A Binary Keyboard That Types ASCII Values

You likely take it for granted that when you type on a keyboard, you’re inputting letters, numbers, and symbols, and that you couldn’t type up a paper or write a program without the 100-or-so keys that reside on it.

Then again, letters, numbers and symbols can be represented numerically via their ASCII (or American Standard Code for Information Interchange) values. For that matter, since you’re using a computer, everything really boils down binary values.

Taking that idea and running with it, hacker Chris Johnston came up with a keyboard with only two keys. In his setup, an Arduino Pro Micro clone takes binary input from these keys, displaying “1s” and “0s” on an OLED display as they are typed.

Once the code for a certain letter has been input, the Arduino sends the equivalent character to the computer like any normal keyboard!

You can find more all the necessary code, schematics, and other details on Johnston’s GitHub page here.

[h/t r/mechanicalkeyboards]