17 Mar
2014
17 Mar
'14
4:45 a.m.
On 15 March 2014 17:22, Philip Belben <philip at axeside.co.uk> wrote:
Another possiblity: years ago in a charity shop (US: thrift store) I bought
a Targus Stowaway folding keyboard. This was a full-sized keyboard that
folded up to about half the size of a mass-market paperback. The one I have
docks with a Compaq iPaq, which I don't have. The one I found googling it
docks with a Handspring Visor, which I haven't even heard of before. Does
such a device exist that will work with a smartphone?
The trouble is, it would probably use bluetooth, and there is little to beat
a bluetooth keyboard for creating security holes! OTOH, phones usually have
a jack socket for speakers, handsets, etc. ISTR this has a digital input of
some sort. I wonder how easy it would be to bitbang on that?
I have a version of the Stowaway which works with a smartphone, and
yes it uses Bluetooth.
I originally bought it for my Palm Tungsten T3 (earlier Palms would
use a serial version of the same keyboard, it was AFAIK sold under the
Palm logo at that time. My colleague across the corridor has one of
those.)
This BT Stowaway works with everything I've tried it with, e.g. a
Nokia N900 phone, and other gadgets. After the Palm I migrated to a
Nokia N800 Internet Tablet (small thing, from 2007), and the Stowaway
was a great companion because folded it was nearly the same size. The
combo worked great when connecting to the net in airports and hotels
around the world.
I'm not sure that it being BT creates any kind of security hole
though. You pair the keyboad once, and after that the phone keeps
bluetooth silent. No broadcasting. It won't accept input from another
keyboard, and even if it did, it would only mess with what I was
currently actively trying to do. Short range too - I would see the
guy, probably. Anyway, I've never come across anyone who have ever had
an incident like that. I use another bluetooth (not foldable) keyboard
with an Android tablet, problem free as well.
-Tor
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