Pi-Top

I have just seen a prototype, and apart from the two button mouse, it looks really nice.

I have suggested they change it to a three button, and they are considering it.

If they do, I am certainly buying one.

It would be interesting to know how many RISC OS users would buy one.

(£200 with Pi, £175 without)

http://www.pi-top.com/

Only 256K colour display?

Still, would be sweet to have a modern RISC OS laptop. Something Acorn never quite got the hang of.

The article said that it would work with any micro computer board so you could use a wandboard or or OMAP 5 you get my drift build in sata etc

you could use a wandboard or or OMAP 5

I think you will find that physical size might preclude its internal fitting. Also I’m not sure if the Pi-Top PSU or battery have a suitable power rating.

The battery will supply upto 12v according to the reviews check them out at the bottom of the page.

As always with laptops, the problem is the keyboard. Since it’s a very common model, to provide a way to choose a different layout would make all the difference. Unfortunately, some people tend to believe that US qwerty and EU qwerty will fit all uses.

The battery will supply upto 12v according to the reviews check them out at the bottom of the page.

Power is VA (Volts * Amps) so Chris E’s comment is still valid. Push things to the limits and you tend to get intermittent errors.

Unfortunately, some people tend to believe that US qwerty and EU qwerty will fit all uses.

Financial viability – basically qwerty covers most of the potential sales, after that your production costs tend to outweigh potential sales.

It would be interesting to know how many RISC OS users would buy one.

I backed the Pi-Top, quite early on, on Indiegogo when it launched, so I guess I have one of the “first batch” on order! I intend to attempt to use it to run RISC OS, so I’ll let you know how it goes, when it arrives!

Financial viability – basically qwerty covers most of the potential sales, after that your production costs tend to outweigh potential sales.

Why? Just propose alternative keyboards as a commercial option. So more money and more sells of the main product.

basically qwerty covers most of the potential sales

Not sure that the Pi is ‘basically’ sold only to the US.

To be honest, I’m not even sure that there are more Pi sold to the US than in France. QWERTY can’t be used in France. It’s a no go (except perhaps under RISC OS).

The mention of EU QWERTY is just soooooo American. There is no EU QWERTY standard. Hope for you they’ll not use Spanish QWERTY :)

Anyway, keyboards can break. So to propose them as a separate option could be cool.

To be honest, I’m not even sure that there are more Pi sold to the US than in France.

America is really big you know…

QWERTY can’t be used in France. It’s a no go (except perhaps under RISC OS).

Rubbish! ;-) The hard part is finding a QWERTY keyboard. But once you have one it can be used, just select the appropriate layout. Even on a French version of Windows. I know… Did it. ’cos I really really dislike AZERTY.

The mention of EU QWERTY is just soooooo American. There is no EUQWERTY standard. Hope for you they’ll not use Spanish QWERTY :)

I guess this translates to “quotes are somewhere weird”.

I think the keyboard is programmable, you can put any output on any key if you wish.
http://www.pi-top.com/components

Seriously contemplating one of these to have a nice integrated solution as opposed the still-very-cool but not so elegantly done Atrix dock option.

Only 256K colour display?

Many TFT panels are 18 bit.

The mention of EU QWERTY is just soooooo American. There is no EU QWERTY standard. Hope for you they’ll not use Spanish QWERTY :)

I assume this is code for the standard key layouts with either a single or double height Enter key. The rest is a matter of settings and what’s printed on the keys, which is easy to solve if that bothers you.

The mention of EU QWERTY is just soooooo American. There is no EU QWERTY standard.

I’m in the EU, everyone round here (physically) uses QWERTY. Seems standard to me :)

Seriously, the number of times I’ve seen articles with people complaining about non-QWERTY layouts when they have been trying to program is incredible. Maybe we should promote the use of QWERTY only, just for computer use you understand, and AZERTY is fine on non-computer stuff.

Now if we could persuade the US that having the £ on the top row numeric 3 and the $ on the adjacent 4 key is just fine for both sides of the pond then they can stop making US QWERTY and rationalise production costs even more.

what’s printed on the keys, which is easy to solve if that bothers you.

I did that with the bluetooth keyboard that I use with the iPad – it was French. Now it isn’t.

However, you’d expect if you are paying a reasonable amount of money for something, that you’d have a keyboard that matches what you are used to without placing sticky labels on things.

Seriously, the number of times I’ve seen articles with people complaining about non-QWERTY layouts when they have been trying to program is incredible.

Have you seriously looked at an AZERTY keyboard?

Maybe we should promote the use of QWERTY only, just for computer use you understand, and AZERTY is fine on non-computer stuff.

The funny thing is, it isn’t the character arrangement. Apart from QA WZ and some strangeness around M, the layout isn’t that different. Switching my miind from QWERTY to AZERTY was not a hard thing. What was hard (and would put me off buying a French laptop) is the deplorable cock-up that passes for symbols.
Accordingly, I would say AZERTY is fine in the bin.

For those that do not know, the numbers need to be shifted. The standard response from that row is the symbols (which are slightly different to stuff in things like ‘é’. I don’t have an AZERTY keyboard to hand, but in order to get to ‘@’ you need to do something stupid like AltGr-Shift-0 while at the same time p***ing away an entire key for a superscript 2. What? (or maybe Quoi?).

Now if we could persuade the US that having the £ on the top row numeric 3 and the $ on the adjacent 4 key is just fine for both sides of the pond then they can stop making US QWERTY and rationalise production costs even more.

The placement of £/$ isn’t the problem (and for what it is worth, the Apple layout has £ on 3 and $ on 4). The problem is that the Americans like to have " on the same key as ’ down by the Enter key. Growing up with British layout, it should be @ and ’ down there, with " over the 2.
And, for what it is worth, it is slightly disappointing to see that Apple are taking a “accept or be damned” approach with their keyboard layout. British English? Yes. Quotes on the 2 key? Err… No. Apparently Apple retain "/’ and @/2 on all of the English layouts. Pffft. Bloody Americans. ☺

That said, as David hinted at, even other QWERTY-like keyboards have modifications to the layout to cater for regional needs. Spanish, for example, has keys for ñ and ç. Germany uses QWERTZ and has keys for ä, ö, an ü. Plus some other tweaks I’ve probably missed.

Growing up with British layout,

Now “hidden” in that statement you have the root problem with American thinking :)

while at the same time p***ing away an entire key for a superscript 2. What? (or maybe Quoi?).

WTF? Nah, in your area it would be the famous shrug.

That said, as David hinted at, even other QWERTY-like keyboards have modifications to the layout to cater for regional needs

Sorry that sentence is incorrect. Needs and wants are two different things.
I think you would find that presenting a non-accented set of text would not stop people reading things correctly. Context is far more important. You can actually rearrange letters in a word and still have people understand the content. Anyone want to tell me that only applies to English?

Now if we could persuade the US that having the £ on the top row numeric 3 and the $ on the adjacent 4 key is just fine for both sides of the pond then they can stop making US QWERTY and rationalise production costs even more.

But then how will I type “#”?

But then how will I type “#”?

I’ll take that as a serious question, just in case. The answer is just hit the # key :)
Typical laptop keyboard:

asdfghjkl;’#
or with shift
ASDFGHJKL:@~

before you ask the next row down:
\zxcvbnm,./
|ZXCVBNM<>?

See? Better, all the keys without complicated finger combinations.

So it seems that you have an extra key between ’ and Return then (which seems to be the case with the French one above too). I haven’t seen a UK keyboard since the days of computers that you connected to a TV (which typically had a UK layout since they were in English with PAL TV output – the US models naturally had NTSC).

This is what I typically use at home, and have something similar at work (although without the “Apple” keys). Swapping @ and " would drive me nuts.

Swapping @ and " would drive me nuts.

I thoroughly agree. This is why the US layout (with @ on the number row) is only marginally better than AZERTY. You don’t want to know how many times I’ve written @quoted text@ on the iPad because bloody Apple has to be different. Grrrr!

So it seems that you have an extra key between ’ and Return then (which seems to be the case with the French one above too)

British inventiveness¹ and optimum use of space.

Swapping @ and " would drive me nuts.

Exactly how we feel. Not sure why the US version was swapped :)

¹ Even the French adopt most of our ideas.²
Meanwhile we adopt portions of their language, modify and hand back :)
² But they do drive on the wrong side. Mostly to prove they aren’t British I think.

America is really big you know…

But there are no as much geeks or IT Schools as here… Raspberry Pi is incredibly popular in France.

I think the keyboard is programmable, you can put any output on any key if you wish.

Yep, but since it’s american ASCII, you must then remember position of all specific characters.

Wouldn’t it be simpler to say: we provide QWERTY keyboard, but provider is xxx. You can ask him for another layout. Some other projects did that in the past.

I’m in the EU, everyone round here (physically) uses QWERTY. Seems standard to me :)

Yes, but not the same. There are QWERTY for Spain, UK, Sweden, etc. that are ALL completely different (except for ASCII characters). Good luck to you if they choose a spanish keyboard. EU Qwerty does not exist.

France and Belgium are AZERTY, German and Austria QWERTZ.
So I can say that one third of EU population does not use QWERTY. And the others use one of the many flavours of QWERTY.
Technically, the most common keyboard layout in EU is QWERTZ. Sorry.

Maybe we should promote the use of QWERTY only, just for computer use you understand, and AZERTY is fine on non-computer stuff.

To switch between the two is a pain. Just try :)

However, you’d expect if you are paying a reasonable amount of money for something, that you’d have a keyboard that matches what you are used to without placing sticky labels on things.

Especially since the provider of the keyboard has probably all the layouts in stock.

Anyone want to tell me that only applies to English?

Of course. Else we would have already drop accents. In spanish it gives you clues about intonation. In French, it can change the meaning of the word. Sorry to have too many words and characters :) And should Russian and Chinese people switch to ASCII too ?

See? Better, all the keys without complicated finger combinations.

Basically, ‘keys the simple way’ is Dvorak, not Qwerty. But since words are not the same in every language (for example, we use e much more than English people), Dvorak is good for America, but not for France, where we use Bépo. Anyway, Dvorak could be a good solution.

Nota, we did solve the problem of numeric characters with a very special trick: we all have a numeric keypad :)

NB. Drifted a lot, so not on topic in this forum.

France and Belgium are AZERTY, German and Austria QWERTZ.
So I can say that one third of EU population does not use QWERTY. And the others use one of the many flavours of QWERTY.
Technically, the most common keyboard layout in EU is QWERTZ. Sorry.

That makes some big assumptions about the populations of those countries and the languages they speak as well as type. Belgium doesn’t actually fit any specific language pattern (check out “language wars” and Belgium in a Google search) but broad brush strokes says Flemish north, French south and German NE. They do all have a common language though.

To switch between the two is a pain. Just try :)

Nope, S&M really isn’t my thing. :)

Nota, we did solve the problem of numeric characters with a very special trick: we all have a numeric keypad :)

Very French, ignore the simple solution and go for the complicated one. :)

Flemish north, French south and German NE

So QWERTZ, AZERTY and QWERTZ.

Very French, ignore the simple solution and go for the complicated one. :)

To drop accents in French would be like to drop ‘i’ from Englsh. Almost mpossble. And even f we do ths, QWERTY wll not necessarly be the rght solution, as vocabulary, so the use of each letter, s dfferent n every language.

Not an easy choce.