[ANN] GTA04 Keyboard prototype

Bob Ham rah at settrans.net
Wed May 2 18:03:19 CEST 2012


On Wed, 2012-05-02 at 11:02 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:

> > I think the really important issue in developing a hardware keyboard is
> > in the physical design; the arrangement of keys, how the shape of keys
> 
> The arrangement of keys is more or less standardized, so there isn't
> much room for experimentation.

I think there's quite a lot of variation in modern phone keyboards.  For
example, some Blackberry phones have two alphanumeric characters per
key, some phones have no number keys, some have an arrow key block and
some don't, etc.

Even within the confines of a basic qwerty keyboard, there seem to be
many variations in layout; whether the rows are offset or aligned in a
grid, whether there is a multi-row Enter key, the size of the space bar,
etc.


> > effects ease of typing, how the keyboard is integrated into the case,
> > etc.  In order to develop case designs that include a keyboard, we must
> 
> Yes, shape effects ease of typing. But also do the mechanical properties of
> the electric contacts. I.e. what their contact force is. You can only test that
> with having the electronics ready (at least in a prototype status).

That's a fair point.


> > first have designs for cases without a keyboard :-)
> 
> Well, but what do you do if you design a keyboard where the mechanical
> switches are not available? Part of the experiment was to test how well
> these Panasonic things work, how easily they can be soldered, what they
> impose as the minimum distance between buttons.

I see.


> > At present, we do not have this.  As I understand it, Slyon's cases do
> > not fit together properly and so we cannot build a complete GTA04 case
> > from them yet (has this changed?)  There are also no case component kits
> > available.
> 
> The key missing part is the UMTS pentaband antenna. There are
> antenna modules out there (e.g. Antenova) but those are too big.

It might be worth designing a slightly different case in order to
accommodate a usable antenna module.  There is a danger of allowing
one's self to be limited by the existing design.  I would say change the
case design if it will allow production of complete phones.


> > for (;;) { ++pancakes; }
> 
> You could do pancakes+=2; :)

True.  But why would I want to skip a pancake? ;-)

-- 
Bob Ham <rah at settrans.net>
Diaspora: rah at pod.settrans.net

for (;;) { ++pancakes; }
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