I made a viable full-US-qwerty-emulating keyboard with this, by making computer-braille the core of the layout. 8-keys are braille chorded. In practice, computer-braille is only 7-dots. So those 7-dots of printable and standard ASCII are just exactly as the 8-dot braille standard. All numbers, letters, punctuation are there. There are braille patterns for everything, including DEL, ESC, TAB, etc. The other 8 are for things chorded: CTRL, ALT, FN, SHIFT, WIN, REPEAT (to deal with the fact that most of it is chorded, where a keycode is released when all keys come up). I abuse the top-half of ASCII (128-255) to put things like arrow keys, page keys, space, enter. The main differences from normal keyboards: You hold it with the USBC cable facing down, and the keys AWAY from you. This is because my goal is to build one of these into an iPhone case, with thumbs on the glass, and 8 fingers wrapped around to the back of the case. I am trying to 3D print a case about 6mm thick for the kb, to give keys with about 2mm travel. It's almost too daunting to go that far, because I am basically trying to print the PCB to hold the 4x4 grid, and use repelling magnets to push the key up; so that the phone in your pocket is flat; with a slightly thick 6mm more of case in your pocket. I am contemplating low-profile keys, but not sure if any cherry-style switches have even designed in the possibility of staying under 8mm or so. And there's another rub in that it may not be straightforward to attach a wired keyboard into an iPhone with USBC to lightning connector. At this point, I am just contemplating something less ambigious; like docking a keybow2040 as-it-is just so that the iPhone doesn't move around when you type on it; and using Choco keys or something. Phone in one pocket, kb in the other. It would kind of suck to also have to add bluetooth. But the main goal is to be able to use an iPhone with a keyboard that you can do real work on without having to stop and sit down, even while walking around. The braille layout has nothing about blindness. I would like it to be usable by blind people that put their phone in Voiceover mode; but the main sin of blind tech is that they make stuff that sighted people don't want; so everything is insanely expensive and probably filtered through insurance companies... making prices obscenely high, and designs too conservative.
I made a viable full-US-qwerty-emulating keyboard with this, by making computer-braille the core of the layout. 8-keys are braille chorded. In practice, computer-braille is only 7-dots. So those 7-dots of printable and standard ASCII are just exactly as the 8-dot braille standard. All numbers, letters, punctuation are there. There are braille patterns for everything, including DEL, ESC, TAB, etc. The other 8 are for things chorded: CTRL, ALT, FN, SHIFT, WIN, REPEAT (to deal with the fact that most of it is chorded, where a keycode is released when all keys come up). I abuse the top-half of ASCII (128-255) to put things like arrow keys, page keys, space, enter.
The main differences from normal keyboards: You hold it with the USBC cable facing down, and the keys AWAY from you. This is because my goal is to build one of these into an iPhone case, with thumbs on the glass, and 8 fingers wrapped around to the back of the case. I am trying to 3D print a case about 6mm thick for the kb, to give keys with about 2mm travel. It's almost too daunting to go that far, because I am basically trying to print the PCB to hold the 4x4 grid, and use repelling magnets to push the key up; so that the phone in your pocket is flat; with a slightly thick 6mm more of case in your pocket.
I am contemplating low-profile keys, but not sure if any cherry-style switches have even designed in the possibility of staying under 8mm or so. And there's another rub in that it may not be straightforward to attach a wired keyboard into an iPhone with USBC to lightning connector.
At this point, I am just contemplating something less ambigious; like docking a keybow2040 as-it-is just so that the iPhone doesn't move around when you type on it; and using Choco keys or something. Phone in one pocket, kb in the other. It would kind of suck to also have to add bluetooth. But the main goal is to be able to use an iPhone with a keyboard that you can do real work on without having to stop and sit down, even while walking around.
The braille layout has nothing about blindness. I would like it to be usable by blind people that put their phone in Voiceover mode; but the main sin of blind tech is that they make stuff that sighted people don't want; so everything is insanely expensive and probably filtered through insurance companies... making prices obscenely high, and designs too conservative.