A Modified QMK Firmware for the Polyglot

July 12, 2025

I never really did programming after training for (and failing at) computer science Olympiads. The two projects I currently have are IRAHET (which is just an interface for LLMs) and Assistant Maker I made for MWH (which is embarrassingly unfinished).

Anyway. I found my Stenokeyboards Polyglot today. It really is a fantastic keyboard, although I was bad at stenography and gave up before I got to a level where I can use steno to write an essay without going crazy. Without the custom keycaps, though, it is an orthogonal and small keyboard. I realized today that I have always wanted an orthogonal, small keyboard. I am also starting to use Colemak, so I decided to modify and flash a new firmware.

I replaced the original keycaps with this set of cutesy ones. They are in the Colemak layout, but the firmware maps all keys to Qwerty. Many operating systems have Colemak available in the language settings.

The process was fairly simple, and I reckon anyone who has compiled C before could figure it out in an hour or so. If you have the time, it is definitely easy to design and flash a keymap better suited to your needs. However, in case anyone wants to use my keymap and flash the firmware I have already compiled, the layout is here:

I might make a digital version of this if anyone else decides to use the firmware. The backspace is in Colemak position, because Windows does not handle capslock as backspace properly.

You can find the uf2 files ready to flash here. The keymap file is also in the GitHub repo, and it should be clear how to modify it. Refer to the QMK documentation and the original firmware if you need to.

mi tawa!