Alternative Design For The Ppz, To solve all issues. Options

[Ferret-Simpson]

I think the biggest issue so far, has been that of the keyboard. Feel free to disagree.

Everyone and their grandmother has had their own idea of what they want from this. I've been after a keyboard similar to a Universal or Clamshell Zaurus, some have wanted chorded keyboards, some folding belkin-style keyboards, some just want a slate.

How about just MAKING a slate, without a keyboard. I propose that a separate keyboard is produced, however the heck anyone wants it, that connects to a port on the bottom of the device. You can have it on a cable, folding, with a Zaurus-style hinge on it so that it folds over the slate part. Whatever. You could either use a USB/M-USB connector, or attach it to the internal keyboard pins, (As long as they're capable of hotplugging.) What you'd end up with is a thicker display unit, and a thinner keyboard that you could flip out. You could carry a blooming Sun Type 6 130 odd key USB model instead, if you felt like it.

In fact, put the ATA connector on the same port and put the hard disk in the keyboard. That'll bulk up the keyboard a it, slim down the base unit, and let you decide again whether you want a 2.5GB notebook drive (With an external PSU or LARGE extra battery) a 1.8" CF-type Microdrive, a 60GB iPod drive, or a 256MB Flash card. Whatever floats your boat.

[Da_Blitz]

the detachable keyboard is still a good idea if you understand it fully, let me explain

by standerdising on USB it defines a keyboard interface, which is very nice for me as it makes thins simple, by using a standard interface we can also pulg other acsecesorries into it.

even if the keyboard is detachable i have said that i am making the joint rugerd as i see it as bieng the weakest part of the desin. if you want a heavy keyboard that is fine as it really dosent have much to do with the connector because i want to make it a requirement that the battery be in the addon pack.

now if you dont want a keyboard this may seem wierd unless you make a battery pack that sits flush with the back of the screen that plugs into the usb port. makes changing battries very easy and we could chuck a usb hub chipset in there with the battery so when you get home you can plug in

now you mention a changeable keyboard, at the moment i am saying put the cpu and ram inside the screen part and make the keyboard only contain the battery and some extra IO (eg a usb hub and perhaps an extra sd card or usb flash disk) doing this means you can have a tablet by just dropping the keyboard and plugging in a usb battery pack, one other advantage is that you have a usb abttery pack that can be used to power other devices.

one isde effect is that i can now EM shield the entire design as its all in the screen and i dont have to worry about a rotating cable that gets fed to the screen, not to mention the shorter cables this isnt without disadvantages, one of them bieng that IO on the Z becomes limited because i am trying to minimise the hieght of the screen, if you dont mind a thigker screen and thinner keyboard thats great.

i could however make the suondcard USB as well as the SD card readers and the CF card readers meaning you could have more than one and dirvers are not a problem. and in the case of the sound card you get better isolation from the sound or noise of the main processor. the problem is that its backpack dependent so that going to a battery only pack means you just lost sound it also pussehs up the price of teh backpacks. it also means the backpacks ore more custom than the screen/CPU which would only come in 2 or 3 diffrent models with diffrent ram cappacity and depending on the price of the wifi chipset, with or without wifi (if its less than $15 then this wont be an option as ram is the most expensive)

whereas the keyboard might come with diffrent sd/CF options, diffrent audio options, diffrent usb port options

anyway back to the point (or [/rant] how do you feel about what has been said and can anyone offer me an opinion, in terms of echonomics putting the stuff that can be changed in the keyboard/battery part means a cheaper cpu board as more of them are identical (ie non need to maintain diffrent models) which can be futher exploited by only offering it in 128MB RAM designs with wifi

[BarryW]

the detachable keyboard is still a good idea if you understand it fully, let me explain

by standerdising on USB it defines a keyboard interface, which is very nice for me as it makes thins simple, by using a standard interface we can also pulg other acsecesorries into it.

even if the keyboard is detachable i have said that i am making the joint rugerd as i see it as bieng the weakest part of the desin. if you want a heavy keyboard that is fine as it really dosent have much to do with the connector because i want to make it a requirement that the battery be in the addon pack.

now if you dont want a keyboard this may seem wierd unless you make a battery pack that sits flush with the back of the screen that plugs into the usb port. makes changing battries very easy and we could chuck a usb hub chipset in there with the battery so when you get home you can plug in

now you mention a changeable keyboard, at the moment i am saying put the cpu and ram inside the screen part and make the keyboard only contain the battery and some extra IO (eg a usb hub and perhaps an extra sd card or usb flash disk) doing this means you can have a tablet by just dropping the keyboard and plugging in a usb battery pack, one other advantage is that you have a usb abttery pack that can be used to power other devices.

one isde effect is that i can now EM shield the entire design as its all in the screen and i dont have to worry about a rotating cable that gets fed to the screen, not to mention the shorter cables this isnt without disadvantages, one of them bieng that IO on the Z becomes limited because i am trying to minimise the hieght of the screen, if you dont mind a thigker screen and thinner keyboard thats great.

i could however make the suondcard USB as well as the SD card readers and the CF card readers meaning you could have more than one and dirvers are not a problem. and in the case of the sound card you get better isolation from the sound or noise of the main processor. the problem is that its backpack dependent so that going to a battery only pack means you just lost sound it also pussehs up the price of teh backpacks. it also means the backpacks ore more custom than the screen/CPU which would only come in 2 or 3 diffrent models with diffrent ram cappacity and depending on the price of the wifi chipset, with or without wifi (if its less than $15 then this wont be an option as ram is the most expensive)

whereas the keyboard might come with diffrent sd/CF options, diffrent audio options, diffrent usb port options

anyway back to the point (or [/rant] how do you feel about what has been said and can anyone offer me an opinion, in terms of echonomics putting the stuff that can be changed in the keyboard/battery part means a cheaper cpu board as more of them are identical (ie non need to maintain diffrent models) which can be futher exploited by only offering it in 128MB RAM designs with wifi

I'm digging the idea. Personally I'd rather have the sound card built into the device itself. Hey, I can't remember, and too damn lazy to look, has anybody suggested something similar to the OQO?