Category: hardware-hacking

links to gizmos that can be hacked

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VKB Virtual Keyboard available

While they were mentioned on Slashdot over two years ago, these “virtual keyboards” seemed to always be just a little bit further on the horizon, and to be incorporated into cell phones and PDAs, not as a stand-alone gadget amenable to hacking.

But it looks like one company, VKB has in production a stand-alone version with a serial port output. And at least one company in the US, “PC-notetaker” is selling them. For $199.

That’s just a bit expensive for casually buying one to hack apart and maybe turn into an interesting music performance gizmo. Maybe I’ll try one out anyway. I wonder how many simultaneous keypresses it can handle?

(oh wait, it looks like expansys has some for $160.95)

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ZigBee stuff

ZigBee is a newish RF radio protocol at the same frequency of Bluetooh and 802.11b (ISC 2.4GHz). Unlike both of those protocols, it doesn’t suck (power). It’s meant to sip on batteries for months while still being part of a ZigBee mesh. And it seems to be designed to better deal in noiser environments (which the 2.4GHz band is definitely now).

There’s been at least one article in Circuit Cellar about it, I need to re-read it.

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Tiny Access Points as 802.11 Coprocessor

I’ve essentially given up getting something like the DPAC Wireless module (even though Circuit Cellar has had at least two nice articles about it). However, I recently found a consumer access point that is cheaper and almost as small.

The Asus WL330 Pocket Access Point was recently
reviewed by Tom’s Hardware (I didn’t know Asus even made networking gear).

It has some interesting features:

  • Acts as AP, bridge or ethernet adapter
  • tiny: 86mm * 62mm * 17mm (3.4″x2.4″x0.7″)
  • low-ish power: 4VDC @ 1A
  • pretty darn cheap: ~$69 (and getting cheaper it looks like)

From the pictures that Tom’s Hardware took of the internals, it looks like a few more millimeters could be shaved from it’s width (maybe down to 50mm) and a bit from its length (maybe down to 80mm) by removing the outer plastic shell.

And it turns out Asus makes an 802.11g version of this gizmo, called the Asus WL330g Pocket Access Point.