Silicone overlays for emulators, any interest?

[IceRetro]

Hello,

I'm Ray, I love to use both real hardware and emulators for my amstrad 464 and other computer systems.

I'm posting to guage interest in the creation of silicone overlays for emulators, initially for the Raspberry pi 400, and Pi keyboard users but plan to expand to other keyboards if there is a genuine interest.

Here is a link to my post on the Raspberry pi forums, let me know your opinions.

https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=387964

Regards Ray.

[Gryzor]

Damn these look beautiful! I don't use my 400, but if I had a set I might just put it somewhere to look at

[Bryce]

That looks really cool and seriously good quality.

But when I read the thread title (before first coffee), I thought... Why would an emulator need a dust cover.

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

To protect the ones and zeroes, clearly?

[eto]

I do not fully get what they will do. Is that just a cover? Or will it stick to the keys like when you are relabeling a keyboard? How does it change the feel of the keyboard?

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

Are these sticky backed silicone key cut outs you have to carefully put onto each key?

If they are, then you can usually just add the key variants between US/UK/FR/DE/ES/etc into the same sheet and people can pick appropriately.

The benefit of this is the keyboard will still be usable.

Maybe the old Spectrum version can just be a flat silicone sheet to try to replicate the feel

[Brocky]

these look cool....

the whole overlay sits over the keyboard (non-cpc), and allow you to see where the CPC keys are on a non cpc keyboard...nothing to cut out...no sticky bits... it just sits over the top of the keyboard...
eg convert ya PC keyboard to CPC (set the emulator to use CPC layout)..the overlay will show stuff like @ and " in the right places... have the £ key on US based keyboards etc etc

the pi400 one is a great idea... but...theres LOTS of keyboards out there..each will require its overlay designed to fit....

this really does look nice...but some keys outta place!

[Gryzor]

Ummm how did this end up in Hall of Shame? What was its original placement?

[IceRetro]

@Gryzor thanks

Ok to make things clear, this I a complete overlay to show where the emulator maps the keys on a standard pc keyboard, it can be removed when not needed and stored away until you need it again, being silicone printed there is little to no wear and tear making them long lasting and no limitations to the number you own, if you change to another emulator like fuse for the spectrum as an example, just change the cover, no sticky residue left behind yuk.

[IceRetro]

I've made versions for,

C64,

C64 silver label,

C64c, 

C64G,

SX64,

Commodore MAX,

Commodore 16,

Plus 4,

Vic 20,

Vic 20cr,

Commodore 128,

Atari 400,

Atari 800,

Atari 800XL,

Atari 130XE,

BBC B micro,

BBC Master,

Amstrad CPC 464,

Amstrad CPC 664,

Amstrad CPC 6128,

Amstrad CPC 6128+,

ZX Spectrum 16,

ZX Spectrum 48,

ZX Spectrum 48+,

Toshiba HX10 MSX 1,

Plus some just for fun like a white ZX Spectrum 48k.

[Gryzor]

Those are seriously nice. Can one use a 400 as a PC keyboard? 😁

[IceRetro]

@Gryzor 
The Raspberry pi keyboard, almost identical to the pi 400 except scroll lock is power for the 400, it is also a usb 2 hub giving 3 extra usb 2 sockets at the back.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-keyboard-and-hub/

[Gryzor]

@Gryzor
The Raspberry pi keyboard, almost identical to the pi 400 except scroll lock is power for the 400, it is also a usb 2 hub giving 3 extra usb 2 sockets at the back.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-keyboard-and-hub/

Oh I had forgotten they had this, too. I may even have one somewhere (probably easier getting a new one😂)

[IceRetro]

@Brocky

I verified every key in each emulator, captice32 and ZesaruX so far, if it's out of place that's down to the emulator, I just placed it as it shows up when I type in that specific emulator using the standard 104 key us keyboard layout in Raspberry pi OS.

Some keys are not available on the pi keyboard, pause for example and in the case of the pi400 no scroll lock either. If any emulator uses them I will have to find a way to map it to another key if possible and add a how to on the packaging and online or we may just have to do without the key or keys all together.

Not ideal, I hope if they catch on, hope emulator creators will try to map keys more uniformly making one or two key positions per region for each system is far easier for everyone, regardless of the emulator used for the emulated system, I.E. they all map to the same positional (try to map the keys as close as possible to the real hardware) and symbolic location (map to a standard keyboard layout for whatever region your in).

Having all emulators map keys to the same location might be asking too much though, so for now I'll just have to make the most popular ones that are cross platform.

At least it gives the option to use a usb keyboard that is identical to the pi 400 layout and not limit them to just the pi 400. If I can find a nice generic pc 104 keyboard and also one with mechanical keys, I will certainly do my best to make those too. Maybe even limited edition UV printed versions if there is enough demand or even put up a Kickstarter campaign and give backers the choice of any one or two UV printed version(s) of their choosing, anything is possible just look at 8-bit do's retro styled keyboards they look cool too and I remember an Atari 400 styled keyboard from about 10 years ago.

[IceRetro]

Arghhh, that started as a small reply, how did it get so big?