No prototypes for GamesCom, but a Wifi Chip and a Pyra in the dark!

[Googer]

I find 5 GHz range to be a decent amount shorter but also somewhat to significantly faster so long as you're not at the edge of its coverage area (likely due to being much less susceptible to interference from other surrounding networks, etc.), especially if the adapters and network in question are doing 802.11ac (as opposed to n).  I vote for the 5 GHz WiFi chip even with higher cost.

 

[_jr_]

What was the plan for the first batch? 1000 without cell modem? 500 with and 500 without? What would be the price difference per wifi chip between ordering 500 and 1000? My guess would be: not much.

If the MOQ is >= 1000 the difference is Pyra vs. no Pyra.

 

[comradekingu]

I have a 5Ghz network too. Not that i need one, but that band is less congested.

With more wifi around the world, it makes sense to have that availability.

For 14 euro it sounds like nice future-proofing.

Try saying you will do if if you get a volume-deal for a bit less than 14.

Either there is a rebate on the 2.4 only, or they are running a considerable markup on the 5Ghz.

Edit: I still remember the b only nds, that got old quite fast.

Edit2: This is more functional, flexible, visible, tactile, consistent and modular.



It looks more utilitarian as a result, and its symmetric to boot.

A really nice button to use for push-to-talk.

 

[Grench]

YES! Give us 5Ghz please!

My phone is 4 years old and does 2.4 and 5Ghz 802.11g/n. (Galaxy Note 2).

I use both - and it's great. If I'm in the far corners of the house it connects to the 2.4 and that is adequate for general messaging and light surfing. If I need to transfer/update/backup the photo/music/video collection to/from my home server from the phone, I get nearer the router and get 5X (Yes, five TIMES) the data rate from the 5Ghz side than the 2.4 in the same room. I live in a house and can only see 4 other people's routers and I've been diligent in picking channels not being used by them - so it's not congestion slowing the 2.4 side.

5Ghz is not important for streaming movies or surfing or playing multiplayer games as a client. But if you're going to sync up, back up, download or manipulate 50+GB of data on the potentially 1TB of SD card space on your Pyra, 5Ghz cuts the transfer time down to hours from days.

YES - give us 5Ghz for the 14EUR. At that rate it is CHEAPER than buying a USB 2.0 to 100Mbps Ethernet adapter and a cable - and is FASTER than 100Mbit via USB. The chips they have in the cheap adapters are pretty slow on the translation.

 

[Caine]

Edit: I still remember the b only nds, that got old quite fast.

Indeed. Consequence was that I didn't use it all that much.

 

[Natsu]

It's 28 EUR btw. I don't think it's a good idea to make 5Ghz a 3G/4G exclusive. People might want the 5Ghz and not 3G/4G. I mean, they shouldn't have to pay ~100 just to get it. Maybe you can still get them to lower it some.

 

[comradekingu]

Its 14 additional Euroes atop the 14 for 2.4+bt, making it 28 total.

When i did try to use my nds i sometimes ran into n-only networks, either of my own doing or elsewhere.

I imagine 5Ghz only will also be a thing in areas where 2.4 is too congested.

Potentially there could be 5Ghz only devices down the road to save on antennas, worsening the problem.

Edit: As the good samaritan i am, i would love to run 5Ghz only, so that others in my vicinity can have more 2.4 to go around.

 

[Baleg]

Finalizing the keyboard layout Thanks to the poll and your comments, we were able to finish a keyboard layout that should be usable and satisfy most of you. We will still work and tweak on the look of some of the symbols and char, but the functionality should be finished (unless someone finds a huge flaw here). So, here it is:

What's with the ^ key? I see it both as shift-6 and FN-I. FN-I also has two symbols, " and ^ so I suppose it's a render mistake?

 

[TDT]

Unfortunately, for me, 5ghz is pretty important.  In my condo complex, the 2.4ghz band is so congested that it's a big problem.

Now, if there's a good way to connect a USB wifi adapter and get my 5ghz that way, I'd be perfectly okay with that.  Unfortunately, as it stands, my open pandora has so many issues on my network that it's almost not worth using. for network operations.  Makes updating things kinda hard.

 

[comradekingu]

Finalizing the keyboard layout Thanks to the poll and your comments, we were able to finish a keyboard layout that should be usable and satisfy most of you. We will still work and tweak on the look of some of the symbols and char, but the functionality should be finished (unless someone finds a huge flaw here). So, here it is:

What's with the ^ key? I see it both as shift-6 and FN-I. FN-I also has two symbols, " and ^ so I suppose it's a render mistake?

Thats a diactric. Since Fn does AltGr on this layout, the symbols cant be both like they are on a US international keyboard.

The design favours putting stuff in your face over hiding things where possible and conventional, because that is supposedly limiting.

 

[benoitb]

I find 5 GHz range to be a decent amount shorter but also somewhat to significantly faster so long as you're not at the edge of its coverage area (likely due to being much less susceptible to interference from other surrounding networks, etc.), especially if the adapters and network in question are doing 802.11ac (as opposed to n).  I vote for the 5 GHz WiFi chip even with higher cost.

5Ghz is usually faster mainly because you get a bandwidth of 40MHz (on N this is 150 Mbps for a 1x1 stream (one antenna)) vs 20MHz on the 2.4Ghz band.

The 2.4 GHz band allows for 40Mhz wide channels only if no neighboring AP is overlapping in the vicinity. I have never been in a place where this was the case, so have always had only 65/75 Mpbs links on 2.4GHz N wifi APs.

Real-life speeds on 2.4Ghz are around 30-35 Mbps. I guess you can expect 70Mbps with a 5GHz radio (if the antenna is placed alongside the screen, I think the throughputs will be better, human hands attenuate the signal).

 

[ible]

There's ^ at shift+6, dead circumflex ˆ at Fn+I, and dead umlaut ¨ at Fn+Shift+I, in line with many international keyboards. For US people, a frowny face ☹ would be the perfect mapping there.

I should disagree with comradekingu, however, in that the Fn buttons are actually going to be using the Meta layer, and NOT the AltGr layer. You can still setup your AltGr layer however you like (there will be remapping allowed, for instance to put ñ on AltGr+n). And you can also setup the Fn layer (i.e. the Meta layer) however you like, though that may be less nice (especially in typing by looking at the keyboard). This gives a very user-mod-friendly keyboard layout, if you ask me.

I will also get rid of a few Fn symbols (like the section sign §), in favor of things like Ω and μ, but not too many to make it too confusing. No need to say the keyboard has serious flaws (looking at you, Saber); just put some button you actually want there. Bam, one extra user button.

You forgot "Screen Off"...

I never use that. Do you?
If I want the screen to be off, I close the lid (or wait until the automatic screen saver turns the screen off).

I also like being able to turn my screen off, even if I have to fumble about with the correct sequence of buttons to turn it back on. But this could be mapped to something like Super+B (for backlight), and not be enabled by default. Some are planning on a nice hardware menu on pressing the Super key, which will show the possibilities, like Super+W to toggle WiFi.

I also don't like screen brightness looping with hitting the brightness key, but don't mind if looping is the default behavior, just as long as I can turn it off.

 

[Googer]

I find 5 GHz range to be a decent amount shorter but also somewhat to significantly faster so long as you're not at the edge of its coverage area (likely due to being much less susceptible to interference from other surrounding networks, etc.), especially if the adapters and network in question are doing 802.11ac (as opposed to n). I vote for the 5 GHz WiFi chip even with higher cost.

5Ghz is usually faster mainly because you get a bandwidth of 40MHz (on N this is 150 Mbps) vs 20MHz on the 2.4Ghz band.
The 2.4 GHz band allows for 40Mhz wide channels only if no neighbohring AP is overlaping in the vicinity. I have never been in a place where this was the case, so have always had only 65/75 Mpbs links on 2.4GHz N wifi APs.

Or even 80 MHz for bonded AC wireless. The fact that 5 GHz doesn't penetrate walls all that well is almost surely why interference from neighboring networks isn't much of an issue with them. Yes 2.4 has higher usage but at this point even almost all cheap commodity access points and routers support 5 GHz just fine, and even so, I think the most 5 GHz networks I've seen running simultaneously in one spot was 3 (mine with a nice strong signal and a couple near-ish neighbors, which I could faintly detect). In comparison, it's rare that I see anything less than around 15 running in the 2.4 GHz spectrum around here.


Edit: on my AC network, my laptop that uses a 2x2 link (meaning I believe a theoretical max link rate of 900 Mbps for it) easily hits around 190 Mbps in sustained real-world network speed even around 20 feet from the router with a couple walls in between. Obviously I wouldn't expect speeds this high on a lower - power device such as the Pyra (and as you mentioned, your hands will likely even attenuate the signal some), but it's still a good data point to have in comparison considering the same laptop and router combo struggles to hit 80 Mbps even under as close to perfect conditions as I can manage with a 2.4 GHz link.


Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[comradekingu]

There's ^ at shift+6, dead circumflex ˆ at Fn+I, and dead umlaut ¨ at Fn+Shift+I, in line with many international keyboards. For US people, a frowny face ☹ would be the perfect mapping there.


I should disagree with comradekingu, however, in that the Fn buttons are actually going to be using the Meta layer, and NOT the AltGr layer. You can still setup your AltGr layer however you like (there will be remapping allowed, for instance to put ñ on AltGr+n). And you can also setup the Fn layer (i.e. the Meta layer) however you like, though that may be less nice (especially in typing by looking at the keyboard). This gives a very user-mod-friendly keyboard layout, if you ask me.


I will also get rid of a few Fn symbols (like the section sign §), in favor of things like Ω and μ, but not too many to make it too confusing. No need to say the keyboard has serious flaws (looking at you, Saber); just put some button you actually want there. Bam, one extra user button.

Spoiler

If Fn buttons does symbols, on the meta layer. Not only have you employed something for mobile keyboards with not enough keys, you are also inventing a layer. If its not the AltGr layer, why does it have AltGr symbols on it?


Putting the real AltGr layer on a button that says something else, is both strange, and differs from "all symbols on keyboard part"


Putting it on Fn+Shift means that cant be caps lock, and you lose the shift+AltGr alternate graphics layer. (or that you run into Fn+shift does one thing and shift+Fn does something else)


In terms of having more things on shoulders (f-keys) in return, Fn as in function, stops working for the top half of the keyboard.


Or you have the delicate situation where Fn on shoulders does one thing, and Fn on keyboard does more.


We agree Fn does F-keys, but if your thirdlevelshift (which you put on a button called Fn (done with meta is irrelevant) also does diactrics, you not only run into the problem of symbols on letters, but also visible diactrics that are only diactrics, when in places they dont belong, make you look for both when they can be confused with eachother.


Same problem as visible foreign letters, its bad for those who are English, and its not how those foreigners type. To nobodys suprise the way english people type their letters is the most effective (outside of stenography) and doing it for a fuller alphabet is nice and consistent.


If switching language is too bad, why isn't having to caps-lock to do big letters (with the wrong modifier) bad? Its exactly the problem of italian layout.


In my head one stock shift and AltGr has the most people covered in their standard way. (and also includes those who want the alternate graphics)


Doing like NEO and putting Language on language layer (with French letters in correct positions), compose on dedicated compose, and Fn to do F-keys and diacritics, on different buttons, and not putting either in your face, is preferable for everyone.

Im ok with not agreeing, but im more ok with agreeing to disagree. I can blind-type so long as you dont make me re-learn typing. ↓

Fix the space, thats a pure bonus for all points of view.

 

[Saber]

Maybe I don't drink enough of the kool-aid around here or maybe it takes a lackey's perspective to dismiss these design errors.

I see plenty that is less ideal with the current layout, however I'm not dismissive about it, I acknowledge what it is, I also acknowledge that nobody has a solution for the perfect keyboard and what one may consider a good layout, for another is total garbage and flawed. To me the keyboard is fine enough, I see most of what I didn't like about the Pandora keyboard is solved. To me you seem to dismiss what others are trying to tell you, inventing some of the issues you are talking about and you're obsessive to the point of being abusive trying to prove you are right. But this is just words from a kool-aid drinking lackey...

Of course that's the part you'd quote. As for abusiveness, maybe you Roy, who I've noticed has a tendency to be patronizing and corrective to those you disagree with(and no this isn't excusable even if you volunteer here), shouldn't comment freely on other's posts, specifically mine which you referred to as rudely "spewing". Goes both ways.

As for ED's layout, I asked what you thought was good or bad about it, something, anything, but you fell back on the usual sourpuss persona. Sorry you see this as me "inventing". Rather thought my attempts would be looked as helping. 

This is only a suggestion(another one), but I wish the moderators here had a separate joint account they'd log into, for when they are on the prowl looking for spam and profanity or whatever they do, from their public face account. It would maybe keep some of the superiority sarcasm and/or impulsiveness from rearing it's head.

Sometimes it feels like you have to be so careful with what you disagree with around here for fear of being leaped upon, by the team too, who each seem to have their own little entourage who "like" what they say. Feel sorry for the newbs who'd rather read, so as not to be bullied down, then talk. :mellow:   

Although I could mention(again) that putting modifiers on the game controls(like the D-PAD) are a horrendous idea.

The only modifier that would change anything with the Dpad would be the keyboard Fn. I explained this and I also said it was optional. It also wouldn't affect any of the game controls.

Remember, the modifier used to control brightness is also a gaming button, unless shoulder Fn can't change brightness. Some people may prefer using the shoulder buttons.  I was originally behind the idea of using d-pad for brightness until I understood how annoying it would be to have it messing up the display while playing a game.

Keyboard Fn as I said would be the only modifier that changes the Dpad's behavior. Again, this is optional, as I already moved keyboard brightness to the button next to Escape, but on the opposite side of the keyboard Shift and Fn, so you can use those much easier with this brightness/backlight key.

Both designed methods are certainly miles better than tapping the brightness button six times in a row then five times again in case you want to lower it from your first choice.  :unsure:

 

[Saber]

There's ^ at shift+6, dead circumflex ˆ at Fn+I, and dead umlaut ¨ at Fn+Shift+I, in line with many international keyboards. For US people, a frowny face ☹ would be the perfect mapping there.


I should disagree with comradekingu, however, in that the Fn buttons are actually going to be using the Meta layer, and NOT the AltGr layer. You can still setup your AltGr layer however you like (there will be remapping allowed, for instance to put ñ on AltGr+n). And you can also setup the Fn layer (i.e. the Meta layer) however you like, though that may be less nice (especially in typing by looking at the keyboard). This gives a very user-mod-friendly keyboard layout, if you ask me.


I will also get rid of a few Fn symbols (like the section sign §), in favor of things like Ω and μ, but not too many to make it too confusing. No need to say the keyboard has serious flaws (looking at you, Saber); just put some button you actually want there. Bam, one extra user button.

Concerning dead Umlaut, according to _wb_ it's rarely used, and I don't care either way for Caron, so I say we should drop them. Circumflex is good enough on the label as it looks cleaner without piling up diacritics. We could always have a hidden Shift + Fn on the key though.

One extra User button up top next to the other User button to the right of Power. That's what I'd want too, maybe for reassigning to mouse buttons. We'd need to move F11/F12 to the top left though, which may make people become unhinged as it isn't on the right, but it is logical if you want to press F12(left thumb) with keyboard Meta(right thumb), easily. Looks good or functions good, but not both. Depends on what you value more. 

 

[_wb_]

There's ^ at shift+6, dead circumflex ˆ at Fn+I, and dead umlaut ¨ at Fn+Shift+I, in line with many international keyboards. For US people, a frowny face ☹ would be the perfect mapping there.


I should disagree with comradekingu, however, in that the Fn buttons are actually going to be using the Meta layer, and NOT the AltGr layer. You can still setup your AltGr layer however you like (there will be remapping allowed, for instance to put ñ on AltGr+n). And you can also setup the Fn layer (i.e. the Meta layer) however you like, though that may be less nice (especially in typing by looking at the keyboard). This gives a very user-mod-friendly keyboard layout, if you ask me.


I will also get rid of a few Fn symbols (like the section sign §), in favor of things like Ω and μ, but not too many to make it too confusing. No need to say the keyboard has serious flaws (looking at you, Saber); just put some button you actually want there. Bam, one extra user button.

Concerning dead Umlaut, according to _wb_ it's rarely used, and I don't care either way for Caron, so I say we should drop them. Circumflex is good enough on the label as it looks cleaner without piling up diacritics. We could always have a hidden Shift + Fn on the key though.

Wait, wait. I said ë and ï are rare enough to not need two direct precomposed Fn keys for them, like you proposed. Having ¨ on Shift+^ like on French keyboards is still nice though, and I would certainly not drop that or make it a hidden feature.

 

[ible]

I should disagree with comradekingu, however, in that the Fn buttons are actually going to be using the Meta layer, and NOT the AltGr layer. You can still setup your AltGr layer however you like (there will be remapping allowed, for instance to put ñ on AltGr+n). And you can also setup the Fn layer (i.e. the Meta layer) however you like, though that may be less nice (especially in typing by looking at the keyboard). This gives a very user-mod-friendly keyboard layout, if you ask me.

If Fn buttons does symbols, on the meta layer. Not only have you employed something for mobile keyboards with not enough keys, you are also inventing a layer. If its not the AltGr layer, why does it have AltGr symbols on it?

Putting the real AltGr layer on a button that says something else, is both strange, and differs from "all symbols on keyboard part"

On the contrary, Meta is not something we made up; it's a real layer/modifier that you can use.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/19558/what-are-the-meta-super-and-hyper-keys

AltGr (Right Alt) does not have a monopoly on certain symbols; other layers can produce whatever symbols they want. But because we use a different layer than AltGr, we can use both layers: you can put whatever you want on AltGr layer, and the Fn (i.e. Meta) layer will be completely separate. We've discovered this many moons ago in the keyboard threads, so I'm confused why this is news to you...

In terms of having more things on shoulders (f-keys) in return, Fn as in function, stops working for the top half of the keyboard.

Not sure if you're complaining about the fact that we don't want to put any Fn keys on the gamebuttons, or something else. In the former case, that's been an established desire/need of the community.

We agree Fn does F-keys, but if your thirdlevelshift (which you call meta) also does diactrics, you not only run into the problem of symbols on letters, but also visible diactrics, when in places they dont belong, make you look for both when they can be confused with eachother.

Same problem as visible foreign letters, its bad for those who are English, and its not how those foreginers type.

I don't think there will be as much confusion as you seem to anticipate. Since the german symbols are in one cluster with the Meta layer, put Norwegian symbols in that cluster. (Remap that part of the Meta layer.) Or if you prefer, create an AltGr mapping that suits your country best. There's lots of options here, and no bad ones.

If switching language is too bad, why isn't having to caps-lock to do big letters (with the wrong modifier) bad? Its exactly the problem of italian layout.

@CapsLock: huh? @italians: as far as i can tell, the italians will have a really great keyboard with the Pyra (based on just the Meta layer alone), and the standard AltGr layer (chosen from the keyboard settings from a stock Debian image) will do exactly what they want it to do, if they don't like the Meta locations of []{} for example.

If we had chosen your layout, which imposes itself upon the AltGr layer, we'd have a lot more problems for user customizability, AND we'd have trouble using existing keyboard layout customizers in Debian. Thankfully, with the final Pyra layout, there are no such difficulties.

Anyhow, fix the space, thats atleast a pure bonus for all points of view.

Nope. We've had this discussion thousands of times, and we lost, both in the popular vote and by the ruling of our benevolent dictator, ED. Let it go.

 

[comradekingu]

Spoiler

Meta is not a shift type modifier though, you invented the layer, not the button, or the use for it.

As long as it doesnt say "meta" its irrelevant. You put a layer that doesnt belong on Fn on Fn, and then put that on letters, and then added diactrics in a way that confuses more than it solves.

AltGr, where it does thirdlevelshift, is used in conjunction with a lot of symbols that these keyboards have in common. Not things like paragraphsign, which is a german exclusive.

If this is what you mean by german symbols, i dont know. The norwegian language, as german, has letters that dont fit because A isnt at A for them.

(Everything else than layout in the layout orientation is a bad option to how typing works.)

Why would i want things like that, and the same symbols on different layers, named after a convention only found on mobile keyboards lacking keys, in places they are only found on mobile keyboards.

Im complaining about the fact that if you have Fn on shoulders, you _cant_ have Fn combos on gamebuttons. (because this would be triggered in games that use shoulders.) I happen to like brightness at Fn+↑ and brigthness down at Fn+↓ (or at pageup and pagedown)  like a laptop.

Something that is largely irrelevant for me, since shoulders arent marked.

In terms of customizability, the difference is less available Fn mappings, they are used up. Way less diactrics, No language layer, way less shift+ and altGr+ combo presses, ability to AZERTY without moving visible symbols, and at the moment

no dedicated compose, is a problem. Solved by having singlewide space. Something we would have, if all the people who are for it, like all the keyboard design people, stop pointing to ED, which is very open to discussion, and has disclosed singlewide as an option on two occations, with changing his mind back and forth a few times.

Pointing to a vote, which sits at 33 vs 51 atm. 34 vs 51 if you actually vote and not just submit defeat.

Its actual arguments that should dicate design, not dictators, which ED is not.

Edit: When the mold is made is when i'll let it go, either its fixed, or we can have the same discussion for the next model. (notice how we arent having the big enter, shift or backspace discussion now)

Which part of this do in retrospect of today think look the most like it is derived from horse-/back/carridge riding?

In terms of steering, lets not reinvent the wheel by assumption.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

If as Grench said, 5ghz leads to potentially faster download speeds then it might be a good idea after all.