**UPDATE** Crazy, Sexy, Cool Keyboard "Optimus" - Demo Unit Ready for Preorder!

[quote name='Gregory Kimball']I've heard somewhere that it should cost $300 - 500.[/QUOTE]

I don't see how it could cost anywhere beyond $250. Anything more is just outrageous.
 
[quote name='UnderwaterMadman']What makes you think this thing would be susceptible to viruses. Viruses are more or less only written and distributed to harm things that are widely distributed and used (like windows ect...). If this thing does get released how many people do you know that are willing to drop $300+ on a keyboard? The idea of this thing even "getting infected" just makes me laugh, it is just a keyboard with 100+ little monitors on it and as far as I can tell neither my keyboard or monitor has ever gotten a virus. Furthermore I am sure 99% of the work to display the images and maintain keyboard functionality and whatnot will be done by the pc. Even if some sort of executable file did make it onto the keyboard as a disguised image file the keyboard probably wouldn't be able to do anything with it and just display some sort of default picture.[/QUOTE]

You're joking right? Your keyboard wouldn't "get" the virus, it would be your PC getting a virus that would transmit data to your keyboard. That program would be hella easy to make as well, just write a program that replaces the default images for the keys with parts of a picture. You could even make scrolling ad's on the person's keyboard if you had them re-write at certain intervals. As you said, the picture transmitting would be done by the PC. Would this not also make sense to have the images stored locally on your machine? I'm guessing there isn't a hard drive in the keyboard itself.
 
[quote name='Ecofreak']Interesting, this thing should have been released on the date of the first post - 07-14-2005. Guess it got delayed. :whistle2:?[/QUOTE]

Says it will be released early 2006 on the site. Just gotta wait a bit more.
 
You turn on your pc, and your keyboard slowly gets brighter and shows the windows loading screen.

You monitor is on a screensaver, so is your keyboard.

You keyboard shows you all the buttons for you games by lighting up and then onscreen telling you there use.


I would love to have those features with my keybaord.
 
Updated w/ potential release info and intial price! Check first post for details. :)

Now I just need to find the scratch to buy the beautiful thing. Or...I wonder if this thing will ever see a price drop.
 
Oh ye gods I want.

Imagine coming to CAG and having certain macros built into keys, like "subscribe to thread" or "check trader rating" or "praise Shrike" or "put ___ on ignore."

*unFs*
 
thats awesome

yes I am sure since it is open source that someone will write like an animated screen saver for the keys. Perhaps a script that will allow you to have a picture or banner placed across all keys or even a news scroller that you see at the bottom of the news on fox news, msnbc, cnn and so on with stuff coming out of the internet as it happens. I can see how it can help gamers and artists with our programs but how long till it becomes a 300 dollar toy? btw how many colors can an OLED display?
im sure not 16 million :O
 
[quote name='ITDEFX']thats awesome

yes I am sure since it is open source that someone will write like an animated screen saver for the keys. Perhaps a script that will allow you to have a picture or banner placed across all keys or even a news scroller that you see at the bottom of the news on fox news, msnbc, cnn and so on with stuff coming out of the internet as it happens. I can see how it can help gamers and artists with our programs but how long till it becomes a 300 dollar toy? btw how many colors can an OLED display?
im sure not 16 million :O[/QUOTE]

:(

You are just making me want it even MORE. Stop it :(
 
If this does come out, surely other companies will come out with similar products. It won't be too long before the price drops. No way in hell will I drop $300 on a keyboard. My keyboards tend to get kind of dirty with me eating and drinking at my computer pretty frequently, I would make everyone (including myself) wash their hands before getting near it. I think having such an awesome toy would be too much of a stressful burden on myself if I dropped $300 on it, but they look so incredible.
 
[quote name='bil4ltool']If this does come out, surely other companies will come out with similar products. It won't be too long before the price drops. No way in hell will I drop $300 on a keyboard. My keyboards tend to get kind of dirty with me eating and drinking at my computer pretty frequently, I would make everyone (including myself) wash their hands before getting near it. I think having such an awesome toy would be too much of a stressful burden on myself if I dropped $300 on it, but they look so incredible.[/QUOTE]

I agree on you on this one... I go through atleast 2-3 keyboards a year. My fingers tend to get a little oily and that tends to rub off the keys. The desk I am using wasn't really ment for a keyboard(more like a storage draw) so i have very limited space and must get a small keyboard (not a laptop type keyboard like the usb logictech one) but just enough that it will allow me to use the mouse pad with it. If I do buy this new keyboard, I am going to use it with laytex gloves so no finger prints, oils or dirt :)
 
[quote name='Strell']:(

You are just making me want it even MORE. Stop it :([/QUOTE]

Makes you wonder how how much time you are going to spend looking at your keyboard. The news ticker will be great but will be hard to read unless you look streight down at it or at an angle. Although I would also love to see some sort of graphical equalizer (bars) as you play something through WMP or win amp.
 
sometimes I wish i had the patience to learn programing...but after that 220 lines of code i wrote for a science fair project back in 1991, i said I will never do this shit again..yea 220 lines of code is nothing compared to today's standard, but just make myself get through it was a miricle and paid off as I won the fair :)
 
[quote name='ITDEFX']sometimes I wish i had the patience to learn programing...but after that 220 lines of code i wrote for a science fair project back in 1991, i said I will never do this shit again..yea 220 lines of code is nothing compared to today's standard, but just make myself get through it was a miricle and paid off as I won the fair :)[/QUOTE]

I know what you mean. I haven't programmed in a few years now because I HATE it, but right this minute I'm working on a large macro at work that will generate graphs for me based on data. All of the suffering I'm going through in order to make it do all of this automatically, instead of doing it manually and being done with it already. I'd much rather just hit a few keys and watch it do everything on its own.

Heh.
 
[quote name='Strell']I know what you mean. I haven't programmed in a few years now because I HATE it, but right this minute I'm working on a large macro at work that will generate graphs for me based on data. All of the suffering I'm going through in order to make it do all of this automatically, instead of doing it manually and being done with it already. I'd much rather just hit a few keys and watch it do everything on its own.

Heh.[/QUOTE]

if 220 or so lines of BASIC nearly made me pull out my hair, then god know what I will do with 2.2 million lines of C code.
 
[quote name='ITDEFX']if 220 or so lines of BASIC nearly made me pull out my hair, then god know what I will do with 2.2 million lines of C code.[/QUOTE]

And I was thinking of going into programming. Too bad my testing changed from Pascal or BASIC to Java and it's somewhat complexing at times compare to the easy life of BASIC.

Damnit a possible $300 for a keyboard? It looks sexy and all and it would definitely get me back into photoshopping, but I'll stick with my keyboard with all the dust and bits that's under the keys for now.
 
They said it shouldn't be more than $1 per key. How many keyboards have 300+ keys?

A standard keyboard has about 104 keys. Add on some macro keys to the side, I'd say about 150 most. Thats about the price of upper end wireless keyboards, so its not all that unreasonable. Hell, I paid $70 for my mouse and it doesn't have pictures that change depending on the program I use.

As for those of you worried about getting it dirty, I'm sure they'd sell a keyboard cover.
 
The materials are $1/key. Doesn't include the circuit board, manufacturing, profit margin, etc. The $300 isn't just from the keys.
 
Oh ya... I read it as it wouldn't cost more than $1 a key for US, not them.



[quote name='b0bx13']The materials are $1/key. Doesn't include the circuit board, manufacturing, profit margin, etc. The $300 isn't just from the keys.[/QUOTE]
 
thats got to be the tightest keyboard ive ever seen in my entire life!

i love the colored buttons for the internet and stuff

but does it really light up like that for the games and programs and stuff?
 
For $300 or less I would buy one. I would hope it comes with some kind of repair kit - it would suck if one key died or came with dead pixels. Since I do a lot of gaming in the dark, it would be cool to not only have a backlit keyboard, but one that could use images instead of just letters or abbreviated words... Fortunately the layout has the arrow keys even with the rest...otherwise I wouldnt be able to use it (i dont use wasd).
 
I'm going to have to give it 6 months and see how well it holds up. For 300 bucks, I better get a keyboard that lasts me forever. Durability is the only true concern for me with this thing, because I want it soooo badly.

Someone needs to make...*ahem*...nocturnal emissions test results NOW. .... I mean this for the benefit of all people. All people except me.

Yes.
 
bumped for hiccupleftovers, who once again earned his title of Worst Poster on CAG but managed to get his topic locked before I could claim repost because I was busy starting the download on the Full Auto demo.
 
[quote name='b0bx13']That key life is certainly a turn-off. Barely 6 months of continuous use then they're dead?[/QUOTE]

Agreed. I thought OLED had super long life...something about the organic nature making it essentially lasting forever....

No?
 
[quote name='Strell']Agreed. I thought OLED had super long life...something about the organic nature making it essentially lasting forever....

No?[/QUOTE]
Nope, OLED's have really crappy lifespans because of the organic material. Regular LED's last for an insane amount of time.

They've just recently developed some with a much longer life, which may be why this company just went ahead and put out this little thing to have a product out and kept the keyboard so far off.
 
This thing has nothing on my 1986 IBM Model M, The One True Keyboard. Its probably just some rubber dome mushy bullshit under there like every other piece of shit $10 keyboard made since 1995. I sincerely hope that this thing would at least have ALPS switches for the price they're asking (the 2nd best kinds of keyboards have these) instead of that cheap rubber dome that most keyboards have today.

http://www.clickykeyboard.com/
http://www.clickykeyboards.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Model_M_Keyboard
http://www.3m3718.com/modelm.php
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=IBM Model M Keyboard

Rubber dome is where there is a sheet of rubber underneath the keys, each key has a piece of carbon on the rubber under it, and when pressed down, the carbon touches the board. You get that really mushy feel with those, and since its extremely cheap to do it that way, you get the crappy disposable keyboards that most people have today.

Can anyone find out what kind of keyswitches this thing uses? If its rubber dome, you'll want to avoid it since the keyboard will wear out over time, and fairly quickly if heavily used, the displays wearing out will be the least of your concerns. If it uses mechanical switches, thats better.
 
[quote name='dafoomie']This thing has nothing on my 1986 IBM Model M, The One True Keyboard. [/QUOTE]

Wholly cow - my apt. mate has one of these things and was really excited when it arrived in the mail. The thing is FREAKIN' LOUD! I am really glad we don't share a room or else I'd probably throw away his keyboard and give him the $15 he spent on it.
 
[quote name='Ecofreak']Wholly cow - my apt. mate has one of these things and was really excited when it arrived in the mail. The thing is FREAKIN' LOUD! I am really glad we don't share a room or else I'd probably throw away his keyboard and give him the $15 he spent on it.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, these things are loud. They click twice, once when you press the button, and once when you release. And they're built like tanks... You could probably knock someone out cold with one of these.

I have 1 from 86, 1 from 89, and 2 from the mid 90s. I'll never use another keyboard again. The 1 from 86 actually came in today, one of the rarer silver label models. Paid $20, and it was practically brand new, except for a thick layer of dust.

Its a status symbol among the nerdier of nerds.


At least this LCD keyboard is an innovation, the only "improvements" to keyboards since the 80s have been to make them cheaper, not better. Maybe this guy could partner with a company like Unicomp that makes good keyboards now, or the guy that made that new Mac keyboard with ALPS switches.
 
[quote name='dafoomie']This thing has nothing on my 1986 IBM Model M, The One True Keyboard. Its probably just some rubber dome mushy bullshit under there like every other piece of shit $10 keyboard made since 1995. I sincerely hope that this thing would at least have ALPS switches for the price they're asking (the 2nd best kinds of keyboards have these) instead of that cheap rubber dome that most keyboards have today.

http://www.clickykeyboard.com/
http://www.clickykeyboards.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Model_M_Keyboard
http://www.3m3718.com/modelm.php
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=IBM Model M Keyboard

Rubber dome is where there is a sheet of rubber underneath the keys, each key has a piece of carbon on the rubber under it, and when pressed down, the carbon touches the board. You get that really mushy feel with those, and since its extremely cheap to do it that way, you get the crappy disposable keyboards that most people have today.

Can anyone find out what kind of keyswitches this thing uses? If its rubber dome, you'll want to avoid it since the keyboard will wear out over time, and fairly quickly if heavily used, the displays wearing out will be the least of your concerns. If it uses mechanical switches, thats better.[/QUOTE]

OMG the behemoth keyboard!!!! I remembered that on my IBM PS2 Model 30 286 10MHZ with 2 MB of RAM! woot the old days :)
 
[quote name='dafoomie']This thing has nothing on my 1986 IBM Model M, The One True Keyboard. Its probably just some rubber dome mushy bullshit under there like every other piece of shit $10 keyboard made since 1995. I sincerely hope that this thing would at least have ALPS switches for the price they're asking (the 2nd best kinds of keyboards have these) instead of that cheap rubber dome that most keyboards have today.
[/quote]

Hell yeah! I love the Model M, I got 2 of em. They are so freaking awsome!
I once had an old one I found and it was drity as hell. So I put it in the shower and washed it like that. Then I let it dry for acouply of days it and it workd %100 percent fine, only problem is that it is missing one or two key covers. I remember how I sued to switch em around to confuse people.
 
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