I recently got bitten by the mechanical keybaord bug, and for the last couple of weeks have been enjoying the clickety feeling of typing away with one. It’s designed for Windows, and while it was working well enough out of the box, the placement of the command key was giving me some issues. I finally got up the courage to try to program it, though, since I opted for that ability intentionally so that I could have some flexibility with it. This was a harrowing experience on first pass, as I had to removed its firmware in order to free up space to install my own custom firmware.

I consulted the internet, as always, and found two different methods to try since the instructions from the box required the use of a Flash applet (eek) and I also found (because curiosity of course took over) that the Flash applet in question is now defunct anyway. Of course, I didn’t learn that until after I’d removed that first set of firmware. And while I’d made a backup of the stock firmware as advised by various sources, I couldn’t get it re-installed. It turns out I was able to remove the file just fine from Finder on my Mac, but I couldn’t turn around and place it, or any new firmware, back on the drive. Wonderful.

I next tried using the simple configurator software I’d downloaded while researching this all, but it too was unable to do anything effectively. My last step was following instructions to work from the command line, but this too didn’t work (though mostly because I didn’t have the additional developer tools I needed). I finally tried plugging it in and following the same steps through Windows, which I have to use for some work software. Following the same steps from before just in Finder, I was able to easily flash the new firmware in all of one minute (total). Go figure.

In the end, I’m thrilled to have a functional keyboard that clicks away and has its keys programmed in a familiar layout. The little brains within my fingers are relieved that they can now go back to business as usual. Tactile memory is surprisingly powerful, it seems.