keyboard firmware

Peter Munch-Ellingsen explains at NimConf 2021 why he wrote his own keyboard firmware in Nim instead of using QMK or Arduino. He shows that the resulting firmware is very small.

Ronald Minnich of Google explains how UEFI firmware is a large closed attack surface and describes Google's work replacing it with Linux-based boot firmware. It also touches on Intel ME and other security coprocessors.

Ben Vallack walks through designing a custom keyboard PCB from scratch using Ergogen and KiCad, ending with a gerber file ready to order from a PCB fabricator. The example is a split keyboard.

Tom Scott explains how he built his emoji keyboard, which turned out to be a series of bodged-together tools including AutoHotkey and LuaMacros. He tells stories about the value of quick-and-dirty solutions.

Louis Rossmann discusses failing keyboards on newer MacBooks, comparing a Dell keyboard repair with an Apple keyboard repair and explaining why Apple's design is costly and hard to fix.

Ben Vallack compares finger movement on a staggered keyboard with an ortholinear grid keyboard, using an Anne Pro 2 and a ZSA Planck EZ. He argues the stagger forces awkward finger motion.

Tom Scott shows a full-size real-life emoji keyboard built from 14 keyboards and over 1,000 hand-placed stickers, covering all of Unicode 8.

A short video arguing that the iPhone keyboard has gotten worse, showing slow-motion footage of taps registering the wrong letters. It claims the problem is iOS itself rather than user error.

Ben Heck modifies a keyboard with magnets, Hall effect sensors and an Xbox controller so the WASD keys give analog control. He walks through the hardware build.

A review of the Symbolics Space Cadet keyboard, with its Honeywell Hall effect switches, including how it sounds and feels, and a typing demonstration. It is part of a series of vintage keyboard reviews.

Hamish Coleman describes reverse engineering the keyboard controller in a Thinkpad and reflashing it with custom firmware. He covers how Lenovo secures its firmware, and his ongoing work on the protocol between the BIOS and the vendor flash tool.

Ben Eater explains how a USB keyboard communicates, covering the electrical interface, bit and packet encoding, packet contents, and a comparison with PS/2.

Ben Eater explains how the PS/2 keyboard interface works, covering its clocked serial protocol and scancodes. He builds up the hardware-level understanding needed to read keypresses.

An over-the-shoulder view of StarCraft 2 pro player Sound at a WCS qualifier, showing his monitor, keyboard and mouse. It shows his very fast actions per minute in real time.

Bryan Cantrill's Uptime 2017 talk on the engineering challenges of the stateful data path, including storage, firmware and hardware bugs. It uses the 'zebras vs. horses' diagnostic heuristic to explain why rare failures keep appearing.

Matt Adereth's Clojure/conj talk covers the history of keyboards and how he used Clojure generating OpenSCAD to design and build his custom Dactyl ergonomic keyboard, including 3D printing and laser-cut parts.

Khalil Estell's CppCon 2024 talk argues C++ exceptions can reduce binary size in firmware. He digs into how exceptions work and how to shrink their code footprint on embedded platforms.

A 1960 CBS clip in which Leonard Bernstein introduces and conducts Bach's Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D minor with a 28-year-old Glenn Gould at the piano. Gould's performance starts around 5:08.

Cathode Ray Dude covers two bizarre HP 'Quick Start' features: QuickLook, an offline email client built on EFI firmware, and Daystarter, which hijacks the Windows boot process. It includes an explanation of EFI applications and why HP built these things.

Ang Cui and Jonathan Voris present firmware modification attacks on networked printers at 28c3, showing how HP printers can be compromised and used as footholds for malware inside sensitive networks.

A satirical Onion News Network piece announcing the 'MacBook Wheel', a laptop with no keyboard where users type by spinning and clicking a wheel. It parodies Apple product launches and minimalist design.

A short Google Japan promotional video, in Japanese, for Gboard Double-Sided, a keyboard with no back side that comes in a paper-craft version and a full electronics version. It is a playful April-Fools-style product concept.

A short demo of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon's adaptive keyboard row, which changes its keys based on the user's activity.

A short WIRED demo from CES 2013 of Tactus Technology's haptic touchscreen, whose panel raises physical bumps to form a keyboard.

A one-minute NCIS scene in which two characters type on the same keyboard to fight off a hacker. It is widely mocked as absurd TV hacking.

Timothy Roscoe of ETH Zurich delivers the joint USENIX ATC/OSDI 2021 keynote arguing that operating systems must reckon with modern hardware, which is a heterogeneous collection of processors, firmware and coprocessors rather than a simple machine. It shows how much runs below and beside Linux.

Emily Shea explains how repetitive strain injury pushed her to program by voice using speech recognition (Talon), and gives a live coding demo. She argues voice-driven development can be pain-free, efficient and enjoyable.

A short !!Con 2016 talk by blind developer Sina Bahram on how he uses a computer and writes code with a screen reader at about 1,000 words per minute. He plays how common interfaces sound and challenges the audience to go a day using only the keyboard.

A reupload of Joel Spolsky's talk teaching spreadsheet users the Excel features they are probably missing, such as keyboard navigation, named ranges, tables and lookups. The original disappeared and this copy comes from the Wayback Machine.

Bryan Cantrill of Oxide Computer Company gives a Stanford EE380 talk on rethinking the server. He argues that hyperscaler-style rack-scale machines with open firmware, RISC-V and Rust should be available to everyone, not just the giants.

Ben Krasnow of Applied Science explains how electrophoretic e-paper displays work and how he modified the driver firmware and waveform lookup tables of a 4.2-inch panel to reach roughly 3Hz partial refresh. It covers the tweakable constants in the refresh process and touches on colored e-ink microcapsules.

An episode of Plogue's chipresearch series on emulating the Yamaha DX7 from the hardware up. It covers the sub CPU and main CPU, address map investigation, cartridges, firmware analysis and a skeleton MAME driver.

A demo of the 8pen, a gesture-based keyboard replacement for touchscreens that lets users enter text by moving around a circle. It is meant for phones, remotes and game controllers and mimics handwriting.

A 36C3 talk on the AMD Platform Security Processor, an undocumented ARM core inside AMD CPUs that runs before the main processor. The speakers present their reverse engineering of its internals.

An AdaCore webinar in which NVIDIA engineers explain why and how they adopted Ada and SPARK for security-critical firmware. It covers the business case and the engineering experience of the transition.

Craig Heffner's Black Hat 2013 talk on exploiting network surveillance cameras, covering how insecure their firmware is. It shows how easily such devices can be compromised.

A one-minute clip of Rochus Keller performing as a one-man band: slap bass with the left hand, Rhodes and lead guitar with the right, and drums with the feet.

Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell present BadUSB at Black Hat 2014, showing that USB controller firmware can be reprogrammed to impersonate other device types. They demonstrate system compromise and a self-replicating USB threat that current defenses cannot detect.

A scene from Children of Men in which Theo visits Nigel in the Ark of the Arts to get transit papers. It features Nigel's line "I just don't think about it" and a one-handed chorded keyboard.

Matthew Garrett's linux.conf.au 2012 talk covers EFI and UEFI from the Linux point of view: why the PC BIOS was bad, what EFI changes, the issues it brings, and Secure Boot.