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Now to be fair, it would be a little absurd to build the most compact possible keyboard, yet get stuck carrying around some foot pedals like you're headed to a lan party with racing games or something.

But sometimes a little absurd is cool when it comes to custom keyboards. I kind of want to build this or the Gherkin posted above!

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I agree, that's ridiculous.

Clearly, a sip/puff/bite controller would be more convenient, both in terms of compactness and usability.

Or midi breath control, where you have to modulate your breath pressure to get shift, alt, alt+shift, control, etc. Surely most people can handle 4 bits of resolution with their breath power, right?

Suck/blow + hard/soft

True, but these days you could put a couple of wireless accelerometers into the shoelaces of each shoe and have that be your pedals. if they had LEDs and blinked they would be chic coture :-)

Yes, a Bluetooth 6DOF accelerometer/orientation sensor/magnetometer affixed to each shoe and you're sorted. I've long wanted to see a pair of such sensors set up as MIDI controllers. If you're using them on uneven or moving surfaces you might want separate sensors for heel and toe.

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