(yet another thread about) The Optimus Keyboard

[rhoenix]

Good news: Pre-orders are being taken for the new Optimus Maximus keyboard, expected to go on sale in December of this year.

Bad news: Is that keyboard seriously going to cost $1564.37 (US)? Someone please prove to me that I'm reading that wrong or misinterpreting it or something. If I'm not wrong or misinterpreting the price, well then...fuck.

I have to stop myself from trying to justify saving up for it.

[General Zod]

If they're sincerely charging that much for it, it's going to fail as a peripheral.

[Darth Wong]

Any $1500 keyboard called the "Optimus Maximus" should transform into a truck and shoot laser beams, or it's not worth it.

[Stark]

I have to stop myself from trying to justify saving up for it.

Why? It's in no way even remotely worth it.

[rhoenix]

Why? It's in no way even remotely worth it.

At that price, I didn't say it was difficult to do - only that the geeky "must have shiny object" urge was there briefly.

I mean, that's a nice keyboard, but I can buy a complete PC for less than its cost.

[Starglider]

Any $1500 keyboard called the "Optimus Maximus" should transform into a truck and shoot laser beams, or it's not worth it.

But it uses 113 separate 16-bit colour OLED displays independently updated at 10 frames per second! Surely such overengineering is worth the price, especially for a piece of equipment competent users don't look at when they're using it!

The best use for this is a prop on some low-budget sci-fi series. But not too low budget, given the pricetag. I am however thinking of ordering a full set (three) of these. I appreciate their honesty in taking the 'use pictures of hot women to sell bits of completely unrelated IT equipment' meme to the X-treme.

[ColonialAdmiral]

Wait, i'm confused. It says the release date is 15.03.2007. There are only 12 months...And if they are using DD/MM/YY then it would already be out...Is this a joke site? I hope it's not because then i'm sadly very very far out of the loop...

[General Zod]

Wait, i'm confused. It says the release date is 15.03.2007. There are only 12 months...And if they are using DD/MM/YY then it would already be out...Is this a joke site? I hope it's not because then i'm sadly very very far out of the loop...

Since the builder is not based in America, I would assume they're using non-American dating conventions, where the days are placed before the month.

[Darth Wong]

The American dating convention is totally illogical. The most logical dating convention would be YYYY-MM-DD. Arranged in order of significance, like numbering systems. The Americans literally order it the way they speak it, rather than ordering it in a way that works best for numerical sorting.

[ThatGuyFromThatPlace]

could be useful for smitching back and forth between DVORAK (which I use for Typing) and Qwerty (for gaming) so I don't have to memorize both configs and totally defeat the purpose of switching to DVORAK in the first place.

but for 1500 bucks, I'd rather guess and check.

I have to say, the various peripheral ports are nice are there any reasonably priced keyboards out there with USB 2.0 and SD card ports and removable keys?

[Starglider]

could be useful for smitching back and forth between DVORAK (which I use for Typing) and Qwerty (for gaming)

I don't understand why you'd need to switch back for gaming. Can't you just remap your controls so that they're in the same places you're expecting on the DVORAK keyboard?

but for 1500 bucks, I'd rather guess and check.

Windows XP works fine with two USB keyboards plugged into it. Are you using old PS2 ones? If not just plug both in and swap them around on your desk.

[Cao Cao]

$1500 for a giant gimmick that bears a disturbing resemblance to a ZX Spectrum?

.. and you just know somebody's going to buy it just to put porn images on every single key.

[MKSheppard]

I'd buy it when the price dropped to about $100-$150; simply to make playing flight simulators or any kind of simulator MUCH MUCH EASIER.

No need to memorize keys; just hit the key that has a big glowy EJECT button on it

[His Divine Shadow]

Good news: Pre-orders are being taken for the new Optimus Maximus keyboard, expected to go on sale in December of this year.

Bad news: Is that keyboard seriously going to cost $1564.37 (US)? Someone please prove to me that I'm reading that wrong or misinterpreting it or something. If I'm not wrong or misinterpreting the price, well then...fuck.

I have to stop myself from trying to justify saving up for it.

Thats pretty hot, if they'd move the decimal point to the left one figure, I would buy it.

[rhoenix]

Yeah, agreed with MK and His Divine Shadow - if it goes on a 10% sale or something, hell yeah I'd get it. But there's simply no way I'd spend more than a computer to get a keyboard.

[Darth Wong]

Wouldn't it actually be cheaper to get a touchscreen?

[Starglider]

Wouldn't it actually be cheaper to get a touchscreen?

Touchscreen ergonomics suck for sustained use. It's easy to hit the wrong button, there's no tactile feedback to confirm that you did hit the right button and they easily get all smeared up with fingerprints (this is incidentally a good rationale for why ST uses them an SW does not). I visited the London air traffic control centre a lot when I was young (father was a controller) and a lot of the equipment used buttons with LED and LCD alphanumeric displays on them for programmable functions - which must've been pretty expensive - because touch screens suck. The only reason POS systems use them is because they're so cheap now, because they're easy to seal against hostile environments and because in that application neither keying rate, accuracy, visual smearing nor the ability to look at another display while typing are critical issues. This keyboard is no real functionality improvement over the technology LATCC was employing in the late 80s, it's just shinier (and a little lighter, but I bet those OLEDs don't last as long).

[Executor32]

I was originally looking forward to this keyboard, but the price is just way too out there to seriously consider buying it.

Note: This post brought to you (just for shits and giggles) entirely by the DVORAK layout. It's convenient that all the keys on my keyboard are sloped the same way, so they can be easily rearranged. Time to write this post: about 5 minutes.

[phongn]

There is only one true keyboard.