I’m working on an FPGA expansion card using the ICE40UP5K, and wanted to ask, would people think having physical input buttons or capacitive type buttons be better? I’m unsure how I’d mechanically integrate the capacitive buttons though, unless I had the PCB edge extending from the enclosure
I would be interested in this, but its a very rare need i would say. Very cool idea.
The cleanest touch point would probaly be the edge/side. Failing that the bottom has some clearance that would work. Putting a finger under the laptop would feel strange i think.
Id think the capacitive touch points would be best. The physical buttons would seem odd to me, like the hang out eject buttons on the old PCMCIA cards. Might be fine though, given space/size constraints and giving as much to the fpga as possible. As you said, would require extra hardware.
Looking forward to see how this goes.
Would membrane buttons be another possibility (still physical, but kind of an in between)? I’m thinking like a microwave oven. They don’t feel good, but you can get those very thin.