Xref: utzoo comp.windows.misc:806 comp.sys.next:1002 comp.sys.mac:24366 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cbmvax!snark!eric From: eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc,comp.sys.next,comp.sys.mac Subject: IR-link keyboard -- it's been done! Message-ID: Date: 24 Dec 88 07:48:44 GMT References: <4362@pitt.uucp> <257@gloom.uucp> <82702@sun.uucp> <8939@ut-emx.uucp> Sender: eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) Organization: John Dillinger Died For You Society Lines: 26 Back-References: <18549@agate.berkeley.edu> <34173@think.uucp> In article <8939@ut-emx.uucp>, osmigo@emx.UUCP (Ron Morgan) writes: > A monitor as described is a ways down the road, for sure, but I don't know > why a wireless keyboard would be far-fetched. It'd only have to send a > hundred or so infrared (or other) pulses: one for each ASCII character. Where you been, boy? Hidin' in a hole? There was this machine called the `PC Junior', made by a little itty bitty company name of IBM. It *had* a keyboard that worked almost exactly as you describe. It was a flop. Too bad. The IR keyboard was indeed a nifty idea, it was the rest of the machine that sucked rocks (IBM did things like deliberately crippling the ROMs so you couldn't run the serial ports at >2400bps, and that chiclet-style keyboard...aargh!). Of course, it would have worked a whole lot better in multiple-machine environments if there'd been frequency selectors on the keyboards and machines that you could dial to different values to prevent crosstalk... On the postive side, I understand that at some of these sites `keyboard wars' got to be a real popular computer game...:-) -- Eric S. Raymond (the mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews) Email: eric@snark.uu.net CompuServe: [72037,2306] Post: 22 S. Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355 Phone: (215)-296-5718