IPC2 and P2 keyborard wars

[Amnykon]

Keys I think are important:


bash: $|<>\/"`


C: +-*/%<>=.,;:^&|~!^"'#{}[]()


other keys: bs, enter, tab, insert, del, esc


modification keys: shift, alt, ctrl, fn, metro


normal punctuation: .,'"


money: Only 1 remappable key in addition to $ is required.


I just type all the symbol keys from a qwerty keyboard except for @ and the shift lock, which are also important...

 

[Binky]

{} and ; are vital to C programming!


ahah: ninja'd

 

[craigix]

{} and ; are vital to C programming!


ahah: ninja'd

Yes, but I was saying that in the real world, the money symbols would be far more used.

 

[ShleeDragon]

We need to make the keyboard as close as possible to the standard layout.


Regardless, there is more than enough room for the money symbols.


I tweaked my pic. as a test fitted in most of the keys Id imagine we'd need.

 

[Exophase]

Grench: what applications are using the shoulder buttons in a way that causes problems? Of course emulators of consoles that have shoulder buttons use them, but then you don't need them for typing anyway.

You do if you're using netplay and chatting with it. I mean, you can use shifts in Temper's netplay chat line anyway. But of course no one seems to care about emulator netplay to begin with, let alone chatting during it. :/

 

[sebt3]

Yes, but I was saying that in the real world, the money symbols would be far more used.

the only money symbol that get used on pandora is $ (and that's because of programming)


I'm sure there is more geek/programmer around here than marketing guys.


(as if being a programmer make you not part of the real world)

 

[Exophase]

I can see how Craig would need the money symbols if he makes a lot of forum posts with them, but then again in informal language it's not the end of the world to use currency abbreviations like USD and GBP. There's usually no substitute for using the right key in a programming language.

 

[Amnykon]

I had a quick thought, if the nubs were moved down a bit, there could be another row containing 8 keys above them. These keys could be used as in conjunction of the keys above them to adjust volume, brightness, and other adjustable settings. This pairing would make logical sense. The top one increases. The bottom one decreases.


Adding media buttons such as play, pause, stop, fast forward, and rewind buttons could be useful.

 

[Exophase]

The nubs would probably be more comfortable lower to begin with (there's a reason every other controller tries to put them below the face buttons) but I'm sure the positioning isn't going to change now..

 

[ShleeDragon]

I'm sure they'll be able to print all of the symbols onto the buttons if the font is right... they should be able to remove 10 of those keys if they really needed too.

 

[_wb_]

a bit off topic _wb_, but the colors you have on text and background of your text editor are really good, were they default or did you make them?

That's the internal editor of Midnight Commander; I always set the dark blue background color much darker than default, the default blue makes mc ugly as hell.

 

[TrashyMG]

I agree on trying to make this as close to the current Pandora standard layout as possible.


I think the larger bottom right button should be the FN and FN lock button, as it will be a heavily used button. Having the Enter as a normal sized key never seemed to be an issue on the Pandora.


The larger left button could be shift and Caplock, but I do like where it is on the Pandora, seems natural there.

 

[Pickle]

{} and ; are vital to C programming!


ahah: ninja'd

Yes, but I was saying that in the real world, the money symbols would be far more used.

What? I live in the real world darn it, I even moved up to c++ to be modern and cool

 

[ShleeDragon]

The big buttons will be great to use as L2/R2! that's win/win.

 

[Grench]

The two little slits between the nubs - what are those?


LEDs?


Microphone?

 

[ShleeDragon]

I've noticed there is only 6 keys (all next to eachother) on my design which will require 3 characters to be printed on the keys.... so if the final print layout is anything like that, it should be pretty clean

 

[Amnykon]

Craigix how many key presses can the keyboard recognize at one time? In the layout which keys are the exceptions?


If they are fixed, they need to be the shift/ctrl/alt/fn keys. This would be a deciding factor on how the keys are laid out.


There are two possible positions of the main keyboard.


Center with the two extra columns for esc/tab/enter/bs.


Left with the two extra columns for symbols.


I prefer if the main keyboard was on the left. I think this is closer to the standard qwerty keyboard layout.

 

[diligentcircle]

Having those as L2/R2 buttons seems cool in theory, but it ignores some crucial factors:


- As long as they are different keys, games can use them whether they're marked as "L2"/"R2" or not.


- They aren't all that useful as L2/R2 buttons if you have to press a modifier key.


- ...and even worse, you're suggesting making the modifier key Shift. Consider that L is the normal Shift key.

 

[fusion_power]

The design allows for backlighting on the keys, but we can only do this if we exceed the $150k goal as it's complex and expensive to get right.

I think today, a backlit keyboard is not that expencive, even "cheap china devices" have this and almost every (Smart)phone with physical keys. My cheap 12 year old Mobile phone had backlit keys and it was done pretty effective ( white metal-reflector-pushpoint foil + tiny leds in between the keys+lightguiding transparent rubber-key-matt = win ) ^^ Yes, I once completely disassembled it just to see how backlit buttons are working.

The big buttons will be great to use as L2/R2! that's win/win.

Or just use 4 physical Shoulder Buttons, the NeoGeoX Handheld did it pretty simple and effective:


http://neogeox.com/NeoGeo/NeoGeox

 

[ShleeDragon]

- They aren't all that useful as L2/R2 buttons if you have to press a modifier key.

sorry dude, that L2/R2 labels are purely brainstorming. in reality it's much easier. The program would be able to map the left and right button easily without the shift modifier.


The keys are all mapped. and PCSX would just map the button to the L2/R2 controller key.