XO Mini Keyboards

Posted by Seattle XO on Monday, January 28, 2008 at 7:39 PM


Several people commented on the little USB keyboards that Chris, Wayne and I brought to last Sunday's meeting. These little things are just about the width of the XO itself, are actually pretty good for touch typing and are certainly much, much better then the XO's child-size membrane keyboard.

I found the MC keyboards at a Hong Kong dealer at usb.brando.com.hk. Though I did find them in the US, the price was much higher then the $22 that Brando charges. If you decide to order one for yourself, I encourage you to look around the site as there's a lot of unique stuff there and since the prices are cheap and that the shipping charge is a flat $3 per order you might find something else you'd like to play with. 

A couple of caveats you should know about. When you plug the keyboard into the XO, notice that all the special keylights at the top of the keyboard light up. Apparently, there some kind of issue with the XO's keyboard mapping that does this. You'll find that the caps lock, scroll lock and num lock's are all activated and they can't be turned off. The way around this is that within 2 seconds of plugging it in, press the caps lock key twice. You'll see all the lights go out and you're back to normal. A minor point about the shipping: these are shipped from Hong Kong and require a signature for delivery. And, finally: being this small there's no room on the key layout for a right hand shift key. Other then these two points, the keyboard makes a great addition to your XO travel kit.

Tim

 

4 comments:

  1. Rafial said,

    This is definitely a good hint for those of us that are stuck with XOs with failing keyboard. Was there any sense at the meeting of how common keyboard failure (i.e. sticky keys) are in the C2 (i.e G1G1) models?

    on January 29, 2008 at 10:59 AM


  2. Bob said,

    I bought one of these mini keyboards for my XO but it acts like the ctrl key is stuck "on". XO keyboard works fine. Just tried keyboard on another computer and it works fine. Any ideas?

    on April 12, 2008 at 12:00 PM


  3. Rafial said,

    Well, I know that if your XO keyboard is sticking, an external keyboard will "echo" the same problems unless you disconnect the main keyboard internally. But you say your XO keyboard is fine, so I'm not sure.

    on April 12, 2008 at 12:26 PM


  4. Seattle XO said,

    Don't know if this is your issue, but have you tried this?

    When you plug the keyboard into the XO, notice that all the special keylights at the top of the keyboard light up. Apparently, there some kind of issue with the XO's keyboard mapping that does this. You'll find that the caps lock, scroll lock and num lock's are all activated and they can't be turned off. The way around this is that within 2 seconds of plugging it in, press the caps lock key twice. You'll see all the lights go out and you're back to normal.

    on April 14, 2008 at 9:50 AM


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