Enthusiast created a giant keyboard with words instead of letters

One of the technology enthusiasts came up with an innovative yet ironic solution: a keyboard where each key corresponds to a whole word, not a single letter. The device has over a thousand keys and covers the list of the most commonly used words in the English language.

It is described in the Attoparsec video on YouTube.

How the keyboard works

The author borrowed the idea from the "Up-Goer Five" concept from the xkcd webcomic, where complex concepts were described using only the most common words. Each key has a single word printed on it, which is included in a list of about a thousand of the most common English lexical items. To type a sentence, you just need to press the keys with the words in sequence.

The process of creating the keyboard took about six months, and the main problem was the lack of a PCB of the required size. Due to the huge number of keys and the need for a large surface, the developer divided the keyboard into five panels, which are connected by a matrix scheme with 17 rows and 60 columns, and the entire system can be controlled by a single microcontroller.

The vast majority of the 1020 keys are reserved for words, but there are about two dozen more service keys (such as modifiers, space bar, etc.). The creator also added keys for changing the form of a word to quickly form the plural or, for example, the past tense of a verb.

The most difficult part was printing the inscriptions on thousands of cappings. The channel's creator tried different methods, from 3D printing to ink transfer using a heat press, to ensure that every word was clearly written. In the end, they managed to print a batch of high-quality captions, although the process required careful experiments with materials.

The developer calculated the typing speed on such a keyboard, and obviously, it turned out to be extremely slow — an average of just over 10 words per minute. For comparison, a conventional keyboard can type up to 80 words per minute.

The keyboard is more of an interesting experiment than a working tool. The author ironically calls his device the worst keyboard, given its size and typing comfort. Although the keyboard looks more like a curiosity, it definitely finds its place in the section of the most non-standard technical solutions of our time.

As a reminder, a strange but interesting gadget was presented at MWC 2025 in Barcelona. The uCloudlink company presented PetPhone, the world's first smartphone for cats and dogs.

We also wrote that a Twitter user shared an amazing experience of creating a fusion reactor at home. It took a lot of time to develop, and AI helped with it.