LVTT:

Ah, well. You just killed the chimera of non-repeating keyboarding.

Nokia! Stable keyboard use, please!

(Hmmmm... do those using *Nokia's* BT KB get no repeats?)

I wrote to two places -- including Chips and Cables in NYC (or is it Cables and Chips? whatever) and one on the West Coast, with elaborate descriptions, links to the photos, and extravagant predictions of hordes of 770 owners streaming to their doors.

Neither company has replied.

As for my Stowaway keyboard, I got it for my wife so she could write her lengthy emails when she gets to the computer once a day. My own need for a keyboard on the 770 is a lot less than I imagined pre-770-possession, even with all the writing I do.

I haven't fixed the Opera/multi-line text box problem with numbers and symbols, which presents a problem posting to the blog with that keyboard. Beyond that, no, I for one haven't encountered key repeats at all.

Aside: I had a Think Outside Stowaway keyboard for my HP Jornada 540 PocketPC, ca 2000. One of the most elegantly designed pieces of hardware I've ever held. (Still have it on my desk, even though the PPC died years ago. Actually fondled it yesterday and, yes, that's the right term, and tried to get the 770 to fit in its leatherette carry case -- not a good fit, alas.)

I was sorely disappointed in the BT Stowaway when I received it. It has nowhere near the class of the original (manufactured? distributed? by Targus).

I occasionally use a keyboard with my Bigboote Hub Hack(R), but not often anymore.

I occasionally get repeats, but not often.

Frankly, keyboard's not much use to me on account of:

- Auto screen dimming (seriously, Nokia, how hard would it be to add the option to NOT TURN OFF THE FREAKIN SCREEN?).
- No mouse support.
- poor word processing support. Ever tried to open a .DOC file in Abiword? Hah!
- poor email software. No need to beat that dead horse.
- if I want to mess around at the command line, I just SSH to the 770 from my desktop.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my 770. I just hope some of the above problems will be fixed before I go back to my keyboard.

BTW: I've taken to reading online novels in bed. 770 is great for this (hint: use fingernail to dragscroll).

Thirteen Bullets, David Wellington's serial Vampire novel
http://www.brokentype.com/thirteenbullets/archives.html

Monster Island, a serial Zombie novel
http://www.brokentype.com/monster/

Warren Ellis' latest graphic novel Fell:
http://www.newsarama.com/ImageComics...ell01Issue.htm

OK, one problem solved:

How to turn off screen dimming/blanking
http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...=7946#post7946

Need to use xterm for this fix, though

LVTT:

Yeah, I linked to Fell in my "blog" here.

What accounts for *any* company making screwy decisions? Palm won't let people turn *off* their backlights, while Nokia won't allow them to stay *on*.

And people wonder *why* I want to flee this field?

Mice, cursors, and crashes
 

Exactly. I wish they'd get over this business of adding amazing features like USB host and keyboard support without actually providing a fully working solution. I might add a discovery I stumbled upon earlier... If you have the latest BT keyboard plugin loaded, it will keep the screen from blanking while typing for USB keyboards too! When I plug the keyboard in I get the normal "USB device connected" message as well as a message about a BT keyboard connected. Maybe it's a bug, but it's a good bug!

Mouse support would make this truly a portable PC and I spent a fair amount of time over the holidays looking into it. If I plugged a Logitech USB mouse in it was recognized perfectly-- it created the /dev/input/mouse0 device which was readable for the raw mouse data. The /etc/init.d/x-server.sh script will even check for its presence and add it as a command line argument to the X server as a mouse input device. It just doesn't work. It will always use /dev/input/event0 as a mouse (the stylus) and optionally prepend the string for "-mouse /dev/input/mouse0" if the device exists; I tried swapping the order which made the stylus input stop working and it would reboot as soon as I tried anything (it will reboot if the X server dies!). I'm guessing the X server isn't understanding the protocol the mouse is using, which causes it to crash. Anyone know what protocols are built in?

I also got the X cursor back, which will follow where the stylus is dragged/tapped unless it's on a keyboard field, whereupon it disappears; something to do with the odd way Maemo window input is handled I'm sure. Getting the cursor to appear was a matter of loading a fair number of X-specific libraries/utilities (from the Debian pool) onto the MMC card, adding the proper dirs to the path, ld.so.conf, etc. Once that's done you "xset +fp $cursor_font_dir/fonts ; xsetroot -cursor_name X_cursor". Sorry, leaving out a ton of steps. It's not extremely useful without having the mouse input behind it all.

I definitely agree. I don't think it would be very difficult to get a functional mouse for someone who knows what is going on with the internals of the device, and it's frustrating being so close yet so far.

Larry

Larry,

Thank you for looking into the mouse issue. Perhaps a knowledgable post over at the Maemo dev group might dredge up a useful trick to enable mouse support. As you say, mouse support (there are BT mice too!) would open up some interesting possibilities.

John

This is just to confirm hat the BlueEye USB hub for a usb keyboard
(in this case a nano KeySonic qwerty keyboard) works wihout having to
inject back power through a USB Y-cable into the nokia 770. This was
reported earlier as seemingly impossible, but it does work! The BlueEye
hub was bought from pioneer-electronics and is the model H850 USB 2.0.
I find the nano keyboard a bit sticky, but otherwise OK once you get used
to it.

I would TOTALLY dig something like this if it was gonna work for sure...

http://www.proporta.com/F02/PPF02P05...461&t_mode=des

uNtouched, while every key doesn't work, basic functionality of the Freedom Mini Bluetooth keyboard does work on the 770. See the Bluetooth keyboards thread:

http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...read.php?t=805

I have one and it works reasonably well with the drivers mentioned in the thread.

---

Re: USB keyboards

Thought I'd post a small USB keyboard that I like using that's not too expensive. It's a BTC brand and I got it from Fry's (Outpost.com).

http://tinyurl.com/8vaf7

For some reason, I like the keys on this keyboard, nice and responsive with good tactile feedback.

ETA: Other BTC keyboard at Fry's:

http://tinyurl.com/9aqag