Optimus OLED Keyboard Pre-Orders Start Dec. 12

Jupix writes, "After almost a year and a half of public development, the Optimus OLED keyboard is nearing completion. According to the project blog, pre-orders for the Optimus-103 will start on December 12. The price is unspecified at this time, but Art Lebedev has said the keyboard will cost 'less than a good mobile phone' (probably about $400). Don't expect to see those 10 programmable function keys on the left on this first version, though, as they will not make their debut until the Optimus-113, released later."

NB: This keyboard does not use OLED.

[onemorehour]

Read the blog for details. They scrapped the OLED idea in favor of LCD screens to save cost.

Re:Under $400?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, looks like B&W LCD v.s. color OLED for the time being.

Re:Forced tilt?

[sc00ch]

Speak for yourself, over here in the UK we have the vertical 2 row (upside down L) enter key. I think there should be various layouts to match the different standards around the world.

Re:E-Paper keys?

[bdsd76]

According to art. lebedev, they chose not to go with e-paper due to its being too slow...

Re:Buckling springs have ergonomic advantages.

[kryptkpr]

My statement was simply that Programmers, on average, type faster then the general populace. I stand by this statement, but it is a one-way implication (and not at all a correlation).

So while being a programmer implies a faster average typing speed, I am in full agreement with you that having a faster average typing speed implies nothing (and least of all programming ability, it might just mean you spent months blabbing on IM to your buddies).

To all those people who are saying use a better language, you're either developing only software and/or not getting paid to write code.

If you're being paid, you code in what you're told to code, no matter how ugly the syntax. But at least you get to go home and write code in whatever beautiful language you prefer (mmm .. Python)..

If you're developing hardware, your choice comes down to Verilog or VHDL. VHDL (1993) especially is defined in such a way as to make massive amounts of typing (not to mention copy/pasting) inescapable. Keywords like CONV_STD_LOGIC_VECTOR (21 fucking characters for the most commonly used type-conversion function!) show up all over the place. It makes you type out "BEGIN" and "END".. no braces. Even a "simple" digital logic block such as a 4-to-1 MUX or a slight variation there-of can require a dozen lines of stupid, pointless syntax (so that it 'looks' like a MUX to the compiler) to implement .. no matter how good of a programmer you are.