Asus Reveals the Eee Keyboard

El Lobo writes "Asus' success with its Eee line of netbooks might have come as a surprise, but the company is now determined to expand the Eee brand into every possible niche and form factor. Case in point: the insanely cool Eee Keyboard, which will surely bring a smile on the faces of those who remember the glory days of the home computer. Described as a fully functional PC with inset Qwerty key arrangement, the keyboard has a 5in touch screen that displays a suite of bespoke media controls or a Windows desktop."

Comments

Fond memories

[Naatach]

Ahh. Atari 600, I pine for thee.

Re:Fond memories

[commodore64_love]

>>>You're thinking of the Atari Vic-20. All those models you named were Commodore models.

I always find it amusing when somebody tries to correct somebody else, but fraks it up. Atari VIC-20. Ha! The original poster was correct with his listing of Atari computers. The key models (not an exhaustive list) from that era were:

Commodore PET, VIC-20, 64, and Amiga (1000 was the first, followed by 500 and 2000)
Atari 400, 800, 400XL, 800XL, and the ST. Also the 2600, 5200, and 7800 which were videogame consoles.
Apple II, IIc, IIe, and Macintosh
IBM PC, XT, PCjr, and PS/2

It's a shame that Atari and Commodore are no longer around. It was fun watching all the various formats compete with one another for dominance. Commodore's Amiga line could do things neither Macintosh nor the PCs can do, even today.

Re:Fond memories

[commodore64_love]

No of course not. Today's PCs and Macs can do Video Toaster like effects. Anyway....

The original Commodore Amiga 1000 could do preemptive multitasking with only 256 kilobytes of RAM. It was and still is very efficient with memory.

It is not limited to just one screen like a Mac or PC. The Amiga can do multiple screens with independent resolutions. So for example you could have a 720x480 screen for a DVD movie, a 320x200 screen to emulate an old Super Nintendo console, and a 1600x1200 screen for surfing the web. Being able to give each program its own full screen instead of being confined to windows is a much better computing environment.

It doesn't use a Microsoft OS. ;-)

Re:Fond memories

[anss123]

Arguably you can have different fullscreen resolutions on DOS/Windows/Linux too. What the Amiga had over them was the ability to show multiple screens at the same time, but since only the horizontal resolution could change you would not be able to use this for 320x200 and 720x480.

1440x480 and 720x480 works, 640x200 and 320x200 works, but not 320x480 and 320x200.

This limitation comes from CRT monitors. They have to resynch to change vertical resolution, this because images are drawn from top to bottom in a series of lines going from left to right. The end of a line is technically ended by a synch signal, so to change vertical resolution (the amount of lines) you have to change this synch signal - which cause the monitor to go 'boink' as it resynchs to the new synch signal.

Horizontal resolution is, OTOH, simply a product of how fast the Amiga can change its color output - which tops out at something like 1280 pixels.

cool

[grumpyman]

This is comparable to a mini pc tucked under the TV with a wireless keyboard and/or a harmony control. The battery life and software UI on the touchpad will be critical to the success of this product.

5" screen?

[Tired and Emotional]

I am glad I kept my Osborne 1 disks - I can now run those programs in full screen mode under cpem80.

Re:5" screen?

[XPeter]

Look at the bright side. At least you could play crysis on that screen with an average video card.

Not innovative; but slick enough, and really fun..

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Kind of like the EEE itself, actually. You've been able to get computers built into keyboards from specialist suppliers for ages now(not to mention the pantheon of fondly-remembered early systems in the form factor) but they aren't inexpensive and tend toward slightly dull, legacy heavy designs, which is appropriate given the usual customers for such things; but not really exciting.

This little guy, if it ever makes it to market, should be great fun to play around with(particularly if the secondary screen widget is reasonably open to hackers and third party devs). Good looking, probably fairly cheap, no doubt fairly basic specs; but enough for many purposes. I like it.

It is the new 64.

[LWATCDR]

Humm. Now they need to add a USB hard drive that also has a USB Hub in it so that I can add a second USB hard drive and the a printer :)

Re:It is the new 64.

[sexconker]

Yo dawg we heard you like usb hard drives so we put a usb port on your usb hard drive so you can use a usb hard drive on your usb hard drive.

Re:It is the new 64.

[LWATCDR]

You never used a C64 with a 1541 drive did you?
The old C64 used a serial version of the IEE-488 bus to connect drives and printers. It allowed dasy chaining of one drive to another and usually ended with a printer if you had one.

Not cool any more?

[Gary]

"...much like many home computers from the days Back To The Future was cool".

Oh geez! I missed the memo. Back to the Future isn't cool any more? Man I'm getting old!

Eee Keyboard

[clinko]

Anyone else read the headline and think

"Finally, a new/good keyboard for the EEE netbook."

Re:Eee Keyboard

[travdaddy]

No I thought, "I understand QWERTY and even DVORAK keyboards, but why the hell would anyone want three E keys?"

Re:Eee Keyboard

[Endo13]

Because E is the most used letter in the English alphabet!! Duh!!

I already own several similar models.

[serviscope_minor]

I already own a computer of a similar form factor. It's kitted out with a state of the art CMOS 6502 processor running at 2 MHz and a unified graphics architecture with 32K of main memory and 32K of PROM based storeage (UV erasable in about 20 minutes or so). Not only that, but it has every expansion port you might expect: parallel, TTL, composite and UHF video, RS-423, analogue, the CPU bus (just for good measure), econet (TM) networking and the innovative Tube(r) interface. Not only that but it also comes with builtin support for both audio tape and *double sided* 5.25 inch floppy disks.

Programs are available for download every night, for free, over the air with a compatible teletext input interface.

Frankly, there's no contest.

Funny anecdote: I remember reading a news story about a burglary at a school which had recently upgraded to the new, shiny Archimedes, replacing their old BBCs. The theives broke in and stole all the keyboards, not realising that the computer was now in a separate box.

Tech Support Hell

[Arthur Grumbine]

I can only imagine the confusion this will bring to non-Asus tech support around the world:
Tech: How can I help you today, ma'am?
Little Old Lady: Well, I haven't been able to print my letter using the printer I purchased from you, although I can print other documents just fine. I turned my keyboard off and then back on, just like my son taught me...
Tech: You mean your computer, ma'am? You turned your computer off and then back on?
Little Old Lady: Isn't that what I said?! Well, anyways, I'm looking but I can't seem to find my letter, now.
Tech: Ma'am can you please describe what the screen looks like?
Little Old Lady: Which one? There's a copy of the letter that I haven't been able to print on the keyboard right now. And there's just a blank document open on the monitor.
Tech: There's a copy on the keyboard but you haven't been able to print it?!! How did it get onto the keyboard, ma'am?
etc...

nice!

[gEvil (beta)]

It's got USB ports, so you can easily add a second keyboard for some marathon sessions of two-player Notepad!

Memories

[MBGMorden]

This brings up fond memories of back when the keyboard WAS the computer. I remember being a REALLY young kid (probably 7 or 8), and seeing a regular IBM/PC keyboard in the store for $35. Since the only computers I'd ever seen back then were Commodores, TI-99/4a's, Apple's, and Tandys, I perceived this as a great deal since I thought that that keyboard was a whole computer. I remember begging my mom to buy it for me since I wanted a computer so bad and it was only $35. Thankfully, she didn't get it. Man I'd have been disappointed if I'd have gotten that thing home and tried to connect it to a TV :).

Not much later I ended up getting a Commodore 64 :).

Re:Suggestion...

[larry bagina]

it already does wireless display -- ultra wideband wireless HDMI.

Re:Not innovative; but slick enough, and really fu

[mollymoo]

It doesn't look like much use as a laptop due to the tiny screen in an awkward place and lack of cover for the keyboard. A three hour battery life means it's not much use as a wireless keyboard. I suppose as a desktop PC it would be OK, but then why have the tiny additional screen and battery? They just make it larger and more expensive than it needs to be. Ditch the screen and battery and it might make for a cheap, compact desktop PC, but as it is I just don't see the point. On the other hand there are plenty of things I don't see the point of that are hugely popular, so what do I know?

Re:Not quite what I would want

[ErkDemon]

Wouldn't it be better if the media center itself were a plain, small and silent box (like the Apple TV) to which this neat keyboard could be connected wirelessly?

They already do one!

The Eee Box is a small, plain, (almost) silent PC with wifi that comes with a mounting bracket so you can bolt it to the back of your flat monitor or TV via the four VESA mount holes.

More like VIC-TV

[JoeCommodore]

It's more like the VIC-TV, a 1983 Commodore CES prototype. Picture at Secret Weapons of Commodore pages:
http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/supervic.html

Appropriate use of technology?

[Locke2005]

Let me see if I got this straight: this box has no DVD drive or large hard drive, so the "killer" app for this toy is to stream video over wireless to the keyboard, decode it, then stream it again to another box connected to your television??? I'm no system engineer, but wouldn't it make a lot more sense to put all the brains in the box connected to the television (and the power outlet), and just use a cheap remote control (with much better battery life) to control it?

Or maybe you could use it to play games on... in which case wouldn't you be better served by any of the current game consoles equipped with a wireless controller? One more thing... if you've got a built-in wireless HDMI for streaming video to a largescreen TV... what the fsck do you need a crappy 5" LCD screen for??? Sure, this is a cute toy, but what does it enable the average user to actually do better than what they are using now?

Bam! Power Supply

[KalvinB]

problem solved.

Seriously unless you plan on using this thing on the go there's no reason to rely on a battery. And it's not much of a system for on the go computing.

The only reason I don't like laptops is because if the screen goes out you're screwed. My wife's laptop is perfectly functional minus the screen. Fortunatly it has a TV out so it's used to watch Netflix on the TV. This keyboard PC is something that for the right price may be worth getting to replace the old and busted laptop to serve that purpose and be useful for other things as well.

I don't really want to pay $99 for a dedicated Netflix box but if it could be used as a regular PC as well then that's more reasonable.