[scrollaway]

Waaaah! I remember the Optimus Maximus. I never got one but I was drooling over it as a kid.

It made a lot of sense to me that a keyboard should be configurable to display what's expected on which keys. Switching between different layouts but also quick actions, video game inputs, etc. The macOS touchbar sort of does that.

I frankly would like to see it, even if I suspect that, if it could be done (without expending millions in R&D), it would have been done by now.

[FractalParadigm]

The Optimus Maximus felt like the future of keyboards when I was a kid and it first released. Hold shift and all the letters go from lower-case to upper, hold control/command and the keys change into their modifiers, telling you exactly what it does. Play World of Warcraft and instead of a number row your action bars with appropriate icons is there.

I'm a little surprised Elgato hasn't tried. I wonder if the original creators have some kind of a patent on ANSI/ISO keyboards with displays under the keys?

[slg]

Wikipedia[1] says the patent for this expired in 2016. Interesting enough, it also mentions that Apple filed a similar patent for a "dynamically changing OLED keyboard" in 2007. I wonder if that project was abandoned or eventually morphed into the Touchbar. Personally, I think having the screen(s) be individual keys would be a huge usability improvement over the Touchbar which doesn't have the same tactile feedback.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Maximus_keyboard

[cronix]

I've always been curious as to how many patents exist where the holder actually had no intention of building the thing, for whatever reason, but didn't want anyone else to either.