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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: aggiejy on Wed, 03 August 2011, 16:07:47

Title: RIP: Art. Lebedev Optimus mini three - UPDATE: He's Alive!
Post by: aggiejy on Wed, 03 August 2011, 16:07:47: [ATTACH=CONFIG]23240[/ATTACH]

I remember it like it was yesterday... I was infatuated with the full-size Optimus mockups (http://www.engadget.com/2005/07/14/optimus-wireless-keyboard-wears-its-functions-on-its-keys/) that came out around 2005. By early 2006, mockups of a more realistic 3-key version (http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus-mini/) were floating around. I sent my money off to Russia the day I could and waited. I'm not sure how long I waited, but it wasn't a group buy 3 wait or anything... but it was fairly long. Then it happened... I received a padded envelop with 6 or 7 various sized and color postage stamps from Kong Kong. By the look of the package, the poor little guy had quite a rough journey to Texas. I loved this guy! Very programmable, and aside from the first-run production problem of a high-pitch power supply... he was perfect.

The last 5 years were great years little mini three. When you didn't turn on this morning, I thought... "****".

I'll miss you greatly. :sad:
Title: RIP: Art. Lebedev Optimus mini three
Post by: mtl on Wed, 03 August 2011, 16:43:32: How many keystrokes did it take?
Title: RIP: Art. Lebedev Optimus mini three
Post by: khanable on Wed, 03 August 2011, 16:48:40: Oooooh... I always wanted one of those... rip
Title: RIP: Art. Lebedev Optimus mini three
Post by: aggiejy on Wed, 03 August 2011, 17:19:10: Quote from: mtl;392447
How many keystrokes did it take?
I wasn't counting.

Napkin math says 10k-20k based on my usage pattern. Not too many... but it was a first run product built by a design shop. :)
Title: RIP: Art. Lebedev Optimus mini three
Post by: aggiejy on Wed, 03 August 2011, 17:38:49: Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated

Sorry folks, false alarm...

I had upgraded to Lion recently and I hadn't tried it until this morning. When that didn't work, I did think of Lion, so I tried on my windows machine. Nothing. But then while reminiscing I noticed that their site says it's only compatible with the 32-bit version of Win7.

So I tried on my wife's Macbook Air which I've neglected to upgrade, and BAM!

(http://cl.ly/90Ot/Image_2011.08.png)

Unfortunately, that does me little good. He's all but dead to me now. Might be time for the classified or eBay.
Title: RIP: Art. Lebedev Optimus mini three
Post by: IvanIvanovich on Thu, 04 August 2011, 12:47:30: Find the Prolific serial to usb com bridge driver for x64. The driver for that controller should get it working on win 7 x64. After that is installed you should be able to install the optimus configurator package to change its settings.

Edit: my friend says it's this one: http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/downloads.asp?id=31 Looks like they have an updated Lion package as well.
Title: RIP: Art. Lebedev Optimus mini three
Post by: BiNiaRiS on Thu, 04 August 2011, 16:27:53: how much did this cost when you got it?
Title: RIP: Art. Lebedev Optimus mini three
Post by: aggiejy on Thu, 04 August 2011, 17:30:42: Quote from: lysol;392963
Find the Prolific serial to usb com bridge driver for x64. The driver for that controller should get it working on win 7 x64. After that is installed you should be able to install the optimus configurator package to change its settings.

Edit: my friend says it's this one: http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/downloads.asp?id=31 Looks like they have an updated Lion package as well.

Thanks for the link! I actually did download one of their drivers as linked on the Art Lebedev site, but I think it may have been for XP or something. (It did install, but didn't work.) I'll give this a try.

Quote from: BiNiaRiS;393098
how much did this cost when you got it?

I wan't to say it was ~$150-200, I don't remember exactly. I know my credit card company stuck me with charges for the conversion though. And shipping was additional.
Title: RIP: Art. Lebedev Optimus mini three
Post by: aggiejy on Thu, 04 August 2011, 17:54:41: Quote from: lysol;392963
...they have an updated Lion package as well.

(http://cl.ly/937S/lysol.png)
Title: RIP: Art. Lebedev Optimus mini three
Post by: shrap on Thu, 04 August 2011, 19:06:27: Awesome that you got the sucker working - bet most of us aren't as concerned about our keyboards' forward compatibility.