Backlight Behind The Nubs And Buttons?


borgqueenx

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 21, 2008
Messages
1,887
Age
34
Location
The Netherlands, Overijssel
Website
gdteam.net
I was scrolling old posts around the blog, to look for some old posts.
i found this one:
http://www.openpandora.org/blog.php?o=71

Shows backlight at the analog nubs. (wait, i got it wrong about this lol)
And this got me wondered since i cant recall a post or topic saying this will be implented...

Will the keys/buttons/nubs on the pandora have small backlight for if its totally dark?
ofcource the LCD backlight will shed some light on the keys, but i still hope there can be small leds or something implented behind the keys.
or something else so i can see them clearly in darkness :)

thanks for the answers :)
 
This is not likely to happen, even as a third party mod. As it has been discussed before. To death I might add. I assure you that:

A) there is no room between the rubber keymat, the board, and the case to implement this.
B) The keymat is completely opaque.

As for the shininess around the nubs. People Though it was going to be like that for real, but it is not so. If you inspect the latest prototypes you will see the nubs completely cover that smooth area.
 
The old nubs had a metal ring around them. That's the shininess you're seeing.
Then that company stopped making those nubs or something, and the next one they went were just smooth black. No shiny.
There isn't a backlight built into the keyboard, but MWeston, in his infinite wisdom, added a KP-BL pad to the board. KeyPad BackLight.
Apparently it's software controllable amp regulated (or something, so says my feeble memory), so you could, in theory, mod on lights of some kind.
 
Actually there is a spot on the boards to power LEDs to illuminate the keyboard. I'm not sure how it would be done since we no longer have solid keys but it will be available for a mod. IIRC, one of the devs said that with the current keypad the clear epoxy is illuminated by the screen and is fine to type with in the dark.

As for the shininess around the nubs, it was a model used on early boards but the company went out of business or something to that effect. So OP had to design their own. Btw, that was the model that had longer travel and center click I believe.

I don't believe you didn't do a search first... there been topics on this before.
 
greendots said:
As for the shininess around the nubs, it was a model used on early boards but the company went out of business or something to that effect. So OP had to design their own. Btw, that was the model that had longer travel and center click I believe.

Actually, the company stopped making the Analog nub, they did not go out of business. They just wouldn't accept Craig and Co's offer to pay for a massive amount before they discontinued it. The company that did go out of business was the ones who designed our new analog nubs. Also, the previous nubs did have center click, but these new ones were custom-designed, and I'm pretty sure that the travel is the same as the old ones.

-God Ginrai
 
Last edited by a moderator:
God Ginrai said:
... I'm pretty sure that the travel is the same as the old ones.

-God Ginrai

Nope, old had 2.5mm radius, new have 2mm radius movement. Sounds small but that's a decrease of 20%.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
pelrun said:
So what if it's 20%? At most there's a difference in travel of ONE MILLIMETRE, and you'd have a hard time noticing it.
Imagine if we had a nub with 0.5mm traveling distance, and we instead got a completely immovable nub. Hey, that's just 1 millimeter (I don't speak BE) too!

The percentage way of thinking is much more appropriate in this situation, but then again: 20% is very small too.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
lulzfish said:
It's the difference between a 19-inch diagonal screen and a 15-inch diagonal screen.

I would say it's at least noticeable, but not a showstopper.
Screen real-estate is another question entirely; if I was to remove 10 rows of pixels from my monitors (I have one 1680x1050 and one 1280x1024), it would be disastrous. Workspace is something humans are naturally picky about, I believe. A monitor is not at all the same thing as a tiny analog nub.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
BackAssward said:
God Ginrai said:
... I'm pretty sure that the travel is the same as the old ones.

-God Ginrai

Nope, old had 2.5mm radius, new have 2mm radius movement. Sounds small but that's a decrease of 20%.

Could you show me where they said the new ones were 2mm? IIRC, they were originally looking at PSP replacement nubs to replace the old ones, and those were 2mm radius, but I don't remember them ever telling us the travel on the new nubs that they ended up having custom-designed.

-God Ginrai
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top