My idea for an input device ....

foneman · 09-22-2003, 12:15 PM

Being a mobile phone / accessory dealer I was thinking about whether I could wire up a Easyboard keyboard to work as the input device on my car pc.

The plan is to hard wire the keyboard using the phones COM port or USB data cable, but I don’t really know much about this stuff.

Has anyone tried this? What are your opinions on this? Could it work?

Would anyone who does have good knowledge in this type of thing be interested in researching this idea. I would be willing to send you a free easyboard and cable.

I think the easyboard would make the perfect input device if it could work. For those of you who dont know what it is this is what it looks like:

fluffy2097 · 09-22-2003, 03:09 PM

I'd want something simpler then a keyboard to control my system while driving. Sure it looks cool and lets you do a lot of stuff, but when you're going 60 miles an hour, hunt and peck becomes a dangerous affair. All the functions I need to access while I'm driving I can do via touch screen (control copilot/netstumbler) or My powermate (controls winamp)

If I need to really muck about with the system I park or stop at a light and pull out the miniature ps2 keyboard that fits so wonderfully in my gove box.

Seraph · 09-22-2003, 07:23 PM

I tried. Unless you can findsome way to get the pin out diag and a new controller board, it's useless. Let me know if you can get it to work though. I would be interested.

gork · 09-22-2003, 08:03 PM

Actually, getting one of these to work might not be quite as hard as one might think.. Generally, they are connecting to the phone via a TTL serial interface and sending the keystrokes requires little more than decoding the serial commands. You could probably take one apart and deduce how to power and interface to it.

The unfortunate part is that by the time you build an interface circuit and write the corresponding software (if you interface it to the PC's serial port) or firmware (if you choose to have a microcontroller decode the serial output of the keyboard and emulate a PS/2 or USB keyboard), you'll have spent more time and money than it's worth to buy any one of the small wired or wireless keyboards on the market..

Confidence that this can be done and isn't truly that difficult: Very High

Confidence that this is worth doing at all: Low