Hey all! I've been working on a new standard for interconnecting a main keyboard pcb to modules.
What does this mean? If a keyboard pcb supports the interface via a connector and some basic wiring, it will allow you to use the available open source modules.
I designed an open source keyboard called vulpes minora to prove out the concept, along with 4 modules that you can connect to it. Even before officially announcing it, there are have been 3 keyboards that have adopted it, along with 2 modules developed (Great work by zzeneg , Ariamelon, and Ben!)
Here is a link to see the full list of supported keyboards and modules.
The VIK repository is here, and it highlights how it works, how to implement support for it (for both a keyboard and a module), along with working examples.
https://github.com/sadekbaroudi/vik
If more people adopt it, more people will be incentivized to make modules, and we'll all benefit from it. No more days of "hey, check out this cirque trackpad, let's figure out a way to hack it onto existing boards!". Instead, it will be "Hey, we should design a VIK module that supports this new cool thing!". Then people will be able to just swap in the new thing, write some basic firmware, and fold it into their existing keyboards.
Thinking out loud here, but if it starts to get popular, we could even work with the QMK folk to potentially create some standardized way of supporting modules (from a firmware perspective) in a more streamlined way.
Anyway, questions and feedback very much welcome.
If you'd like to discuss it in more depth, please feel free to join the fingerpunch discord server, and chat me up (sadekbaroudi) in the #vik channel.
https://fingerpunch.xyz/discord
There was a recent article published on kbd.news if anyone wants to look through that as well
So glad to see this coming along - the idea of modularizing things will make it so much easier for folks to tinker with existing boards and truly customize them to their own needs.
I hope so! Adoption is key. I'd like to actually offer that if there is an open source board that anyone would like me to add VIK support to, and the maintainer will accept a PR for it, I'll gladly do the work.
Can I take you up on that offer? :) I already have a board with a 12 pin fpc connector for the cirque trackpad but I suppose it mainly needs one level of redirection to support the VIK standard?
Hey @shaysub. I'm so sorry, I don't get lemmy notifications, and didn't see this. If you use discord, join the fingerpunch discord and message me there. My username is sadekbaroudi
https://fingerpunch.xyz/discord
If you don't use discord, let me know how I can reach you directly!