Use As Keyboard For Pc?


DrLGR

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Apr 29, 2008
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I tried to search for this, but any search including keyboard is not the most useful.

Besides everything else that it can do, I was wondering if the Pandora could be used as a keyboard and mouse for a PC. Perhaps though the bluetooth connection, have the pandora control the PC. I know there are remotes for this kind of thing, that have keyboard and mouse on them, but if the Pandora could do this as well that would be awesome.

Hopefully you understand what I am asking but if not, I'll try to make it even more clear. For my HTPC, rather than have a dedicated keyboard and mouse, could the Panda control the HTPC, without using remote desktop or anything like that. While in the same room, with the HTPC on and projecting?

Thanks for all the info.

LGR
 
It should be pretty easy to make the Pandora work as a simple HID keyboard or (and?) mouse over bluetooth.
 
This would be great for a MythTV box, or a PS3.

Edit: Woops. I've said something redundant again.
Note: HTPC means home theater PC.
 
There's no software for that, but, as it's been mentioned before, shouldn't be that hard for someone to write a program/driver to do that.
 
unless you can get someone to port a VNC, no idea if it is possible.
 
It would be GREAT to have a VNC port to the pandora... That way, we could control our pcs remotely </redundant>

By the way, with VNC, we could use Pandora as a GamePad for a main computer... And we could take it even further...
Imagine a PS2 Emulator capable PC, controled by VNC from a Pandora console... we could play it through pandora. Having the game onscreen, we would hipoteticaly "play PS2" in the Pandora itself! The hard work would be done by your desktop, but both the control and the game screen would be on the Pandora!! Is that possible?? That would be SO nice...


And, of course, the ability to control a HTPC alone would be pretty nice feature, too.

Is it too hard to port a VNC to Pandora? I don't think the "ARM vs x86" would be a problem, because the Pandora would basically act as an I/O device... But I don't really know how the VNC technology work, so I am most likely to be wrong.
 
thats a easy deal at least for windows, just use some sockets and some system calls and youve got remote keyboard and mouse. and if you really want a HID you will have to write a driver BT based i think its no big deal i can use my nokia or sony Ericson cellphone as presenter controlers even there are java apps for that (now that i remember)
 
You could probably use this for the mouse/keyboard:

http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/
 
Near-kun said:
It would be GREAT to have a VNC port to the pandora... That way, we could control our pcs remotely </redundant>

By the way, with VNC, we could use Pandora as a GamePad for a main computer... And we could take it even further...
Imagine a PS2 Emulator capable PC, controled by VNC from a Pandora console... we could play it through pandora. Having the game onscreen, we would hipoteticaly "play PS2" in the Pandora itself! The hard work would be done by your desktop, but both the control and the game screen would be on the Pandora!! Is that possible?? That would be SO nice...


And, of course, the ability to control a HTPC alone would be pretty nice feature, too.

Is it too hard to port a VNC to Pandora? I don't think the "ARM vs x86" would be a problem, because the Pandora would basically act as an I/O device... But I don't really know how the VNC technology work, so I am most likely to be wrong.
VNC is not x86-exclusive; there should already be at least one client in the Angstrom repository. It or maybe Synergy would probably be okay (if a little clunky configurationwise compared to bluetooth HID mode) for input, but as most anyone who's ever used a VNC client can tell you, it's generally too slow for game video streaming and may not stream some stuff at all. Someone in another thread, I believe, mentioned VirtualGL. It may be worth looking into if you really want to stream OpenGL-accelerated games. Trust me, remote gaming is not a new idea; doesn't even the PSP support it?

Karel Jansens said:
As that software (HID keyboard and mouse via bluetooth) already exixts for the Nokia N8x0, I imagine a port to the Pandora would not be impossible.
Bitchin'.
 
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Tight VNC was ported to the PSP so my guess is it will definatly be on the Pandora, but for me, it would be awesome to either, use it as a bluetooth keyboard/mouse or make it a standard HID using USB.. for me that would be very usefull for typing on ps3/xbox or even in an emergancy when im doing a desktop/laptop repair..
 
VNC is pretty overkill for for just a remote keyboard/mouse, bluetooth should do just fine.

You can get pretty cheap bluetooth USB dongles (mine was £5) for a PC, as most desktops don't have it built in.

There's probably something that can be done over WiFi too, less complicated than VNC.
 
Something like synergy or x2x over an ssh connection would be the best bet IMO.
And you could also easily do it the other way round (use your computer keyboard and mouse on the pandora).
So you have your pandora beside your computer monitor and control both device from keyboard/mouse. (when you move your mouse to the right edge of your screen the cursor would move to the pandora for exemple)

EDIT: http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/repo/?pkgname=synergy
Synergy for angstrom :)
 
What about using it as a controller? Or a graphics tablet?

I assume if it can be used as a keyboard those wouldn't be too hard to do...
 
Bluetooth can probably done with a variant of BlueMaemo, as mentioned already.

For USB, look here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/hid-gadgetfs/
 
I still think it would be great to stream games from your main (and most powerful) desktop...
That way, we could play some windows-exclusive games and, of course, some more powerful emulators (aka PS2)

If the VNC is not fast enough to game streaming, would it be possible by Bluetooth? Or maybe by wifi in a internal LAN? I can't tell which is the fastest... Or am I absolutely wrong and there is no way to stream anything playable because the lack of connections fast enough?
 
VNC is just a specific kind of program that enables streaming/remote computing, so it's mainly limited by the type of connection you're using. Bluetooth is slower than wireless b/g/n, both are generally slower than ethernet connections, etc.
 
There was a bit of discussion about this earlier. As I said there, I had once heard someone mention the possibility of a USB slave mode, where the Pandora presents itself to an attached host as a USB hub with a keyboard, gamepad, mass storage devices, tablet, whatever. Still don't know if it's possible, but it seems like a better solution than VNC.
 
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I was really considering some remote action too...
Not only game streaming, since it doesn't look very feasible with the available connections...

I guess USB slave is the way to go if we want to use Pandora as a general peripheral for the pc (keyboard, mouse, tablet, gamepad, etc...)
Still, VNC is kinda nice... It really is a way to somewhat "use" x86 programs from both windows and linux... and we can even do that remotely if we want to...

Both features would be very nice to have...
 
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