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keywiz help - not working - need help
RandyT:
--- Quote from: quarterback on April 14, 2006, 01:29:42 am ---I believe it's a different board, but I'm with you on the 'confusion' part. I'm sure there's a reason for the way they're laid out, but the repetition of letters/numbers on the board makes it confusing for me as well. Is your wire connected to the pin marked "U" or the other pin marked "U" on the board? The "G" indicates a ground... well, except for the one time that it doesn't.
--- End quote ---
The first time someone starts to use a custom codeset the board labels wouldn't match anyway. Would you rather try to remember that you wired P1B7 to your ESC key? Another alternative would be to use standard connector labeling practices and label only the pins at the end of the connector and refer to everything as a number between 1 and 40 and hope everyone is an EE student. Didn't think that would fly either, so this was a compromise.
Plain English pin labels are only good if you plan to hook things up exactly as they are printed on the board. Seeing that the interface boards are used in a number of industries, this would probably be confusing to others. Otherwise, I think the diagram is fairly clear about which input does what.
The board design is the same for all units, which is one of the reasons why in the latest batch of boards, references to specific models have been removed from the screen.
Everything else is done the way it is as a matter of economy and board space.
RandyT
quarterback:
--- Quote from: RandyT on April 14, 2006, 12:34:22 pm --- Another alternative would be to use standard connector labeling practices and label only the pins at the end of the connector and refer to everything as a number between 1 and 40 and hope everyone is an EE student. Didn't think that would fly either, so this was a compromise.
--- End quote ---
I think counting from 1-40 is much more straightforward than the progression of:
V+, G, G, G, 8, 1, 7, 2, 6, 3, 5, 4, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, U, L, D, D, L, U, R, G, G, S
No offense intended Randy, I love your products, but having a non linear / non-chronological system where multiple pins have the exact same identifier seems like an un-intuitive way to do it. As I try and work my way down the IDE cable, I'm going from L to D to D to L to U to R :dizzy:
It'd be much easier to know that 25 comes after 24 and I can always figure out which wire is #24... because it's the 24th wire. If I give you 40 ends of an IDE cable and say "Tell me which wire is 'U'" How could I accomplish that without counting anyway? You have to count and then go to some kind of "key" or "legend" to figure out the answer. If you're going to count in the first place, then why not just make the 5th wire be wire number 5?
You don't have to be an Electrical Engineer to do this. Anybody who is 5years old or older can count from 1 to 40 and quickly tell you where any one of those numbers lies in the progression. I don't know who can say the same for the series of pin-labels on the KeyWiz. Maybe you can immediately tell me which wire is "R", but I doubt many other people could do that. Everybody else has to count and then look up the wire.
RandyT:
--- Quote from: quarterback on April 14, 2006, 12:46:07 pm ---You don't have to be an Electrical Engineer to do this. Anybody who is 5years old or older can count from 1 to 40 and quickly tell you where any one of those numbers lies in the progression. I don't know who can say the same for the series of pin-labels on the KeyWiz. Maybe you can immediately tell me which wire is "R", but I doubt many other people could do that. Everybody else has to count and then look up the wire.
--- End quote ---
Sorry, but I think you are making much more of an issue of this than it is. The diagram clearly shows everything exactly as it is on the board. It could have geometric shapes that repeated themselves 8 times in succession and it would still be pretty obvious which pin had which function merely by examining the position on the board.
Without the diagram, it would be problematic. If you are having trouble with the diagram in hand, I don't know what to tell you.
RandyT
BTW, do you know how to count from 1 to 40 on a 40-pin header? It is not necessarily intuitive to someone who hasn't done it before. Just like the pins on a chip, you have to know how to count them or you could be completely wrong. From the standpoint of an IDE style cable, it's linear. But not from the standpoint of someone putting wires directly to the inputs. Other methods need to be taken into consideration.
BTW2: It should also be noted that the ECO board is a derivative design from the MAX. In order to use the same chip from the MAX (where the layout tends to be simpler to follow) it had to end up like this on the header. Anyone who finds this too confusing, should probably pony up the extra $14 for the MAX version.
quarterback:
--- Quote from: RandyT on April 14, 2006, 10:03:50 pm ---
--- Quote from: quarterback on April 14, 2006, 12:46:07 pm ---You don't have to be an Electrical Engineer to do this. Anybody who is 5years old or older can count from 1 to 40 and quickly tell you where any one of those numbers lies in the progression. I don't know who can say the same for the series of pin-labels on the KeyWiz. Maybe you can immediately tell me which wire is "R", but I doubt many other people could do that. Everybody else has to count and then look up the wire.
--- End quote ---
Sorry, but I think you are making much more of an issue of this than it is.
--- End quote ---
You're the one who said counting from 1 to 40 would be a problem because your users would have to be Electrical Engineers.
--- Quote ---The diagram clearly shows everything exactly as it is on the board. It could have geometric shapes that repeated themselves 8 times in succession and it would still be pretty obvious which pin had which function merely by the the position on the board.
--- End quote ---
With wires attached to the board, who's looking at the board? I'm looking at the end of the wires which are going to be attached to a button. In fact, with the board mounted to something and with the IDE cable attached to the board, I can't even see half the labels on the board. They're blocked by the IDE cable itself
Perhaps this is why you and I see this differently. You're assuming that users are reading the labels off the board. I'm not looking at the board as I'm connecting my buttons. I'm counting wires. And with the current setup, I have to count wires, then go to the diagram and count (up and down) to figure out the letter that corresponds to that particular wire, then I have to see what keyboard letter corresponds to the letter you've assigned to that wire.
But I'll agree wholeheartedly with one point you made. Having 8 geometric shapes repeated over and over would be just as good as the current labeling.
RandyT:
Read my edits.
This is probably more constructive than arguing methodology.
The following is the default key set on a 40 pin cable with the red wire to the left:
1. +5v
2. Ground
3. Ground
4. Ground
5. L CTRL
6. V
7. L ALT
8. C
9. Space
10. X
11. L SHIFT
12. Z
13. A
14. S
15. Q
16. W
17. I
18. K
19. J
20. L
21. 1
22. 2
23. P
24. 5
25. 6
26. ENTER
27. TAB
28. ESC
29. Right Arrow
30. R
31. Left Arrow
32. F
33. Down Arrow
34. D
35. Up Arrow
36. G
37. Ground
38. GROUND
39. Shazaaam!
40. N/C
RandyT
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