eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) (12/24/88)
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
bradb@ai.toronto.edu (Brad Brown) (12/26/88)
In article <eX91V#3rLMNU=eric@snark.UUCP> eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) writes: > >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... Whether the IR keyboard really worked on the PC-Jr is debatable -- it *was* a cool idea but required a line-of-sight from the keyboard to the computer. This was *not* nice. If you could put the IR reciever on the NeXT monitor it would be OK, but then you'd still have to worry about paper getting in the way or the desk covering the LED when you type on your lap. Give me a nice old wire, just make it long and flexible! (-: Brad Brown :-) bradb@ai.toronto.edu