okay so long story short
this is the hasu usb to usb controller
converter you can use it to convert
almost any usb keyboard into a fully
programmable keyboard using tmk or qmk
so keyboard nerds yes this thing is every bit as awesome
as it sounds there are a few limitations but overall it's great so if you want to
buy or build one of these you should it
has the terran seal of approval even the keyboard's RGB still works normally as
for me i use three of them to give myself three additional pure macro
keyboards no biggie okay that's all folks see you next time when i'll be
discussing five reasons why you might want to inject an rfid chip into your
oh sorry did you guys want more of an explanation than that fine stick around
the marlin screwdriver set from ifixit features five specialty precision
screwdrivers check it out today at ifixit.com forward slash Linus okay so
before i explain this thing let me address a question that i get so very
often taryn do you really need so many
keyboards can't you just use multiple macro layers on one keyboard
let me answer your question with a question when you board an airplane do
you peek inside the cockpit and ask the pilot do you really need so many
switches and buttons a single keyboard and mouse works fine for microsoft
flight simulator in both cases the answer is the same having all of your
controls laid out like this as a single
layer of dedicated keys with everything
clearly labeled means that you can work more quickly and more accurately it just
requires more physical space
so check this out on the left i'm using dedicated macro keys to view the
production calendar go to the graphics folder of my current project to switch
to premiere to add a specific effect and to insert a specific sound on the right
i'm doing the same thing manually without macro keys
it uh takes a lot longer
those seconds really add up can we fast forward this a little bit
okay okay thank you anyway there are a lot of jobs that use
specialized hardware just because i had
to build and program my own cockpit
doesn't mean it was a waste of time okay so now that we've established why
someone might want a dedicated macro keyboard let's examine our options and
whoa oh there's actually quite a few each
with varying levels of difficulty stability functionality and price
if only someone could sort through all this stuff and tell us which one is best
for most people
so in third place is the Corsair k55 at
just 50 dollars this is the cheapest of their offerings that still supports
is easy to use software that allows for every key of a supported keyboard to be
reprogrammed with icue you can create normal macros or because it supports f13
to f24 you can use this profile
and this always running auto hotkey script to call powerful functions with
parameters like the ones i demonstrated earlier if that sounds pretty cool make
sure you check out my full instructional video linked in the description below
before buying a k55 in second place for 60 dollars we've got
the razer cyanosa chroma
huh this is my list and this still surprised
me i've always found razer synapse really annoying to use but one of its
best features is that it can distinguish between multiple keyboards and although
it does not support f13 to f24 you can
directly launch any file from any key
which includes auto hotkey scripts that is incredibly useful oh and for your
extra 10 bucks you also get per key RGB lighting honestly the cyanosa chroma is
such a great deal for a pure macro keyboard that i suspect for most of you
it'll be more than enough so if you want to go this route the razer profile all
the autohotkey code and my instructional video can again be found in this video's
description finally in first place for just 63. from oneupkeyboards.com
you can get the hasu usb converter or as
i call it the ultimate macro device this
is the cheapest and easiest way that i have found to get
the awesome functionality of tmk or qmk
onto almost any usb keyboard and that's
a really big deal because boutique tmk
and qmk keyboards usually cost over 100
us dollars altogether that one that Linus and Anthony built was about 220
bucks for the board plate case switches and keycaps and in fact the very
cheapest fully assembled tmk keyboard that i was able to find is this one with
only 68 keys for a hundred dollars so on
a dollar per macro key basis the keyboard converter is way out ahead of
that even when you factor in having to get a cheap keyboard to go with it this
one's like 15 so whatever but who cares
about tmk and qmk anyway and what on
earth are they i'm glad you asked they are open source keyboard firmwares that
are designed for specific hardware like
the teensy and the prionic pcb and while i had always thought of these
custom keyboards as a toy for people with too much money and no knowledge of
auto hotkey as it turns out
only some of that is true
seriously though there's a lot of cool stuff in here that will really appeal to
a certain kind of nerd especially the programmers it's got macros layers and
RGB support of course but there's also special stuff like space cadet shift
which uses your shift keys as parentheses if you just tap them unicode
support which does exactly what you'd expect and tap dance which will call
different functions from the same key depending upon how many times you tap it
okay so to get this working first you need a hex file the easiest way to get
one is to use this online tool but don't bother because it doesn't give you
access to most of the cool stuff that tmk or qmk is capable of so the better
way to do this is to set up a Linux environment in Windows install git and
then download the entire qmk repository
it's easy then you'll be ready to use a text
editor to modify the appropriate keymap.c file and maybe config.h launch
ubuntu cd over to our qmk firmware
folder and sudo make ourselves a hex file
now i have a full tutorial video for that too it's linked below but don't
worry you don't have to do any of that stuff because you can find several hex
files that i already created for you on
my github also linked below i recommend
f24.hex but if you want control shift
and alt to still work normally use f24
with modifiers.hex bringing us finally to how
you actually get this thing working download install and open qmk toolbox
then just plug in your usb converter by itself with no keyboard attached and hit
the little button locate your hex file and hit flash to flash it onto the
firmware then unplug the converter and you're done just remember that every
time you use the converter you need to plug it in by itself and then plug in
your keyboard to the back or it won't work and sometimes you might have to
replug it in after a computer restart which is pretty annoying now if you were
to go and type into a text document at this stage you'd probably notice that
it's still sending normal keystrokes except the caps lock doesn't work so
what gives well i lied earlier you're not quite
done yet next you'll need to download and install auto hotkey then go to this
link and download this auto hotkey script by clicking raw and ctrl s to
save create this exact folder structure
and save it here delete the stupid.txt
if it appears now double-click on it to get it running a friendly icon should
appear in your taskbar now try typing into a text document instead of text you
should be seeing tooltips no matter which key you press perfect
after this point it's up to you all you have to do is replace those tool tips
with literally any script you want you can do anything that auto hotkey can do
which is a lot oh i probably should have mentioned that you should already know
how to use auto hotkey before you add a second keyboard
so if you're new this is a great tutorial to get you started also i
strongly recommend that you place a shortcut to the script file into your
startup folder like so but why do it
this way why not just create the macros inside of
qmk well because auto hotkey can do a
thousand times as much stuff so for my purposes i just needed a
way for my qmk keyboard to call any of
the functions that i'd already written in auto hotkey and because i couldn't
figure out how to send ps2 set 1 make
scan codes or raw usb keyboard hid codes
i had to go with my usual method of using f24 as an extra modifier key i
call this wrapping a keystroke
then i use this single line in auto hotkey to block those wrapped keystrokes
and replace them with whatever i want but a few keys don't play nicely with
this method namely caps lock num lock
shift ctrl alt win apps and pause break
so before wrapping them i replaced them
with little-known keys like language
international and the brazilian comma
and that's it i'm done for three years i've been
looking for a cheap but stable way to do all of this and the hasu usb to usb
keyboard converter checks all the boxes even compatibility is a strong point for
it it worked with every single keyboard and numpad that i tried and after two
other converters i was even able to convert a model m into a qmk macro board
it's not like i'd recommend it for this purpose but still it works with the
model m now some of you might have noticed that
asterisk before there is a cheaper way to do this
open up your keyboard remove the logic board replace it with a teensy rewire
everything and pray you didn't make a mistake this is less expensive than the
hasu usb converter but this
is much easier you know what else is easy
ting they are the mobile carrier that is focused on customer service and customer
satisfaction first when you culting you don't speak to a robot you get put
directly through to a person with ting you pay only for what you use with the
average bill being only 23 bucks a month per device and if you're stuck in a
contract and want to switch to ting they'll cover 25 of your cancellation
fee up to 75 dollars head on over to Linus 2018.ting.com and try out their
savings calculator they've lowered their mobile data rates and now data is just
10 bucks per Gigabyte beyond the second gig and every single ting customer will
be able to reap the benefits of that change get 25 bucks off your bill or 25
off a new phone at the ting shop at linus2018.ting.com
thanks for watching guys like it if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it
oh you can watch my original video about lua macros but don't bother because this
video makes it obsolete look at all these second keyboard pictures that
people have sent me since then anyway buy some merch join the forum and
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