Me and my frind have come up with a project to split a keyboard into 2
seperate pieces and place each one on a  chair arm. after thinking about this
for awhile, i thought that it may be easier to use an ir keyboard or even a
radio band one. When I opened my keyboard, i realized that this would be more
difficult than I anticipated. My keyboard's got those 2 plastic key grids at
the bottom. Do you think it's possible (realisticly) to split a ir keybord
and have both sides transmit to the same reciever? Any tips, ideas, or
comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

12 responses total.

Get two keyboards and only use half of each. 

Electrically, most keyboards have an X-Y wire matrix, with each key
actuating some form of switch at the junction.  Older keyboards used
actual mechanical switches, newer keyboards may use capacitors, magnets,
or other non-contact technology in place of a switch.  The X-Y matrix is
in turn connected to a microprocessor which shifts a single bit through
the X wires, then reads the Y wires to decode which keys are pressed.
After appropriate processing, it generates up/down key codes and outputs
those.  These generally go out a serial port, to logic on the computer.
In the PC architecture, the keyboard serial interface uses TTL logic
with special buffer logic to protect against shorts and the like, and is
connected to another microprocessor on the motherboard, which is also
connected to the mouse, A20 enable, and front panel keyswitch.

Your IR keyboard might use either USB or the older PS/2 "PC
architecture" interface - you don't say which.  I guess you have a
number of choices for how you could implement your keyboard.  You could
(1) as you want, saw your keyboard in half.  You'll have to pick out the
X-Y grid contacts you've cut through, and make them electrically good --
this may be 10-20 wires that you'll have to make good.  On the bright
side, since you're talking about gluing this to a chair, this may not be
that big a deal.  You might have trouble sawing *around* the switches
next to the cut.  You may find it easier to saw through *two* keyboards,
so that you have some overlap and only need to make *one* side of each
cut work right.

Another approach would be, as Rane suggests, to just use 2 keyboards.
You could probably saw out the redundant bits of each, but you'll have
to make good on any missing circuit continuity.  With USB, that *might*
not be such a big deal, if USB has smart enough addressing logic to deal
with 2 keyboards out on its bus.  You might still need some software
logic in your PC to merge the 2 separate key press streams.

If you're using PS/2 technology, or USB isn't that smart, you'll need to
put something "in the middle" to merge the key streams, to "look" like
one keyboard to your computer.  On the bright side, you could switch
betweeen interface styles -- such as using old salvaged PS/2 keyboards,
then converting to IR, then looking like USB.  You'll probably want to
program your own keyboard(-ish) microprocessor, but this is no big deal
- something like one of the 6809+eprom or PIC controllers will do fine
at this, as it's not very complicated.  The hardest part may be getting
enough information on the actual interface to get it all to work.

One final approach to mention -- don't they still *make* split
keyboards? Unless you want to go through the pain of one of the above
approaches, it may be easier to buy the results of someone else's brain
juice.

I'd look for one of those ergonomic keyboards that's in two seperate, 
pivotable halves.  (Not one chunk like the Microsoft Natural 
Keyboard).  Then it's probably just a matter of splicing a cable to 
make it longer.  I've never seen the innards of a Natural Keyboard, 
though, it's possible it's got two seperate circuit boards inside and 
you could do the same with it.

in reply to #2 It would be less of a pain. However, the cheapest split keyoard
I've seen was $180. Besides what fun would that be? Thanks for everyone's
input. 

I think the "split keyboard" mentioned above could be something like the
Microsoft Natural Keyboard, which sells for about $50-60.  Internally it would
have separate circuit boards for the halves of the keyboard and therefore
would be easy to modify for what you want.

Does anybody know how to create a new conference?   I'm new to this whole
unix-thing like I said...I'm still learning shell commands but you know :P
So what's up anyhow?  Nobody's been posting lately...

Welcome to Grex!  

To create a conference, you should go to the Coop conference first and see
how the place is run.  Usually you'd ask there, and it would get some
discussion, and then if you still really wanted one you'd send mail to the
right people requesting it.

In other words, you can't set one up yourself; it's a privileged
administrative function.  But the policy is (as Scott said) that if, after
suggesting/requesting a conference and receiving input from others, you still
think you want it, you can then have it set up just by emailing cfadm.

In a lot of cases the feedback you get may amount to nothing more than a
suggestion to enter an item in some existing conference (or just a suggestion
that a cf already exists exactly like what you're proposing).

That's bizarre...like...star trek and blueberry pie :D

What Distro of Unix is Grex?  I can't find it anywhere...

Try     uname -rs      or just      uname -a

Okay that sounds good. :)  

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