Convert any USB keyboard to Bluetooth
The reason is that I have ideas for using some of these little wireless keyboard/touchpad combos that come from the HK side of eBay. You know, the "iPazzPort" ones with the touchpad on one side and one edge rounded underneath. I'm thinking of a laptop, satchel style (i.e. a case with a shoulder strap), with a keyboard, mouse, and possibly a monitor mounted on the wrist. (Mind you, I am passionately against smartphone/tablet style on-screen keyboards. Ugh!)
However, I refuse to obstruct the airwaves around me with signals that have to travel a shorter distance than me! .) There is simply no good reason to use this kind of link over this kind of distance, and some very good /not/ reasons to do so.
For example... I don't know /much/ about BT, but I guess it uses the "channel" paradigm, like WiFi does, mainly because /everything/ wireless seems to do it that way. Well… imagine any Starbucks with one person in each chair. Each person has a smartphone or tablet and only one BT device (headset, keyboard, etc.) that they want to use with their device. Any given BT device has a range of at least 330ft (thanks, Wiki)…do the math, and no matter how you slice it, some of those people won't be able to use their stuff.
Now, of course, that's a bit of a stretch - no Starbucks will ever be so full of so many people with so much technology at once - at least not under any /probable/ circumstances. But the point still stands. - just like 'too many cooks spoil the broth', too many signals spoil the air around them - and with the kind of range BT have I think it's unfortunately easy to reach saturation point...
Therefore, wanting to convert a wireless keyboard (for example) to USB wired…
Worth noting - gee, why not just put an Arduino Nano or Teensy or whatever in it? First, the touchpad mouse. which the unit is built from. If it's a membrane keyboard like standard PC keyboards are, of course you'll have to wire your own connectors or destroy the board to make breakouts, but it's doable .But if it's a single PCB with built-in switch contacts and a set of metal domes (or worse, rubber domes, like on your TV remote) - well, as they say there where my parents grew up (upstate NJ) - fagheddaboutit.
One thought I have, would it be possible to cut the antenna traces on the keyboard and receiver and use coax before) to connect the two together directly, and get it working...?