It started with a YouTube video. Hayyoth was building a web editor in plain JavaScript, no AI, one keystroke at a time: "No AI - Just pure JS hand coding to relax".
What stuck with me was the sound. That soft, steady rhythm of keys. I wanted it at my own desk, so I built Thock.
What it is
Thock is a free Linux app that plays real mechanical keyboard sounds as you type, from a buckling-spring IBM Model M to Topre and a vintage typewriter. It lives in your tray and stays out of the way.
Making it calm
My first default pack hit full volume in half a millisecond. Every key was a tiny snap, and after an hour it was tiring. So I found softer, deeper recordings and added three calm packs: Thocky, Rainy 75 and Lubed Tactile.
There's also Coding Relax, rebuilt from the keyboard sound in Hayyoth's video. It's the one I use every day. Thock isn't affiliated with or endorsed by Hayyoth; Coding Relax is for personal use only, isn't under a free license, and will be removed on request. Every other pack is a real recording under a free license.
Try it
Ubuntu 22.04+ or another Debian-based distro, in an X11 session:
git clone https://github.com/christophervistal25/thock ~/thock
cd ~/thock && ./install.sh && bin/thock
About 15 ms latency, and nothing you type is logged, stored or sent.
Thank you, Hayyoth, for showing how relaxing it can be to just build something by hand.
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