I want my $100+ proprietary serial port palm/think-out-side/igo folding keyboard to work w/my Apple iPod Touch Bluetooth!
( Here's a picture of one:
Well, Think Outside is now called iGo and iGo has not made keyboards for years. Three years to be exact. Yes, I know, the last bluetooth keyboard they made is still fiercely being sold and bought for the extraordinary price of $150 to $200 used and new (really? new? who are they kidding?).
Also, I know there are new bi-folding bluetooth keyboards out there that range from about $60 to $80. But where's the fun in that?
So, here's the challange (i.e. hack): How do I convert my old Palm/Thinkout-Side proprietary serial port keyboard into a 2.1 bluetooth keyboard (bluetooth 2.1 is the protocol that iPod Touch's speak, FYI).
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M$2 Answers
they might have different scan code though so you might need to use an exacto knife to cut the trace and patch them with a wire or something
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M$Maybe a little board with an MCU and a BCM2042 (bluetooth HID chip) would work?
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M$
Does anyone know if an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad uses HID or SPP for their bluetooth keyboard interface? (Maybe I should make this a new question.)
doing it that way, you could have it connected externally and you don't need to cram it in. I think that would probably the simplest way to tackle this. Let me know how it turns out. I am doing some thing similar.
this guy added a second blue tooth module for his iphone
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/01/iphone-hacked-to-work-with-standard-bluetooth-keyboard.ars
here is an other solution for it
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/11/external-keyboard-hacked-to-work-with-iphone.ars
you might be able to program some thing for it.
apparently there is quite a few bluetooth sdk for iphone
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1427250/how-to-use-bluetooth-to-connect-two-iphone
Here's a link from Apple - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3647
They mention HID, but not SPP. For MacOSX they mention SPP, so the lack of a mention here sounds like SPP is definitely not supported on iOS.
I'm posting nate's answer as answers.hackaday.com apparently dropped this one in a dark deep bit buck hole somewhere:
"One of them bluetooth to UART modules and an MCU would work, but that'd require some iPod-side magic.
Maybe a little board with an MCU and a BCM2042 (bluetooth HID chip) would work?"
looks like you all ready thought of that
forgot my reference
http://www.wirelessforums.org/alt-cellular-attws/iphone-has-no-hid-profile-33675.html
I would take the blue tooth module from a blue tooth key board or simply swap out the matrix. I don;t think ssp key board are supported
after doing some quick research I phone does not seem to support HID profile. :( hmmmm maybe you could put it as a dock and dock your iphone like the palm does....
Hi jmlb...
I took a closer look at my Thinkoutside keyboard. The bump seen just to the right of the pilot in the above picture is where I assume the electronics package is. Removing the two screws did not lift the cover. Perhaps there is a screw from beneath. Regardless, any integral BT hack would have to fit into this space. I'm doubtful that is possible. Further, this Thinkoutside keyboard leaches power from the palm. There is no battery compartment. If you are wondering how Thinkoutside fixed this before their demise here's an image from an ebay auction (image source looks to be in TX, not ebay so it might stay up for a while):
You can see the palm connector was replaced w/the battery and some how they crammed the BT into the above mentioned bump.
I think what I will do is get the cheapest keyboard that everyone likes:
And evaluate how big the electronics package is. At which point I will entertain the idea of a PIC based RS232 to key-board-matrix-simulator.
Humm... That does sound like a very round-about way of doing things. Let me think about this some more...
I'm formulating an idea of what to do. I think jmlb and nate and others are pionting this way. If most keyboard matrix patters are similar, then it would follow that most keyboard's have interchangeable decoders. I am hoping the current decoder is so similar to the $30 bluetooth keyboard offered up by amazon that the hack could be as simple as jmlb suggests. If so, the real trick is to make it fit!
iOS 4.0 supports Bluetooth keyboards on iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and 3rd-gen iPod touch. iPad 3.2.x supports BT keyboards too. I have a BT keyboard that works, HID profile works for sure, not sure about SPP. I also have an old Stowaway and it would be great if someone could figure out a hardware hack for this :-)
So, the question is: "Does the iPhone work with SPP keyboards?"
Why?, Because those are the only (serial to) bluetooth modules I can find. If anyone can find my a HID module that does the same - I'm all ears!
-thanks
I am assuming the chip you want to use in the other post is for that? are you reusing a chip or were you planing on buying that? also if they don't match you could proably get a really small micro controller to do the conversion or a eeprom. Parralelle in parralelle out. you put the scan code as the input, and you save the new scan code in the memory. This way too you could even flash a new layout