Dedicated TI Emulation Keyboard

[bjkrug]

I'm a strong enough touch-typist that this would be overkill for me, but it is still fun to think about and consider my options.

 

Let us assume that a future version of myself would like a dedicated keyboard, just for emulating the TI in Windows. Building a custom mechanical keyboard with custom keycaps is perfectly normal currently, but what would be the most cost-effective way to apply that to a TI-emulation keyboard?

I say "cost-effective" because I only need 22 custom keycaps (4 keys with arrows on the front, 12 keys with special characters on the front, the slash/minus key, and 5 keys with a colored dot - including secondary CTRL and FCTN keys). On a 68-key keyboard, 46 keycaps could be off-the-shelf, but I would want the 22 custom keys to somehow match the fonts of the standard keys. Maybe I would want two sets of off-the-shelf keycaps, in slightly different styles. That way, the windows-only keys like square-bracket/curly-bracket could stand out from the TI-keys. The slash/minus key would be placed next to the period key and not the P key, as that is what is expected by at least MAME. Maybe I would place a tiny question mark on it, in a different color.

[RickyDean]

52 minutes ago, bjkrug said:

I'm a strong enough touch-typist that this would be overkill for me, but it is still fun to think about and consider my options.

 

Let us assume that a future version of myself would like a dedicated keyboard, just for emulating the TI in Windows. Building a custom mechanical keyboard with custom keycaps is perfectly normal currently, but what would be the most cost-effective way to apply that to a TI-emulation keyboard?

I say "cost-effective" because I only need 22 custom keycaps (4 keys with arrows on the front, 12 keys with special characters on the front, the slash/minus key, and 5 keys with a colored dot - including secondary CTRL and FCTN keys). On a 68-key keyboard, 46 keycaps could be off-the-shelf, but I would want the 22 custom keys to somehow match the fonts of the standard keys. Maybe I would want two sets of off-the-shelf keycaps, in slightly different styles. That way, the windows-only keys like square-bracket/curly-bracket could stand out from the TI-keys. The slash/minus key would be placed next to the period key and not the P key, as that is what is expected by at least MAME. Maybe I would place a tiny question mark on it, in a different color.

If you want a TI Keyboard for the PC, here is one way of doing it. https://hexbus.com/ti99geek/Projects/kbti99pc/kbti99pc.html