Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️Opened up a random microsoft keypad. It has no names on it, which I hate.
but if you open the battery compartment, which requires a screwdriver, there's a label in here. Model 1558, FCC ID C3K1558.
opening the back, it's got one little PCB, and that's all.
The membrane to the front is held on with ultrasonic welding
The membrane to the front is held on with ultrasonic welding
The PCB is pretty simple. It's got a built in antanna, a couple mosfets, and two chips.
u2 is a 6-pin chip with the label "RAR" on it. Probably something voltage related, given the position.
The main chip is an nRF24LE1 from Nordic Semiconductor.
It's a microcontroller with 16 kilobytes of flash, 1 kilobyte of RAM, another 1.5 kilobytes of NVRAM, and it does 2.4 GHz wireless.
AND PUNCH OUT ANOTHER ENTRY ON YOUR CARD, IT'S AN 8051!
The datasheet doesn't say anything about bluetooth or wifi, so this probably talks a proprietary wireless protocol to a USB dongle of some sort. One I don't have, annoyingly.
and apparently this goes with the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Wireless Desktop Keyboard and Mouse
sometimes ian@foone kinda. They were included but you can also buy them separately. They've gotten a facelift since then: https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/d/new-microsoft-number-pad/8v4nh9q07xc8?activetab=pivot:overviewtab
Sean Murthy@foone Not Bluetooth but an included USB dongle. I have used this keyboard for years and love it. I like that the Numpad is separate which makes the keyboard itself compact. BTW I've never used the numpad piece.
Michael Turk@foone with a factory-paired AES key, something I’ve been curious about. Discussed in this Ars article https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/01/meet-keysweeper-the-10-usb-charger-that-steals-ms-keyboard-strokes/
Lothus Marque@bitfliq @foone I absolutely detest factory-paired keys, and a -lot- of newer wireless devices do this. I hate that if a cheap dongle dies or is lost, there's no way to pair a new one. It's just e-waste. This is why these days I try to go either legit bluetooth, or Logitech's similar "Unifying receiver" product line. At least those you can get cheap new dongles easily enough even now. e.e (Or repurpose ones where the peripheral died!)
That's no excuse for the older security issues though.
Retro Viator@foone Indeed. My preferred ergonomic keyboard.
Alex Weatherall@foone that's the one.
Ondrej Dusek@foone Best keyboard ever 😊 The numpad is completely useless though 😀
DiaDemiEmi@foone love these kinds of keyboards
David Seidl@foone Like others have said, it goes with a very lovely keyboard. But, sadly tied to a single dongle and useless without the original. There's no way to re-pair or add/remove devices from a dongle.
Mark Boszko@foone yup! I’ve got the pair of those on my desk right now.
lulolwen@foone Former owner of I believe this specific wireless numpad: yup. I'm pretty sure this was the numpad packaged with the Microsoft "Sculpt", which did in fact use a USB dongle.
@foone d'oh! You got to it before I did.
Steve@foone That chip uses Nordic's Enhanced Shock Burst
Andrew@foone a lot of the time that protocol is "bluetooth but we didn't pay the implementation license so we cant call it that"
Cyber Yuki@foone What's with all these secretly coded chips that are actually 8051s? Is it something like "The first rule about the 8051 club is you don't talk about the 8051 club" or something?
I mean, what's the rationale?
Nina Kalinina
Tod Kurt (todbot)@foone I've been trying to escape 8051 since like 1993 and it still keeps popping up! Come on RISC-V, save us!
FozzTexx
Stewart Russell
Sage Griffin 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈@foone unregistered copy
Graham Sutherland / Polynomial@foone needs an upgrade to 7Z
LadyLenalia 
@foone As a robot who makes meowing noises, I can confirm that I have a chip like this, except it's labeled "NYA" instead
SuperIlu@foone nah, that must be one of the very rare WinRAR license dongles 🤣
@dec_hl hardware RAR file decoder.
Skunkcrimes@foone right next to the UWU chip?
Momo@foone
SMA looks interesting, you could solder an antenna connector on it so you can add an wifi antenna with more gain for whatever use case one can come up with. R14 probably needs to be soldered to the left and middle pad to send the antenna signal to the SMA port.
I'm curious what the empty IC pad on the lower middle edge is intended, thou.