Model M sound emulator for Windows and Linux

[zevv]

(warning: shameless self promotion below)

I've created a small software project that simulates the sound of my Model M space saver when typing on my notebook. Audio is played using OpenAL, which has great support for creating a realistic 3D audio scenery.

Currently it's running on Linux only, and needs to be built from source, so I'm afraid a bit of software expertise is needed to get it running. On the other hand, I expect a high correlation between software expertise and buckle spring keyboard users, so this might not be a big problem for this community

Source can be found on github here: https://github.com/zevv/bucklespring

Enjoy!

Edit: bucklespring now also runs on windows.

[livingspeedbump]

rad! absolutely downloading this right now

[Parjánya]

Hah, it works very well ). I had to install `freealut` for it to compile on Arch.

I see it's complaining when I press any exotic key like winkey or the volume ones, and also the numpad. You could have a generic fallback file for them. Weird... sometimes it spits an error, sometimes not.

Code: Select all

Error opening audio file "./wav/52-1.wav": I/O error
Error opening audio file "./wav/52-0.wav": I/O error
0144^[[1~^[[D^[[4~^[[2~aa01Error opening audio file "./wav/50-1.wav": I/O error
2Error opening audio file "./wav/50-0.wav": I/O error
21Error opening audio file "./wav/4c-1.wav": I/O error

[zevv]

Good idea, I'll update it to just play a default key on unknown key codes. Since the code won't know where it is on the keyboard it'll just have to go to the center of the stereo sound. Thanks!

[Brot]

Nice idea

[klikkyklik]

I seem to vaguely recall some fantastically brilliant programmer writing a program like this for the Amiga and having it published in Amazing Computing volume 3 number 11 on page 78 in November 1988 as a side effect of investigating custom input handlers that notified sleeping tasks on input stream keyboard events.

Good work! It's about time someone did this for Linux!

[dwasifar]

I just installed it, and immediately had to promise my wife that I won't use it when she's trying to sleep.

[Ray]

Wow this is fun. Thank you so much.

Maybe future enthusiast keyboards come with speakers instead of backlighting

[Muirium]

Real Model Ms have the speaker grille to support this. Mind, they're also real Model Ms, so…

[Ray]

only some Models had that speaker equipped, and none had stereo to make use of this. They were also real Model Ms, so they can't make much use of this

I actually don't like Model M that much (sound is okay, but feel is not made for my fingers). But you could just take a soundsample of the thocks of your favourite Topre and play that on custom builds!

NB: never felt my built-in scissors switch so bad. When I hear that sound, I expect different feel.

[emdude]

I wonder what compelled the IBM engineers to include the speaker grill at all if only a few models ended up using it. Still, even if it has no functional purpose, I think it looks pretty cool.

[Ray]

Well, they save tooing costs. The speaker grill doesn't hurt the models that come without a speaker. Why should they invest in tooling if there is no need for it.

[emdude]

That makes sense. Makes me wonder then why Unicomp went through the trouble of removing the grill entirely since I believe they still use the same, rather old tooling. Their Model Ms are certainly cost-cutting, to say the least.

[zevv]

In case anyone cares: bucklespring now also runs on Windows (only tested on 64bit windows 10), MacOS X support might happen in the near future as well. Check the README at github for details.