Can your Keyboard do THIS?? - Make ANY key a MACRO!
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
2,048 words · ~10 min read
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okay so long story short
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this is the hasu usb to usb controller
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converter you can use it to convert
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almost any usb keyboard into a fully
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programmable keyboard using tmk or qmk
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so keyboard nerds yes this thing is every bit as awesome
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as it sounds there are a few limitations but overall it's great so if you want to
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buy or build one of these you should it
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has the terran seal of approval even the keyboard's RGB still works normally as
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for me i use three of them to give myself three additional pure macro
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keyboards no biggie okay that's all folks see you next time when i'll be
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discussing five reasons why you might want to inject an rfid chip into your
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oh sorry did you guys want more of an explanation than that fine stick around
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the marlin screwdriver set from ifixit features five specialty precision
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screwdrivers check it out today at ifixit.com forward slash Linus okay so
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before i explain this thing let me address a question that i get so very
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often taryn do you really need so many
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keyboards can't you just use multiple macro layers on one keyboard
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let me answer your question with a question when you board an airplane do
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you peek inside the cockpit and ask the pilot do you really need so many
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switches and buttons a single keyboard and mouse works fine for microsoft
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flight simulator in both cases the answer is the same having all of your
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controls laid out like this as a single
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layer of dedicated keys with everything
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clearly labeled means that you can work more quickly and more accurately it just
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requires more physical space
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so check this out on the left i'm using dedicated macro keys to view the
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production calendar go to the graphics folder of my current project to switch
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to premiere to add a specific effect and to insert a specific sound on the right
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i'm doing the same thing manually without macro keys
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it uh takes a lot longer
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those seconds really add up can we fast forward this a little bit
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okay okay thank you anyway there are a lot of jobs that use
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specialized hardware just because i had
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to build and program my own cockpit
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doesn't mean it was a waste of time okay so now that we've established why
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someone might want a dedicated macro keyboard let's examine our options and
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whoa oh there's actually quite a few each
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with varying levels of difficulty stability functionality and price
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if only someone could sort through all this stuff and tell us which one is best
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for most people
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so in third place is the Corsair k55 at
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just 50 dollars this is the cheapest of their offerings that still supports
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is easy to use software that allows for every key of a supported keyboard to be
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reprogrammed with icue you can create normal macros or because it supports f13
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to f24 you can use this profile
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and this always running auto hotkey script to call powerful functions with
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parameters like the ones i demonstrated earlier if that sounds pretty cool make
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sure you check out my full instructional video linked in the description below
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before buying a k55 in second place for 60 dollars we've got
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the razer cyanosa chroma
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huh this is my list and this still surprised
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me i've always found razer synapse really annoying to use but one of its
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best features is that it can distinguish between multiple keyboards and although
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it does not support f13 to f24 you can
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directly launch any file from any key
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which includes auto hotkey scripts that is incredibly useful oh and for your
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extra 10 bucks you also get per key RGB lighting honestly the cyanosa chroma is
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such a great deal for a pure macro keyboard that i suspect for most of you
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it'll be more than enough so if you want to go this route the razer profile all
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the autohotkey code and my instructional video can again be found in this video's
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description finally in first place for just 63. from oneupkeyboards.com
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you can get the hasu usb converter or as
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i call it the ultimate macro device this
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is the cheapest and easiest way that i have found to get
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the awesome functionality of tmk or qmk
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onto almost any usb keyboard and that's
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a really big deal because boutique tmk
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and qmk keyboards usually cost over 100
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us dollars altogether that one that Linus and Anthony built was about 220
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bucks for the board plate case switches and keycaps and in fact the very
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cheapest fully assembled tmk keyboard that i was able to find is this one with
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only 68 keys for a hundred dollars so on
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a dollar per macro key basis the keyboard converter is way out ahead of
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that even when you factor in having to get a cheap keyboard to go with it this
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one's like 15 so whatever but who cares
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about tmk and qmk anyway and what on
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earth are they i'm glad you asked they are open source keyboard firmwares that
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are designed for specific hardware like
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the teensy and the prionic pcb and while i had always thought of these
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custom keyboards as a toy for people with too much money and no knowledge of
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auto hotkey as it turns out
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only some of that is true
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seriously though there's a lot of cool stuff in here that will really appeal to
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a certain kind of nerd especially the programmers it's got macros layers and
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RGB support of course but there's also special stuff like space cadet shift
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which uses your shift keys as parentheses if you just tap them unicode
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support which does exactly what you'd expect and tap dance which will call
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different functions from the same key depending upon how many times you tap it
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okay so to get this working first you need a hex file the easiest way to get
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one is to use this online tool but don't bother because it doesn't give you
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access to most of the cool stuff that tmk or qmk is capable of so the better
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way to do this is to set up a Linux environment in Windows install git and
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then download the entire qmk repository
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it's easy then you'll be ready to use a text
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editor to modify the appropriate keymap.c file and maybe config.h launch
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ubuntu cd over to our qmk firmware
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folder and sudo make ourselves a hex file
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now i have a full tutorial video for that too it's linked below but don't
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worry you don't have to do any of that stuff because you can find several hex
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files that i already created for you on
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my github also linked below i recommend
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f24.hex but if you want control shift
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and alt to still work normally use f24
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with modifiers.hex bringing us finally to how
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you actually get this thing working download install and open qmk toolbox
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then just plug in your usb converter by itself with no keyboard attached and hit
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the little button locate your hex file and hit flash to flash it onto the
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firmware then unplug the converter and you're done just remember that every
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time you use the converter you need to plug it in by itself and then plug in
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your keyboard to the back or it won't work and sometimes you might have to
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replug it in after a computer restart which is pretty annoying now if you were
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to go and type into a text document at this stage you'd probably notice that
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it's still sending normal keystrokes except the caps lock doesn't work so
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what gives well i lied earlier you're not quite
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done yet next you'll need to download and install auto hotkey then go to this
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link and download this auto hotkey script by clicking raw and ctrl s to
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save create this exact folder structure
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and save it here delete the stupid.txt
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if it appears now double-click on it to get it running a friendly icon should
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appear in your taskbar now try typing into a text document instead of text you
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should be seeing tooltips no matter which key you press perfect
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after this point it's up to you all you have to do is replace those tool tips
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with literally any script you want you can do anything that auto hotkey can do
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which is a lot oh i probably should have mentioned that you should already know
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how to use auto hotkey before you add a second keyboard
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so if you're new this is a great tutorial to get you started also i
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strongly recommend that you place a shortcut to the script file into your
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startup folder like so but why do it
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this way why not just create the macros inside of
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qmk well because auto hotkey can do a
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thousand times as much stuff so for my purposes i just needed a
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way for my qmk keyboard to call any of
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the functions that i'd already written in auto hotkey and because i couldn't
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figure out how to send ps2 set 1 make
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scan codes or raw usb keyboard hid codes
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i had to go with my usual method of using f24 as an extra modifier key i
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call this wrapping a keystroke
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then i use this single line in auto hotkey to block those wrapped keystrokes
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and replace them with whatever i want but a few keys don't play nicely with
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this method namely caps lock num lock
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shift ctrl alt win apps and pause break
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so before wrapping them i replaced them
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with little-known keys like language
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international and the brazilian comma
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and that's it i'm done for three years i've been
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looking for a cheap but stable way to do all of this and the hasu usb to usb
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keyboard converter checks all the boxes even compatibility is a strong point for
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it it worked with every single keyboard and numpad that i tried and after two
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other converters i was even able to convert a model m into a qmk macro board
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it's not like i'd recommend it for this purpose but still it works with the
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model m now some of you might have noticed that
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asterisk before there is a cheaper way to do this
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open up your keyboard remove the logic board replace it with a teensy rewire
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everything and pray you didn't make a mistake this is less expensive than the
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hasu usb converter but this
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is much easier you know what else is easy
11:57
ting they are the mobile carrier that is focused on customer service and customer
12:01
satisfaction first when you culting you don't speak to a robot you get put
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directly through to a person with ting you pay only for what you use with the
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average bill being only 23 bucks a month per device and if you're stuck in a
12:13
contract and want to switch to ting they'll cover 25 of your cancellation
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fee up to 75 dollars head on over to Linus 2018.ting.com and try out their
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savings calculator they've lowered their mobile data rates and now data is just
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be able to reap the benefits of that change get 25 bucks off your bill or 25
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off a new phone at the ting shop at linus2018.ting.com
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thanks for watching guys like it if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it
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oh you can watch my original video about lua macros but don't bother because this
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video makes it obsolete look at all these second keyboard pictures that
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people have sent me since then anyway buy some merch join the forum and
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