IRK for Belkin F8U1500 Available Options

[kopsis]

I've been using a Pocketop keyboard with the Zaurus ever since the first release of Craig Graham's IRK. I've always liked the Pocketop's small size but the lack of a number key row really hurts typing speed ... especially when writing code.

So after recently trying every IR PDA keyboard I could get my hands on, I decided my favorite was the Belkin F8U1500. It's almost the exact same design as the Pocketop but a little longer and wider with a full row of number/punctuation keys. Keyspacing is a little tighter than a standard laptop, but the layout is sane so it's not hard to get used to. The mirrored PDA stand that comes with the keyboard is a little flimsy, but with my C760 I don't have any need for the stand. Just swivel the screen around backwards and line up the IR ports. With the stand discarded, the Belkin is much more compact than the Targus (which was my second choice) and it has regular arrow keys instead of that funky Targus joypad thing. And to really clinch the deal, Amazon has the Belkin in stock for $40 with free shipping!

There's only one minor problem with the Belkin ... IRK 0.11.0 doesn't support it. Luckily Craig has been good enough to release the source code for IRK so it was a pretty simple matter to go in and hack it up to work with the Belkin. Since I'm sure there are other folks out there who would like to be able to use this keyboard, I'm releasing my Belkin version of IRK as IRK 0.11.1. When Craig finishes IRK 2 I'll be happy to merge this in so we'll have on IRK that supports everything, but until then this hacked up version should do nicely.

You can download my Belkin IRK from

• http://kopsisengineering.com/irk-zaurus_0.11.1_arm.ipk

and if you'd like the source code just grab

• http://kopsisengineering.com/irk-current.tgz.

A few things you need to know before you install:

• If you have a previous version of IRK installed, you must uninstall it before installing this one.
• The Belkin support replaces the Targus support so this won't work with a Targus keyboard (Pocketop is still supported).
• This is built for standard Sharp ROMs and tested on Cacko 1.21a. It should work on most Sharp-like ROMs but if you have OZ or pdaXrom, you're on your own.
• Not all of the special functions on the keyboard work. I'll work on improving that but I wanted to get this out sooner rather than later.
• This is unsupported, untested software! Back up anything you can't afford to lose before you try it!

Good luck. If you have problems, post here and I'll do what I can to help. Thanks and credit for this should really go to Craig Graham for writing and releasing IRK! If Craig ever decides to accept donations for IRK I'll be first in line