The Full Monty (aka the "thoughtfix contraption")

I first set out to build the "solderless" solution first described by thoughtfix, because, well, it's the easiest and most reassuring of all as it doesn't entail any modding of anything.

I had a basic, powered USB2 hub. Instead of the wall-wart I powered it with the battery pack that came with my iRiver H340 mp3 jukebox. I had never used it and all but forgotten it, but by a minor miracle its plug is exactly the right model for the power socket on the hub, so there really was nothing to hack (heh, take that, USB ! :-), just put 4 AA rechargeables in it.

The "Y cable" was in this morning's parcel. It is thankfully short and has a female A plug and two males. One male goes to the 770's host port through a female-A-to-male-mini4pins gender changer. This one is fun, it's two plugs linked by a swivel that twists every which way. It was also the cheapest available, but maybe not the most durable... The other male A fetches power from a hub port for the 770's. The female A goes to the hub's host port, which is a female B - this means there is yet another male-A-male-B cable in between.

What can I say ? It works, first try. I hooked up the keyboard and typed. I plugged in a USB key, it was recognized as /dev/sda1, and mounted it. Very anticlimactic :-)

I did have the 770 reboot on me at one point, as others have mentioned. Those AA cells are probably a bit old, and that USB hub is lit up like a Christmas tree (6 LEDs ! :-). As you can see in the pix below, it's a wee bit cable-heavy and spread out, and the battery pack is big. OK for home use I guess, but probably not something you'd set up in the train or at the local coffee shop :-)

http://www.internettablettalk.com/ga...oto/64/cat/504
http://www.internettablettalk.com/ga...oto/65/cat/504