Hi folks.
I am in the middle of revamping the assembly instructions with what I
believe to be an improved method. One thing I am seriously considering
is reversing the PCB so that the A-Star isn't pinned between the PCB and
the switch plate. I think this should be more forgiving in case you need
to fix the soldering on the controller itself. Many people have already
used this style by accident, so the firmware already supports it, you
just have to turn it on with a flag when compiling: SWAPCOLUMNS in the
old codebase, PCBFLIP in the new.
For new boards I think this would be a clear win. However, it is a
breaking change; if the flipped design becomes the default then users
with the old style will have to add an additional flag to the "make
upload" command to get a proper layout. Normally I would not consider
this, except for the fact that I am switching things over to the TMK
firmware anyway, so most existing users won't just be upgrading blindly
but should be watching for relevant changes.
The classic "atreus-firmware" codebase will still default to the old
pre-flipped setup, and I will provide pre-compiled firmware available
for download in qwerty, dvorak, and colemak of both the flipped and the
pre-flipped variants for those who don't want to bother installing the
full compiler suite.
Two questions: 0) does anyone have strong feelings about whether
changing the default with TMK to PCBFLIP (aka SWAPCOLUMNS) is would be
too disruptive? 1) Is anyone interested in reviewing the new assembly
instructions and providing feedback?
https://atreus.technomancy.us/assembly-new.pdf
thanks,
Phil
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