Odd or interesting Keyboard Ideas

[foopod]

So I have been looking into making a custom keyboard and I stumbled across metalliqaz's post(http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=57639.0) regarding Embedding a password on a keyboard and it made me think.

If we are going through the process of making keyboards, what are some other features that would make keyboards awesome?

I came up with a couple of ideas. What do you guys think? What other ideas do you have?

Docking station
-Dock your micro-usb phone/device in your keyboard to charge or connect it to your PC.
-Most keyboards are stable/heavy enough to do this nicely, but may need additional power or usb3 to be effective.

Keyboard hdd
-Embed a flash Drive or sd card so your keyboard has its own internal memory that you can take anywhere your keyboard goes.

More inputs
-Scrollwheel/trackpad/trackball/volumeknob/arcadejoystick?.....
-Less original

[foopod]

Bump!

I was thinking about the idea of a keyboard flash drive some more. It can't be too hard right? Just splice the incoming cable between the Teensy and a flashdrive inside the case.

However that lead me to look into USB 3.0 Flash drives, obviously the faster the read/write the better. However USB 3.0 cables make use of 9 wires rather than the four in USB 2.0. I am also thinking about using an SD card.

Does anyone have what would be the easiest way to make something like this that is also fairly high performing?

[p3lim]

Add this to it

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/motix/motixtm-control-at-your-fingertips

[BlueBär]

Does anyone have what would be the easiest way to make something like this that is also fairly high performing?

USB hubs in keyboards exist already (see the HHKB) and that's basically what you're doing. Take a cheap, non powered USB hub, disassemble it, put it inside the case and attach a USB stick and your keyboard to it.

[jacobolus]

I’d recommend starting a separate thread about each idea, or browsing around the forums here to see other people’s ideas. The topic you’ve set out here is too broad to have much meaningful discussion, IMO.

[Findecanor]

Docking station

Matias has a keyboard that instead of nav keys above the arrows, has a place to put your phone. With a touch of a button, it turns into a Bluetooth keyboard for the phone.
Yeah, I think it could have a docking station port also...

-Scrollwheel/trackpad/trackball/volumeknob/arcadejoystick?.....

All of these are old ideas and have been done more than once, except maybe a joystick with arcade-style controls specifically.

USB hubs in keyboards exist already (see the HHKB) and that's basically what you're doing. Take a cheap, non powered USB hub, disassemble it, put it inside the case and attach a USB stick and your keyboard to it.

Some keyboards also have USB pass-through with the cable splitting into two plugs at the host, so that the USB drive can get the USB port itself for maximum throughput.

[Razor Lotus]

I've seen this done somewhere before but only once though

raspberry pi in kb

[CPTBadAss]

Maybe a weighting system like a G600 mouse? That'd be kinda fun. You could "tune" the weight to something that suited you?

I also like the modular keyboard idea where you can move the numpad around to diff sides. There's a korean board that's like that....forget the name though. I think if you could have the function row, nav cluster, and num pad all modular, it'd be fun to see what layouts would work.