Optimus Pultius becomes Optimus Aux, new prototype shows up
By Donald Melanson 
posted Sep 19th 2008 10:56AM
posted Sep 19th 2008 10:56AM
Feeling held back by the Optimus Maximus' 113 OLED keys? Then you've no doubt been anxiously anticipating Art Lebedev's Optimus Pultius keypad, which the design firm now says will be dubbed the Optimus Aux whenever it's actually released. So as to not leave us completely hanging, the firm has also revealed the new prototype pictured above, which is just enough to make us a little wistful of the early days when the Maximus first flickered to life. Head on past the break if you need a reminder of what the final product is supposed to look like.
Last!
Where's that Optimus Whateverus - the one with the single LCD?
optimus oo
With all the hype surrounding the keyboards, does anyone know if they're actually any good? I've never tried one, but they seem like they'd be okay to use.
According to Engadgets own review, they are great to look at and very well built, but for actual typing, rather crap
http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/22/optimus-maximus-at-long-last-we-bring-one-home-to-test/
Put some flashing neon colors on the displays, and you've got the mother of all Stepmania controllers.
Hey that's not a bad idea.
Thanks Engadget for not at all explaining what this thing does.
If you don't know what it is then click the links in the description for more info. They don't need to explain the item every time there is an update. Lets not get to tedious and simplistic.
The missing explanation:
You push things and the computer responds by doing things.
Seems pretty self-explanatory to me...It's a bunch of user-definable keys with OLED displays embedded.
Lets hope that it doesn't take Lebedev nearly as long to get this thing to market and that it doesn't cost a small fortune once it is released...
And it will probably cost $500.00 for this 11 key device...
I know that I'm not the best person in Math, but I am pretty sure that 3 x 5 = 15 (which by the way =/= 11..)
Meh, So I miss counted... 15 keys for $500.00 then, does that make it that much of a better deal?
From the prices at ThinkGeek (3 keys is $134.99 and 113 keys is $1589.99) I calculated the equation for the cost (assuming it is a linear function).
Cost (USD) = 291/22 x Keys + 104839/1100
This gives a cost of $293.717272... for a 15 key keyboard.
I'm guessing they would take it up to $299.99 or something similar.
I expect this would be more popular than a full keyboard. An array of function buttons with visual displays, which change according to the program you are running, would be helpful - but buyers will likely realise that most keyboards have (non-visual) function buttons already.
As do I. If I could connect two of these at the same time, I could finally replace my aging G15 with something smaller and keep these for misc function keys that I can no longer live without. Am I being completely ridiculous in hoping these will sell for ~ $100?