OCZ Alchemy Elixir Keyboard

Testing & Use:

As OCZ Technology provides no Linux support for their Elixir keyboard, by default some of the functionality is limited when it comes to the macro and multimedia keys. We had also experienced one peculiar problem with the core functionality of the keyboard. At first we thought the left Ctrl and Alt keys were incorrectly mapped. Pressing the left Ctrl key emitted keycode 64 and 0xffe9, which ends up being Alt_L. So pressing the Ctrl key resulted in the events of the Alt key. The left Alt key emits keycode 37 and keysym 0xffe3, which is Control_L. So the event signaling was flipped around between these two keys. While in the midst of figuring out that problem, and referencing pictures of the Elixir keyboard from the Internet, we had realized the actual problem. OCZ hadn't designed the Alt key to be next to the space bar, but in fact it was supposed to be the left Ctrl key. During the assembly process of this keyboard, the Ctrl and Alt keys and somehow got switched.

Once prying off the left Control and Alt keys and switching them around, we felt better and had moved on. The ten blue macro keys (L1-L5 on the left and R1-R5 on the right) ended up being mapped out within X.Org as the F1 through F10 key codes. The keyboard when pressing the multimedia or Internet keys emitted no events. For those that are new to Linux, you can use xev to view X events and their raw contents.

For enabling the multimedia keys in Linux there is a program called KeyTouch. As of the Linux 2.6.24 kernel, KeyTouch fully supports USB keyboards as well. Shipping with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS though is KeyTouch 2.3.2, which doesn't have a profile for the OCZ Elixir keyboard nor is there one on the KeyTouch website. Our next step to enable all of the keys on the OCZ Alchemy Elixir Keyboard under Linux was to use KeyTouch 2.4.1 and KeyTouch Editor 3.2.0 Beta. However, when using the KeyTouch Editor, it hadn't recognized any of the events generated by any of the sixteen extra keys.

Exploring the exposed USB information on the OCZ keyboard, we discovered that the actual manufacturer of the OCZ keyboard is Monterey International Corp (idVendor: 0x0566). Monterey is a Taiwan-based company that manufacturers a variety of keyboards, mice, touch panels, and other input products. Some additional probing revealed this keyboard (its idProduct is 0x3015) is based upon the Monterey K3805 Pro Gaming Keyboard. While knowing this information, KeyTouch had no profiles for any Monterey keyboards either. We were therefore unsuccessful in using these extra keys under Linux.

Aside from the multimedia/Internet keys not working on the OCZ Alchemy Elixir, we only had one other complaint. The LED indicators for the caps lock, scroll lock, and num lock weren't very bright at all. It also would have been nice if the LEDs were blue instead of green to match with the rest of the keyboard.

We had used the OCZ Alchemy Elixir Keyboard with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and performed a variety of tasks from gaming with Enemy Territory: Quake Wars to Nexuiz and other applications from OpenOffice.org to Firefox. This testing had gone on for a few weeks and overall we are quite pleased with this keyboard. This keyboard uses membrane tactile switches, but there wasn't too much noise generated by the key presses. The keyboard is also structurally sound and really shouldn't cause any concern if you plan to take the keyboard around to LAN parties or other gaming events.