Hi everyone, this morning a weird idea came trough my mind: I need a keyboard in my bedroom studio because the PC is on an higher surface and I have to lean forward every time, but in fact I don’t need the whole keyboard but only the arrows, shift and ctrl. Starting from an old pc keyboard, is it possible to take just some ppart to build a 6/7 keys keyboard??
Thank you to anyone who takes time to answer this kind of question 
Build a PC keyboard with only usefull keys
Baro
#1
Artificer
#2
Short answer is no. Long answer is absolutely, but not easily or quickly.
The coding of the keys is build into the chips into the keyboard and then translated by the computer in a known way. That means you can’t just cobble together some contact pads and expect it to work. You could pretty easily do it with a Pi or Arduino if you’re handy with coding and want to spend some time on it.
They do make mini keypads like this one that might work for you, maybe in conjunction with rebinding the keys you’re using.
Have you considered just getting a wireless keyboard?
Baro
#3
Thank you for the advice, that device could work for me.
In fact I have a wireless keyboard but I don’t have enough space on my desk to keep a keyboard that I would use only for the arrow and the shift, so a little device like that can do the work.
I got this little guy on eBay for about $30. What’s cool with mine is that you can toggle the WASD to also control the arrow keys if you’re navigating around a daw or other software. These things are great if you’re into saving space / only using a few keys.
Baro
#5
Cool thanks! I will check it out, i’m trying to improve my workflow and stuff without sacrificing space
Yes, you can hack the keyboard, as long as you use the controller in it.
Or you could get a control interface and some buttons.
https://www.ultimarc.com/control-interfaces/
BUT: you can use a gamepad and re-map the keys to anything, at least using JoytoKey.
~
And, fnord.
