I just love it when y’all send in your projects, so thanks, [Kai]! But were do I even begin with this one? Okay, so, first of all, you need to know that [Kai Ruhl] built an amazing split keyboard with plenty of keys for even someone like me. Be sure to check it out, because the build log is great reading.

But that wasn’t enough — a mousing solution was in order that didn’t require taking [Kai]’s hands off of the keyboard. And so, over the course of several months, the RollerMouse Keyboard came into being. That’s the creation you see here.

Essentially, this is an ortholinear split with a built-in roller bar mouse, which basically acts like a cylindrical trackball. There’s an outer pipe that slides left/right and rolls up and down, and this sits on a stationary inner rod. The actual mouse bit is from a Logitech M-BJ69 optical number.

[Kai] found it unpleasant to work the roller bar using thumbs, so mousing is done via the palm rests. You may find it somewhat unpolished with all that exposed wiring in the middle. But I don’t. I just worry about dust is all. And like, wires getting ripped out accidentally.

All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy

As I write this, a terrible snowpocalypse is snuggling up to the southern and mid-western states. What a time to watch The Shining and check out the dullboy prototype by [Blind_Heim].

This is [Blind_Heim]’s first project, and I think it looks mighty fine, especially with those slanty thumb keys. They are [Blind_Heim]’s own creation and were inspired by the design of the 1959 Adler Universal featured in The Shining. (Hence the name of the keyboard.) In case it isn’t obvious, they are meant for Kailh choc v1 switches.

Rev 1 shown here has a nice!nano and supports v1 chocs only. Rev 2 will support v1 and v2, and will have a 40 mm Cirque trackpad in that middle space there. Rev 2 will also be open-source and entirely free of copyright, so watch out for that.

Regarding those thumb keys, [Blind_Heim] says that they wanted something ergonomic and monoblock at first, and so the angles were just for looks. But after using it, he realized they were actually quite useful when it comes to determining which key is which without having to look.

The Centerfold: Downtown Busy Town Is the Place to Be

This desk mat ought to bring back some memories. Hopefully good ones, of daycare and snacks and nap time. Here it is for sale if you feel the need to drive little cars around on it.

As for the keyboard, that’s a Norbauer Heavy Grail Ghost of Christmas Future edition, which was of course a limited release that’s long sold out. I’m sure there are other transparent bodies out there, but good luck finding a bug-eyed, duck-faced keycap.

Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad? Send me a picture along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!

Historical Clackers: the Saturn

The Virtual Typewriter Museum calls the 1899 Saturn “one of the most impractical machines ever, built with proverbial precision in Switzerland”.

The operation of this blind writer is pretty interesting, and that’s putting it politely. There are nine U-shaped type bars: four on each side beneath the carriage, and one in the middle that swings up from behind.

Each of these type bars holds eight characters, and these are selected by moving a wire up and down the index card using that giant round selector button the left side. The you would strike one of the nine keys corresponding to the column your character appears in.

Evidently the lower case characters were laid out differently than the upper case, which made it even more difficult to use. But hey, Swiss precision.

There is not a lot of information out there about the Saturn, but the Virtual Typewriter Museum does have more shots of various angles.

Finally, a Keyboard Made of Marble and Ceramic

Apparently there was a Kickstarter near the end of 2025 for this thing. Well, this is the first I’ve heard of it. This here is the Keychron Q16 HE 8K ceramic and marble keyboard, which debuted at CES.

This is a luxury keyboard for sure, right down to the pre-lubed Keychron ultra-fast Lime magnetic switches which features Tunnel Magnetoresistance (TMR) and per-key adjustable actuation.

They say it’s built for gaming, but I don’t know. I think it’s built for whatever you want to use it for. It will be available in April. I sincerely hope that it’s like typing on little coffee cups, and it probably sounds amazingly thocky.

Now Tweak Town doesn’t have a whole lot to say about this keyboard, so I found a review to go with it. [YouallareToxic] has quite a bit to say about the keyboard. I think the biggest takeaway from this review is that this keyboard sounds like no other. [YouallareToxic] likens it to a frog guiro. A what? Check out the video below.

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Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards? Help me out by sending in a link or two. Don’t want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to email me directly.