author goes to plug in USB cable to monitor. Seemingly has to spin the cable three times. Yep, definitely legit!

    USB-C may have its own category of problems, but at least directional superposition isn’t one of them.

  • by nzoschke on 1/13/23, 1:06 PM

    Very cool.

    I have a weird obsession with number input devices for my DIY jukebox.

    I could totally see using this to enter the 4 digits to pick a song.

    I’ve long thought about touch tone phone keypads too. There’s a frankenstein jukebox at Zam Zam in San Francisco that uses one.

    https://www.getjukelab.com/docs/numpads

  • by snshn on 1/13/23, 12:55 PM

    There're similar input devices out there, e.g. https://askergoworks.com/products/blue-orb-inc-orbitouch-key...

  • by iraldir on 1/13/23, 11:32 AM

    I could see that being a feature in a escape room, connected on an old timey minitel like screen

  • by eniac111 on 1/12/23, 6:58 PM

    Edit: I've added build info :)

  • by sparrish on 1/13/23, 4:34 AM

    That's pretty cool and very retro.

    Get a good build quality and I bet you could sell them as desktop toys.

  • by harvie on 1/13/23, 8:47 AM

  • by xbruteforce on 1/13/23, 7:40 AM

    Nice!