Be more sarcastic with Raspberry Pi Pico
Ben Sommerfeld is a sarcastic guy and we are here for it. He is also short on time so cannot waste it carefully inserting random capital letters into sentences to connote sarcasm. But Ben is a maker and tinkerer type, so he does have the time to overengineer a solution.
If you’re interested in exactly which keyboard Ben is using in the video, so was all of Reddit. He explained:
“It’s a HyperX alloy FPS pro with cherry reds. Key caps are randomly cobbled together from old (cheap) keyboards.”
How does it work?
It’s plug-and-play with any computer and keyboard combination. Just plug any keyboard into the side, flip the switch, and your text will come out with a sarcastic flourish.
Ben used two Raspberry Pi Pico boards to implement a man-in-the-middle attack on the keyboard connection to the computer.
One Pico acts as a USB keyboard device for the computer, while the other acts as a USB host to read the inputs from the physical keyboard. The host communicates with the device via UART and tells it what the keystroke was. Then the device decides whether it should toggle caps lock. Ben has it set to toggle caps lock for every other letter.
Here are some sentences that look great when run through Ben’s sarcasm converter:
- “As PeR mY pReViOuS eMaiL.”
- “lEt Me GoOgLe ThAt FoR yOu.”
- “Thank you for inviting me to this meeting, WhIcH sHoUlD HaVe BeEn An EmAiL
15 comments
Frankie T-H
The (definitely) Outlook editor looks appealing.
Can this come with the next release of PiOS?
derry
i hope so
Anders
I didn’t know that the random capital thing was sarcasm. I didn’t think it would be necessary to mark any words as sarcasm, if it’s done right. People seem to be getting smarter…..
Jonathan
I think you meant, “pEoPlE sEeM tO bE gEtTiNg SmArTeR.”
Jose Grande
Definitely Outlook. đź‘€
Isn’t alternative capitals a form of mocking…not sarcasm?
Jose Grande
I really like this. Alternatively, you could add more buttons and make a macro box.
Ben Sommerfeld
That’s a good idea! Definitely no reason it couldn’t be done. Just wire up some extra buttons and tell the pico to send them as some of the extra function keys
Richard collins
Love this. I think someone has now implemented USB with PIO so you could reduce this down to one RP 2040. :)
Ben Sommerfeld
I saw that! I think it got posted a week or so after I finished the build up. But I might have to go back and make a second revision with the improvements
Beau Chavalier
It’s rather hard to see the point of a device that just randomly toggles capital letters but whatever.
Petr Sedlacek
Not everything needs to have point, some things are just pointless fun ;)
Of course, not all fun is for everyone, and that’s allright.
Richard collins
Look at the title, it tells you why!
Montagne George
John maybe busy finding a new accomodations
Andrina Westerdale
People also do this to mock crazy conspiracists
I have just posted a link to this on r/Qult_Headquarters
Robert
Would anyone have instructions or a guide on how I can build this?
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