Got displays, looking for keymats

[Franko]

except that one...just joking.  I love FaeMinX....in a weird way.  No torts are necessary.

...capacitors and relays.....flowing electricity.....and we don't know what love is.

 

[_wb_]

This horse was beaten to death before.  I don't think the community wants side by side shoulder buttons like this.  That's why Ed want to make it like Askarus' shoulder button mod.

I don't think there has been that much discussion about it -- but maybe my memory is just failing. Anyway, I personally don't really care about horizontally vs vertically stacked shoulder buttons. The important thing is that you can comfortably press either button individually and to press both of them simultaneously. I can't tell from a picture how well something works. I've tried Askarus' Pandora with the modded vertically stacked extra shoulder buttons, and that worked well as far as I could tell -- but to be sure, you need to get completely used to it first, by using it for many hours, which I didn't. Maybe horizontally stacked buttons could also work well.

Shoulder buttons are tricky things: they're the only buttons that are not protected by the clamshell, so they have to be robust and not too easy to press accidentally. At the same time, in handheld desktop mode (which is the most important way to use a Pandora/Pyra for me), the shoulder buttons are very important as Shift/Alt/Fn/Ctrl keys. These modifier keys are used a lot -- they're in the ballpark of space and 'E' -- and you have to be able to hold them comfortably in all combinations and while pressing any other key on the keyboard.

I think it's fair to say that the design of the shoulder buttons will be one of the most crucial determining factors for the effectiveness of the physical keyboard. So please take all the time needed to do it right!

If done right, the Pyra keyboard could get quite close to a real full-size keyboard in terms of typing speed efficiency, at least when you don't count just typing simple sentences. It might be even better. For a-z plus space, 8-finger typing with thumb for space is hard to beat. But for general desktop use, which includes navigation (arrows, pgup/dn etc), shortcut combos, alt-tabbing etc, it is not necessarily true that a full-size keyboard is the best. Two thumbs for typing and two (or four?) fingers for modifier keys could be just as effective if you're doing general stuff (not just a-z plus space), which requires you to move your hands a lot on the full keyboard, negating most of the benefit of having more fingers.

 

[Franko]

I'm sold! That guy talks good smut.....and he knows his electronics.


I want the keyboard to be the most important thing....it's tough to type on my Pandora.


I know that it's impossible to do EVERYTHING within a small footprint. I get THAT. We can fold-out keyboards. I have MANY ideas,,,,and own many iterations of them. My Pandora 1GHz is probably the best attempt at portable computing....oh please don't take a picture of me holding a cheeseburger and riding a donkey right now.....I'm not prepared for the onslaught of hateful tweets....


.


It's good to know what


Merged - Binky

 

[fahrstuhl]

The main PCB
 

Nikolaus was mostly working on the display PCBs, so the progress on the main PCB was slower, as you can imagine.

It's still nearly finished - but that 'nearly' are the last percent that always need a lot longer than the rest.

I don't want to derail this but as you said the PCB is nearly done and I feel it's the last chance to ask you to consider this. (Edit: Being able to split the two pads of the space key by desoldering a connection and soldering another one and having an unused keycode for the other pad in the driver.)

 

[EvilDragon]

This is ridiculous. You (should) have a good guy in house (Notaz?) that can write machine code level stuff that takes care of this - are you trying to just be a a kickstarter campaign, or are you ready for the BIG LEAGUES? Pay good people to do good work.

Eh? Take care of what?


Drivers when for closed hardware? Can't be done easily.


Faster rotation? Won't work if the hardware can't do it.

 

[ahahah]

the rotation screen thing, for what is it necessary?

i have the impression it spends more energy and costs money that what it can makes as benefit.

 

[rygD]

It makes the screen have the right orientation.  Otherwise the display is sideways.

Also, the horizontal shoulder buttons are good enough for me, although I would prefer them vertical.

 

[bzar]

ahahah: Because otherwise everything, at some point, must do it in software.

 

[ahahah]

yes but why doing it (even in software)?

the pandora hasn't it and the device works good without it.

 

[rygD]

ahahah: Because otherwise everything, at some point, must do it in software.

And doing it that way slows everything down.

ahahah, I believe ED said going with these and the 720p screens greatly reduces the cost for the display compared to the 1080p screens.

yes but why doing it (even in software)?

the pandora hasn't it and the device works good without it.

These are smartfone screens.  If you don't rotate everything is sideways.

 

[EvilDragon]

There is no landscape screen available at a resolution higher than 800x480, that's why it works with the Pandora but not with the Pyra.

And yes, the 720p screens save us about 60 EUR each, as well as 270,000 EUR in advance payment...

 

[hns]

The main PCB

Nikolaus was mostly working on the display PCBs, so the progress on the main PCB was slower, as you can imagine.

It's still nearly finished - but that 'nearly' are the last percent that always need a lot longer than the rest.

I don't want to derail this but as you said the PCB is nearly done and I feel it's the last chance to ask you to consider this. (Edit: Being able to split the two pads of the space key by desoldering a connection and soldering another one and having an unused keycode for the other pad in the driver.)

No need to worry. There has always been a 0R resistor (0402 dimension) for exactly this purpose It can either connect both meanders to a single matrix position or add the meanders to different matrix positions.Sometimes we can identify through our crystal ball what the community would like to have

 

[fusion_power]

This horse was beaten to death before.  I don't think the community wants side by side shoulder buttons like this.  That's why Ed wants to make it like Askarus' shoulder button mod.

Was it? I see no way to use 4 Shoulder buttons onto an small Handheld when they are placed above and not side by side. You will accidently push 2 buttons at once I'm sure because they are so much smaller than onto an normal Gamepad. The Neo Geo X (as an Handheld example) did it right and placing the buttons this way is also much easier than a vertical array which would only lead into trouble (hinge is in the way for example).To keep it simple (K.I.S.S. principle!) just place the buttons side by side.

 

[Askarus]

This horse was beaten to death before.  I don't think the community wants side by side shoulder buttons like this.  That's why Ed wants to make it like Askarus' shoulder button mod.

Was it? I see no way to use 4 Shoulder buttons onto an small Handheld when they are placed above and not side by side. You will accidently push 2 buttons at once I'm sure because they are so much smaller than onto an normal Gamepad.

You won't and I can prove that.

At least when they are placed and designed like I suggested.

The one below have to be like the Pandora ones.

The one above have to come out a little. To not damage them over time they have to be rounded a little like the 3DSxl ones.

It will work without any trouble that way.

If they are both the same then it's likely to fail I think.

 

[Kevin Osuna]

This horse was beaten to death before.  I don't think the community wants side by side shoulder buttons like this.  That's why Ed wants to make it like Askarus' shoulder button mod.

Was it? I see no way to use 4 Shoulder buttons onto an small Handheld when they are placed above and not side by side. You will accidently push 2 buttons at once I'm sure because they are so much smaller than onto an normal Gamepad.

You won't and I can prove that.

At least when they are placed and designed like I suggested.

The one below have to be like the Pandora ones.

The one above have to come out a little. To not damage them over time they have to be rounded a little like the 3DSxl ones.

It will work without any trouble that way.

If they are both the same then it's likely to fail I think.

It would be nice if each pair has different textures.

 

[fusion_power]

You won't and I can prove that.


At least when they are placed and designed like I suggested.


The one below have to be like the Pandora ones.


The one above have to come out a little. To not damage them over time they have to be rounded a little like the 3DSxl ones.


It will work without any trouble that way.


If they are both the same then it's likely to fail I think.

I respect your design idea but again, it would be so or so way more complicated than a simple side by side design. I'm sure it could be possible to make an vertical array but this would need alot of design and testing to find the perfect shape and placement which leads to alot of time and money consumpting which should be avoided. Better put these ressources into the much more important parts like general case design, perfect D-Pad and so on.


I have no prove of course but my gut feelings say that there will be alot of trouble incoming to get a comfortably working, vertical shoulder button array. :unsure:

 

[fahrstuhl]

No need to worry. There has always been a 0R resistor (0402 dimension) for exactly this purpose It can either connect both meanders to a single matrix position or add the meanders to different matrix positions.

Sometimes we can identify through our crystal ball what the community would like to have

And that's why I love this project!

 

[Glyph Reader]

Well guys, we can always build a portrait screen Pyra. 

-Glyph Reader

 

[Askarus]

You won't and I can prove that.


At least when they are placed and designed like I suggested.


The one below have to be like the Pandora ones.


The one above have to come out a little. To not damage them over time they have to be rounded a little like the 3DSxl ones.


It will work without any trouble that way.


If they are both the same then it's likely to fail I think.

I respect your design idea but again, it would be so or so way more complicated than a simple side by side design. I'm sure it could be possible to make an vertical array but this would need alot of design and testing to find the perfect shape and placement which leads to alot of time and money consumpting which should be avoided. Better put these ressources into the much more important parts like general case design, perfect D-Pad and so on.


I have no prove of course but my gut feelings say that there will be alot of trouble incoming to get a comfortably working, vertical shoulder button array. :unsure:

Did you think of the USB and other connectors?

Horizontal Shoulder-Buttons might need a lot more space and maybe less connectors are possible then.

Would you really want to sacrifice one USB port for your Shoulder button mapping?

 

[rygD]

When I mentioned being ok with horizontal buttons that was only if everything else is kept.  I figured the way to do this would be to decrease the size of shoulder buttons to approximately half the size of the current ones, with a few changes, kinda like the NeoGeoX Gold.  This would allow you to hit the second buttons with fingertips while the R and L are hit with joint/lower finger.