💾 Archived View for tilde.town › ~dozens › gemlog › 15.gmi captured on 2024-07-09 at 00:31:47. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2024-02-05)
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Hi there!
I am taking this opportunity to post to my gemlog because I haven't done so in a long time. And also I am at a small table at the cafe at the gym trying out my new mobile computing setup.
My new mobile computing setup is this:
1. My cellphone (of the "i" variety)
2. A vintage Palm Portable Keyboard that I got on eBay for like $8
3. A small bluetooth adapter for said keyboard
I would say that so far this setup is pretty great! The whole kit and caboodle fits in my little bum bag with enough room left over for my wallet and headphones and a few other things. It easily fits in one hand.
On my iPhone, I am using Termius to connect to tilde.town where I can do all kinds of things like check my mail, read the bulletin board, check the news, etc etc. Or do some light coding and writing.
The keyboard is fantastic. It is a comfortable size. Has all the modifier keys you want and then some. It folds in half, and in half again. So it ends up a compact little size for carrying. It arrived programmed for qwerty, which is understandable and forgiveable. I downloaded the Arduino IDE and reprogrammed it to use a colemak layout. And now it's both fine and dandy! I might remap a few more keys at some point. But for right now it's totally aces.
The dongle I bought from a seller on tindie. I'm not going to pause to look up the url right now, but you can find it the project on github if you search for ppk-bluetooth. It work great! It is a little plastic box about the size of a matchbox. The connection is a little touchy: I have to fuss with it a little bit to get it to fit into the slot, and then I have to wiggle it a little bit to actually connect. But then it works great! I was worried there would be some lag because of the bluetooth connection. And maybe there is a tiny bit. But it's hardly noticeable at all really.
So that's the update on my happy little palm portable keyboard and the new live bestowed upon it by this happy little bluetooth adapter. I have a beach vacation all planned out next week, and I think this setup might be the only computing device I bring. Well, maybe I'll bring my playdate too for some gaming. Pocket sized computing devices only!
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