CMStorm Rapid-i

[matt3o]

CMStorm announced the Rapid-i. It's a TKL backlit keyboard with MX Brown and 32bit arm processor. I seem to recall it was previewed at CES.



I guess the price will be very aggressive.

The legends are in the same old terrible "space hull" font and unfortunately this will be mx brown only (at least at launch), but branding is down to minimum and the overall design seems nice.

More at techpowerup http://www.techpowerup.com/199465/coole ... board.html

[Bramster]

Correct, indeed shown at CES and will be coming to market soon. If you want to know on the first day when it arrives you can sign up at: http://event.coolermaster.com/rapidi/

On launch indeed MX Browns but will also follow in the future in MX Blues and MX Reds...

[Laser]

A couple of "rapid" questions, if I may:

- will it be possible for the ARM to be fully programmable for e.g. avr-gcc knowledgeable people ?
- if sold only in Europe, will there still be keyboards in ANSI layout?

[Muirium]

Depends on what that there ARM processor is hooked up to. Sounds like a little flash and a smidge of RAM, like a Teensy 3.1 or thereabouts. But as we know: you could build a whole computer into a keyboard like that with a modern OS with enough RAM and mass storage nowadays! The home micro is ready for its comeback…

[matt3o]

it's not even said that the controller is USB programmable

[Bramster]

A couple of "rapid" questions, if I may:

- will it be possible for the ARM to be fully programmable for e.g. avr-gcc knowledgeable people ?
- if sold only in Europe, will there still be keyboards in ANSI layout?

Hi there.. It will not be only sold in EU.. US also carries this product, but actually it is a global product and not limited to 1 region only.

About the ARM processor used I will check for you some more info and get back to you..

[Laser]

Thanks, it would be ÜBER-COOL (TM) to have the ARM controller fully programmable from USB,
using avr-gcc or other open-source solutions.

[Bramster]

About the ARM Processor its a Cortex M3 72Mhz and has a little flash and a smidge of RAM

[matt3o]

I doubt CM will release any SDK for the keyboard... also I bet you'd need a uart port to program the chip.

[Grendel]

Doesn't mean we can't get into it..

[Yslen]

Just to clarify, is this going to be ANSI only and sold as ANSI in Europe, or will there be an ISO version? I am sure many will want the ISO version, but personally I only use ANSI, and it's always annoying when the ANSI version isn't available to buy in Europe!

Next question... any chance of MX Green or MX Clear switches?

[Bramster]

Just to clarify, is this going to be ANSI only and sold as ANSI in Europe, or will there be an ISO version? I am sure many will want the ISO version, but personally I only use ANSI, and it's always annoying when the ANSI version isn't available to buy in Europe!

Next question... any chance of MX Green or MX Clear switches?

ANSI and ISO versions will be sold in EU. ANSI in our US-International layout and ISO in our dedicated EU layouts like (UK, DE, FR, IT, etc.. )

For start in MX Browns but will also come available in MX Red (red backlight) and MX Blues (blue backlight)..

[Findecanor]

Ah, the CPU is the same speed and architecture as in the Teensy 3.1, except no DSP/vector instructions.
Personally, I think a 72 MHz is overkill ...

[Muirium]

But PREFOARMANCE!!!

[matt3o]

this keyboard has a processor that is faster than my first computer... just saying...

PS: and actually than my second and third and forth too... I think my fifth was faster, but not entirely sure...

[Yslen]

Just to clarify, is this going to be ANSI only and sold as ANSI in Europe, or will there be an ISO version? I am sure many will want the ISO version, but personally I only use ANSI, and it's always annoying when the ANSI version isn't available to buy in Europe!

Next question... any chance of MX Green or MX Clear switches?

ANSI and ISO versions will be sold in EU. ANSI in our US-International layout and ISO in our dedicated EU layouts like (UK, DE, FR, IT, etc.. )

For start in MX Browns but will also come available in MX Red (red backlight) and MX Blues (blue backlight)..

That's good news, thanks

[Compgeke]

this keyboard has a processor that is faster than my first computer... just saying...

PS: and actually than my second and third and forth too... I think my fifth was faster, but not entirely sure...

Are you saying that their next keyboard needs to be Core i7 based?

[Stabilized]

But PREFOARMANCE!!!

Haha! Exactly why the Atari Jaguar was so much better then all their competitors — do the math!

[JBert]

I think my fifth was faster, but not entirely sure...

Just don't touch that Turbo switch!

[Ekaros]

72MHz CPU on keyboard? Technology has gotten too cheap these years... I mean PC originally had less than that...

[bhtooefr]

I think my fifth was faster, but not entirely sure...

On DMIPS/MHz, it takes a 120 MHz 486 to beat a 72 MHz ARM Cortex-M3 (on the most pessimistic (read: fairest) measurement for the ARM). Any Pentium can beat it, though - it only takes 50 MHz for a Pentium to do so, and only engineering samples were that slow.

[matt3o]

oh c'mon!

[Findecanor]

this keyboard has a processor that is faster than my first computer... just saying...

PS: and actually than my second and third and forth too... I think my fifth was faster, but not entirely sure...

Same here. I think a regular AVR at 16 MHz (Teensy 2.0) might be already faster than my fourth computer, at least at 8-bit operations.

[Muirium]

When I got my first Teensy 2.0 (to build Soarer's converter for my IBM PC/XT keyboard) I wondered if it was more powerful than the original IBM PC. It's possible, in some metrics, but the AVR isn't exactly designed to be a powerhouse.

A Teensy 3.1 though, no contest! Right?

[bhtooefr]

The AVR can actually blow an 8088 out of the water.

16 DMIPS for a 16 MHz AVR, it appears, even a 33 MHz 386DX can't keep up with that.

[Muirium]

How about compared to a Motorola 68k? Ran at 8 MHz in the original Mac. I'm using one for ADB conversion now too, and for a M0110 keyboard when I can find the right (RJ10) cable.

[bhtooefr]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_per_second

Try a 50 MHz 68030 to beat it.

I suspect the AVR doesn't hold up that well in real-world code, though.

[Muirium]

Wicked Fast!

[scottc]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_per_second

Try a 50 MHz 68030 to beat it.

I suspect the AVR doesn't hold up that well in real-world code, though.

Instructions Per Second are really not comparable between two different architectures. Most importantly, the AVR is RISC whereas these Intel CPUs mentioned are CISC. One Intel instruction could be "go put on the kettle and make me and your grandmother a cup of tea" (and it wouldn't surprise me much if there existed one for that) which you can't reasonably compare to the types of instructions in the AVR's instruction set.

Anyway, this is a silly off-topic hypothesising: in any case, this is a stupidly fast ARM CPU to be used as a keyboard controller.

[bhtooefr]

Dhrystone MIPS, however, are relating to iterations of a synthetic benchmark - specifically, 1757 iterations per second equals 1 DMIPS (because a VAX-11/780, which was a "1 MIPS machine", can do 1757 iterations of Dhrystone in a second). Not a very GOOD synthetic benchmark admittedly (and it fits in just about any processor's cache), but a benchmark, rather than literally counting instructions.

And, different versions of the benchmark were written, too, as compilers got better and started optimizing out part of the benchmark (it's written in C).