> I've seen similar things with my apple keyboard on plan9 with
> the pi (as well as the failure you noted earlier). the pi is *very*
> picky about power.
USB power management is pretty smart in its way, but can do odd things. And what different devices do seems to vary. I've tested a wireless dongle that works in a hub (no extra power) connected to the pi, but won't even detect when plugged in directly.
sort of sad when the keyboard uses more power than the computer.
Coming from the embedded side of things, it seems natural to me that the electromechanical bits tend to eat most of the power budget. I have several things where a burning indicator LED would more than double the overall power consumption. On the other hand, good old raw LCD's basically take nothing. You can run a pocket calculator on a thumbprint's worth of old solar panel in room light. I always found that kind of amazing.
A desktop keyboard shouldn't be that demanding, though. Saving power just probably hasn't been a priority in the design.
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