BTW, Roger scooped me. Yes, that place in NYC is called Cables & Chips. It's on Fulton Street. 1-212-619-3132. Near J&R.

This is the keyboard I desperately want to use. It is just bloody wonderful:

http://www.zippy.com.tw/K_product_de...pk_code=WK-610

I have hacked up a really nice USB system for my 770.

Basically, it is a modified $5 USB hub, litterally bolted to a USB battery pack. I hacked the little end off of a USB cable that fit the 770, keeping about 5 inches of wire, and soldered this to the hub instead of the normal cable. I now have a battery powered hub, with the proper connector for the 770. It looks fairly professional, and has no glue. (except for where I broke a plastic tab inside the hub.)

USB Hub $5.00
USB Cable $3.00
USB Battery Pack $10.00
Total cost $18.00

I'll try to send some pictures later.

A few observations:

I also bought a Mini USB keyboard. It is made by logitech, (Intended for PS2). It works with the issues noted below.
I also tested an Apple USB keyboard. Works with the issues noted below.
A Dell keyboard with some funky Media controls at the top, crashes the 770 as soon as it is plugged in.

I have tried several USB Flash drives. All worked fine. I could even plug the USB drive into the hub on the Apple Keyboard.

The keyboards seem to have a fast repeat problem. Almost like keybounce in the old days. This seems to come and go. Sometimes it will be fine for a while, and then it will do something like:
eeeexxxxiiiitttt (when I typed exit.)
I am NOT a slow typist.

It seems like the return (enter) key stops working sometimes. It will instead act like pressing the center of the directional pad. In terminal it usually makes the on-screen keyboard appear and disapear. Ctrl-M continues to work as enter. Unplugging the keyboard and plugging it back in seems to correct the problem.

Keyboard activity does not keep the display from dimming or the 770 from going to sleep. I see that the BT keyboard users have a fix for this. Does the modified libbt.so help for USB keyboards? I though the FAQ said that all keyboard support was done via BlueZ.

Have any others who have hacked up USB keyboard support seen the issues I am seeing, or is it my concoction that is causing the problems?

Man it's painful trying to edit that on the 770! Having a scrolling window on a page that scrolls then trying to select text inside of it. I wish the bit I am trying to edit would stay on the screen when the keyboard pops up.

Anyway in answer to your question I will let you know when my USB keyboard arrives and I hack it up! A question though. When you flash USB host mode does the port still behave the same as in slave mode when you connect it to a PC? I mean does it still show up as a drive I can copy to?

I have a similar setup, but I don't use it often. I'd thought the 770 might double as a super portable writing device. Unfortunately, the screen dimmer (why can't you just turn that 'feature' OFF?) and lack of mouse support (stylus sucks for text editing) thwart that ambition. Maybe someday these issues will be resolved...

Have you figured out how to automount USB drives? There must be a place to put a mount command at startup.

Now there's a cool project for you maemo devies: a plugin that scans for and installs new USB devices.

BTW: the BT plugin doesn't seem to keep the screen on for USB kbds.

I'll have to wait to answer this one. I read that it no longer will work this way, but I have not tried it yet, and I do not have my USB cable with me at the moment. IMHO, this is not a big loss, since I prefer Bluetooth for transfering small files and documents (either BT browsing, or sobex). For larger files, I remove my card and insert it in a USB 2.0 card reader. Transfering things like movies is not really tolerable over BT or the USB cable.

Also, I think I have anwered 2 of my other questions:

1. Google'ing around, I found some discussion of keybounce issues with late kernels and certain keyboards. One post I read specifically said that Debian kernels lacked a patch that fixes this. Obviously, we can assume that Nokia did not give this issue much effort on a device that has no official support for USB keyboards.

2. The Return key issue is only with Xterm, and is fixed by re-starting Xterm, not by unplugging and re-plugging the keyboard as I had stated.

Yes, please do ! Especially the cable-to-hub soldering and the battery pack assembly (does that mean the batteries power the hub and everything connected to it just by plugging its USB plug into the hub ?...)
Looks like a really clean mod, and easier than most preiously published !
TIA,
fp

OK. Here it is.

The hub was originally a non-powered version, with no means to power it. However, there were pads marked '+5' and '-'. The +5 was connected to pads for a diode that was not installed in this un-powered model. The diode would have prevented the external +5 (in hubs that supported that) from going back towards the host. I wanted power to go back towards the host, so I simply jumpered the pads. A few quick continuity tests verified that the +5 line was connected through from the upstream (host) to downstream (devices) connectors. I soldered 2 wires to the pads marked '+5' and '-' .

I also de-soldered the host side cable, and soldered on the small end of a cable very similar to the one (and infact worked in place of) that shipped with the 770.

The battery box on the bottom was a device that held 4 "AA" batteries, and had a full size host USB socket on it. It was meant to charge devices that were USB Powered (such as a iPod shuffle), or a Mobilephone by using the appropriate cable. I verified that it did have circuitry to regulate the +5 volts. Output with fresh alkalines is ~4.9 volts. I de-soldered the USB connector, fed the 2 wires through a hole in the bottom of the hub, and through the place where the USB connector used to be. I soldered them to the holes for the +5 and - pins of the now gone USB socket.

The 2 units are held together by small screws that are long enough to penetrate up from the battery pack, and into the USB case, but not long enough to contact the bottom of the hub PC board. Due to the thickness and type of the plastic used on the hub, this is strong enough for me to pick it up by the hub and shake it (professional shaking of course - with batteries installed) without it comming apart. (I only ever use glue as a last resort.)

A few warnings: I don't mean to sound arrogant, but if you do not have the expirience in these sorts of things, and the proper tools, please do not try this.

Your granddad's Weller (you know - the one with the wooden handle, fabric covered power cord, and 1/2 inch wide chisel tip) is NOT the "proper tools" for this.

Be warned that slagging your 770 is a very real possibility.

Another hint: Look at the big (big is used realatively here) electrolytics as an extra step to verify the power paths, and to verify polarity.

In hindsight, it would be better to have the whole thing a little "lower profile" for travelling. I guess this could be done by using a different hub, or by putting the whole thing in a special project case.

I used this several times today, and the only real problem has been the previously mentioned keybounce issue.

A couple more picts.

The first is the whole thing in use, and the second is an attempt at showing where the power supply wires run under the hub-board, and down into the battery pack.

That's awesome! Really nicely done!! Your instructions/explanation seemed very clear as well.

I wonder if there would be anything similar to the '+5' and '-' situation in the circuitry for the keyboard itself. That is, given the success shown here, is there any hope for a homebrew self-powered USB keyboard that can be used with the 770 without the homebrew self-powered USB hub?