Help needed for Stowaway XT with 2210!

[Christian]

My new Stowaway XT keyboard just came in the mail, and I have two problems:

1) As was mentioned in a previous thread, the keyboard connector is curved where the iPaq 221x is flat. This can be at least physically fixed by filing down the plastic surrounding the connector on the keyboard.

2) More importantly, after having installed the driver, my iPaq refuses to turn on (at all) after being turned off! :evil: The only way to turn it on again is to do a soft reset every time. Even placing it in its cradle doesn't turn the device on otherwise.

There are no new drivers available that I can see (I'm running 1.7). Any ideas? :helpme:

[droppedd]

sounds like a conflict to me... back everything up (using PocketBackup, which comes with the 2210 as "iPaq backup"), and do a hard reset. Then set up the keyboard (before reinstalling anything else) and see if you still have the problem; if you don't, reinstall one program at a time, soft resetting after each install, to figure out what's causing the conflict. A pain in the ass, i know... but what can ya do?

[Christian]

Actually I've already tried that and the problem remains, so its not a conflict. Based on Ed's thread from a couple of days ago it seems that the driver simply isn't compatible with Windows Mobile or the 221x in particular. I've sent them an e-mail so we'll see what happens... :?

[droppedd]

dammit... I was gonna get one of those, too. Guess now i wait for an official driver update.

Incidentally, your location says "UMD" - if you're at college park, you know anyone in SigEp?

[KHuff]

I have recived two e-mails from the folks who make the XT keyboard (Think Outside), and they don't seem to interested in 2003 drivers. They indicated they would get around to it, but then advised that the 2215 would not work because of the different bottom profile. I was going to modify the little ears, but w/o a driver...I really wanted to get an XT, but I am now considering the Compaq folder as it is supposed to work with the 2215.

P.S. Virtually the same story from Pocketop and their IR keyboard. No drivers anytime soon...K

[Christian]

I have recived two e-mails from the folks who make the XT keyboard (Think Outside), and they don't seem to interested in 2003 drivers. They indicated they would get around to it, but then advised that the 2215 would not work because of the different bottom profile. I was going to modify the little ears, but w/o a driver...I really wanted to get an XT, but I am now considering the Compaq folder as it is supposed to work with the 2215.

P.S. Virtually the same story from Pocketop and their IR keyboard. No drivers anytime soon...K

:cry:

[Christian]

Incidentally, your location says "UMD" - if you're at college park, you know anyone in SigEp?

I am in college park (although not for the summer - internship) but I don't know anyone in SigEp.

[maikii]

I have recived two e-mails from the folks who make the XT keyboard (Think Outside), and they don't seem to interested in 2003 drivers. They indicated they would get around to it, but then advised that the 2215 would not work because of the different bottom profile. I was going to modify the little ears, but w/o a driver...I really wanted to get an XT, but I am now considering the Compaq folder as it is supposed to work with the 2215.

P.S. Virtually the same story from Pocketop and their IR keyboard. No drivers anytime soon...K

Do drivers for 2002 generally not work with the 2003? Are the two OSs that different? (Most drivers for Win 95 would work with 98, for example.)

As I wrote, I had similar problems with the regular Stowaway and the 2210.

However, I recall that Jason Dunn, who runs this board, wrote in another thread or article about successfully using the Stowaway XT with the 2210/15. I wonder how he got it to work, and others didn't? Perhaps if he's reading, he could explain how he got the 2210/15 and Stowaway XT to work together, and fit together.

[Ben909]

Same problem for me.. XT drivers and 2210..

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=136066#136066

:(

[droppedd]

Do drivers for 2002 generally not work with the 2003? Are the two OSs that different? (Most drivers for Win 95 would work with 98, for example.)

It seems to be more like a middling version of an upgrade from 98 to XP - some drivers and most software will work, but some of it just won't. There've obviously been some changes under the hood (just look at the benchmarks on the 2210 to see that), so i suppose something mucks up a lot of the old drivers. With wireless cards, for example, I know some work with their old drivers, where others just don't work at all.

[taxus]

I have recived two e-mails from the folks who make the XT keyboard (Think Outside), and they don't seem to interested in 2003 drivers. They indicated they would get around to it, but then advised that the 2215 would not work because of the different bottom profile.

Thanks for the info. I'm buying the 2210 as soon as it's available in my localised (French) version - next week - and I was wondering if I should wait for a WM2k3 compatible driver for the XT, or buy the iPaq foldable keyboard at the same time as the 2210.

Seems like I should buy the iPaq keyboard. The Shopping.hp.ca phone help assured me that it would work with the 2210, and that it would support accented letters.

Yet Jason and some others did report that it was kind of working for a time, even though it wasn't a perfect fit.

[The Half-Ling]

Where did you get your XT?!?!!? I can't find one retailer that has them...even Jason's pricegrabber search, everyone one of those doesn't have it in yet!

Jake-

[hamishmacdonald]

I have a 2210 and the XT (got it from Provantage.com). I find it sits fine on the existing connector, and everything works fairly well, except for the wee fact that the device dies when it goes to sleep or I shut it off, and needs a soft-reset.

Jason has spoken to ThinkOutside, and from what they told him, he got the impression that they were working to create new drivers as soon as possible. Unfortunately, I can't find the thread now in which he talked about this.

I hope this is the case, as in the meantime I'm stuck working at home, or dealing with soft-resetting the device constantly, which can't be good for it. I'm loath to shell out money for another keyboard just because of a stupid missing driver.

Anyone else hearing good things from ThinkOutside? My experience is that every help technician you speak to has a different take on things, and usually not the whole picture.

Hamish MacDonald

[hamishmacdonald]

Ah, here it is:

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=140204

[The Half-Ling]

Damn they are solded out!!!

Crap,
Jake-

[arif]

One of the astute readers over at the Brighthand forums (who goes by pro_worm) identified a registry key that activates/deactivates the faulty drivers for the XT [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Drivers/BuiltIn/Stowaway, Prefix = STO]. You can change this key to a null value when you're not using it and your PPC will function normally. Unfortunately, this is only a partial fix, as you still have to reset the machine for registry changes to go into effect. I wrote a small script with a dialog box that changes the key and soft resets the machine in one step (prevents me from having to remove the ppc from the keyboard just to reset it).

The keyboard is great, but we're just going to have to wait for Think Outside to get their act together and release an updated driver.

[ricksfiona]

I just got my XT keyboard for my 3870, replacing my Compaq keyboard. Very nice. Good action on the keys and I can't believe that it's even smaller than my older keyboard.

[Christian]

I must say that I'm starting to worry about the prospect of new drivers from Think Outside. It seems that their webpage hasn't been updated in months, the newest news article is close to a year old and most disturbingly they still refer to the "Compaq iPaq" for support. Not to mention that I have yet to receive any response from my attempts at contacting them. :evil:

[apextwin]

I called Fellowes today and was told that they are working on fixing the incompatibility problem between the Stowaway XT and PocketPC 2003. They would not commit to any timeframe but put me on their e-mail list so that I will get notified once the driver update becomes available.

[kagayaki1]

I must say that I'm starting to worry about the prospect of new drivers from Think Outside. It seems that their webpage hasn't been updated in months, the newest news article is close to a year old and most disturbingly they still refer to the "Compaq iPaq" for support. Not to mention that I have yet to receive any response from my attempts at contacting them. :evil:

Eh, don't think too much about it. ThinkOutside has had a long history of updating their website in one big shot, instead of incrementally. That is, they update when it's important to them. Type their address into the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org) and you'll see what I mean. It will come, just not as soon as we would like.

[dlauri]

I just upgraded my iPaq 3955 to Pocket PC 2003 Thursday night and then was driven crazy all day Friday when I couldn't turn on my iPaq with the power button. Now obviously I know that the problem is the Stowaway driver.

It's disappointing that I had to wait so long to get the Pocket PC 2003 upgrade and doubly disappointing that having waited so long I find there's not a Stowaway driver that's compatible. Has anyone spoken to Targus lately? Are they going to fix the driver for 2003?