How a Keyboard Mod Led Me to Vim (And Why I Never Went Back)

About four years ago, when I was just starting out with programming and web development, I quickly realized that moving my fingers off the home row to press the arrow keys was super inefficient and annoying. I thought, “If only I could press the arrow keys with my thumbs, that would be way better.” Around that time, I had also started tinkering with electronics, so I decided to hack my keyboard to bring the arrow keys closer to my thumbs. Hacking My Keyboard When I opened up my keyboard, I was greeted with a maze of circuit traces on a membrane sheet. I thought, “Man, this is too complicated, and I really don’t want to break my keyboard.” I was about to give up when an idea hit me—I took a photo of the membrane sheet and traced the lines connected to the arrow keys in a photo editor. Once I figured out which pins triggered the arrow keys, I tested them with an alligator clip to make sure they worked. Connecting Wires to the Pins As you can see in the image, there’s a metal bar screwed over the pins to keep the membrane circuit connected to the controller board, so soldering wasn’t an option. Luckily, I had some aluminum foil lying around, so I made a few flexible ribbons, attached wires to them, and after some trial and error, I managed to put them on the right pins. I then screwed the metal cover tightly over the membrane sheet and secured everything with hot glue. Adding the Arrow Keys I took four push switches and super-glued them to the side of my keyboard where my thumbs could reach. Then, I grabbed four keycaps from my broken laptop keyboard and super-glued them on top of the switches. The final mapping looked like this: [Home] [PgUp] [PgDn] [End] [ ← ] [ ↑ ] [ ↓ ] [ → ] It took about four and a half hours, but everything worked perfectly. Life was good for a few months

Feb 11, 2025 - 21:35

How a Keyboard Mod Led Me to Vim (And Why I Never Went Back)

About four years ago, when I was just starting out with programming and web development, I quickly realized that moving my fingers off the home row to press the arrow keys was super inefficient and annoying.

I thought, “If only I could press the arrow keys with my thumbs, that would be way better.” Around that time, I had also started tinkering with electronics, so I decided to hack my keyboard to bring the arrow keys closer to my thumbs.

Hacking My Keyboard

When I opened up my keyboard, I was greeted with a maze of circuit traces on a membrane sheet.

I thought, “Man, this is too complicated, and I really don’t want to break my keyboard.” I was about to give up when an idea hit me—I took a photo of the membrane sheet and traced the lines connected to the arrow keys in a photo editor. Once I figured out which pins triggered the arrow keys, I tested them with an alligator clip to make sure they worked.

Connecting Wires to the Pins

As you can see in the image, there’s a metal bar screwed over the pins to keep the membrane circuit connected to the controller board, so soldering wasn’t an option. Luckily, I had some aluminum foil lying around, so I made a few flexible ribbons, attached wires to them, and after some trial and error, I managed to put them on the right pins. I then screwed the metal cover tightly over the membrane sheet and secured everything with hot glue.

Adding the Arrow Keys

I took four push switches and super-glued them to the side of my keyboard where my thumbs could reach. Then, I grabbed four keycaps from my broken laptop keyboard and super-glued them on top of the switches.

The final mapping looked like this:

[Home] [PgUp] [PgDn] [End]
[ ←  ] [ ↑  ] [ ↓  ] [ → ]

It took about four and a half hours, but everything worked perfectly. Life was good for a few months