from Hacker News

Why does Windows think that my wireless keyboard is a toaster?

by SergeyDruid on 8/5/14, 10:51 AM with 46 comments

  • by eloisant on 8/5/14, 12:26 PM

    - hey boss, I got the driver working from the sample but the icon is a toaster

    - can you fix it?

    - not sure, I tried a whole day and couldn't figure it out...

    - whatever, ship it!

  • by blowski on 8/5/14, 12:48 PM

  • by oftenwrong on 8/5/14, 12:51 PM

    Every USB toaster I've had has been too slow to be practical, so I always switched back to a conventional toaster eventually. Maybe when USB 3.0 toasters start coming down in price I'll give them another shot.

  • by laumars on 8/5/14, 1:25 PM

    Does anyone know why a toaster icon was picked above other place-holder icons? My educated guess would be paying homage to the old flying toasters screensaver.

  • by matthewmacleod on 8/5/14, 11:37 AM

    Fascinating. Did the driver developer not even plug it in to check?

  • by nothans on 8/5/14, 2:15 PM

    Maybe so it can use Twitter. See MyToaster - https://twitter.com/mytoaster

  • by SergeyDruid on 8/5/14, 1:27 PM

    Could it be that the superuser.com OP changed the icon?

    http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff5... mentions a toaster made by "Fabrikam, Inc.", a fictional Microsoft company. Could it also be a Microsoft easter egg?

  • by GurnB on 8/5/14, 11:57 AM

    You would think this type of device would be a FireWire 800 connection not USB.

  • by userbinator on 8/5/14, 12:50 PM

    It's more likely that whoever wrote the driver and used the default package didn't even notice the icon - after all, it's a keyboard driver - it should just work when it's plugged in.

  • by JonnieCache on 8/5/14, 2:31 PM

    Microsoft is slowly catching up with BSD...

    http://www.embeddedarm.com/software/arm-netbsd-toaster.php

  • by tempodox on 8/5/14, 11:28 AM

    Your keyboard was probably recycled from a USB toaster for Windows.

  • by tim333 on 8/5/14, 3:06 PM

  • by NAFV_P on 8/5/14, 1:22 PM

    All toasters are equal, but some toasters are more equal than others:

    http://reddwarf.wikia.com/wiki/Talkie_Toaster

  • by mariusz79 on 8/5/14, 11:33 AM

    Cylons are people too, you know.. No need for name calling.

  • by tragic on 8/5/14, 12:05 PM

    Welcome to the glorious new age of the internet of things!

  • by esquivalience on 8/5/14, 11:58 AM

    I guess it looks like a did-not-test error... but I'd like to think this was a deliberate decision to exploit already-embedded artwork.

  • by tegeek on 8/5/14, 2:35 PM

    Have you tested what we're shipping this evening?

    No, but I'm already using "industry best practices".

  • by skizm on 8/5/14, 3:03 PM

    Does anyone know the model of the keyboard? Someone asked in the thread, but OP does not answer.

  • by cezarywojcik on 8/5/14, 12:56 PM

    I wonder how long it'll take before we have actual USB toasters and grills...

  • by harry07 on 8/10/14, 8:49 AM

    Haha i seen your post on 9gag

  • by NDizzle on 8/5/14, 2:24 PM

    There's an Afterdark joke in here somewhere, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

  • by cellover on 8/5/14, 1:49 PM

    At least the toaster-icon designer guy got some exposition now!