(Apologies in advance if this has been asked before and answered. If so then I promise to write it up in the wiki).

I have ordered a BT keyboard but it occurs to me that I don't really want another keyboard on my desk. What I want to be able to do is re-direct my existing PC keyboard to the tablet. I know I can use ssh, but that does not cover non-xterm usage (does it?).

So, would it be possible to plug a USB BT dongle into my PC and run some software on the PC so that it makes make PC keyboard look like a BT keyboard to the tablet?

Maybe the inverse of xkbid-bthid, see:
http://www.mulliner.org/bluetooth/xkbdbthid.php
or maybe an extension of this code.

The memory stick comes into the picture because I would like to be able to take this (zero install) software with me and use the keyboard on other people's PCs to talk to my tablet.

Oh, how about a BT mouse emulator too?

If it is within my capabilities (a bit of Python programming) then I am prepared to work on this as a project. If not, then I would contribute to a bounty fund.

A couple of thoughts:

Could 'Pybluez' http://org.csail.mit.edu/pybluez/ be used to do this or is a knowledge of BT keyboard protocols needed?

Are these open protocols?

If not, then is there a BT sniffer available on the tablet so that the protocol could be reverse-engineered?

Are there any other relevant BT devices that could be emulated on a host PC?

I'd use something like x2x:
http://x2x.dottedmag.net/

It should work over any network connection.

There's ways to make your keyboard show up as a regular bluetooth keyboard as well, but I'm not sure what software off hand.

Thanks. I should have said that I want the host to be Windows. I know I can probably use Cygwin, but it would be kind of hard to persuade other folks to install Cygwin so that I can use their keyboard...

I will put x2x on my list, but I think I might have more fun with Bluetooth and Python.

I have also used the vncserver on my tablet, but eventually gave up on it as too slow and too unreliable.

In that case, synergy?
http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

I used to use something to go between Linux, OSX, and Windows, I thought it was x2x, not sure what I did on the Windows side..

That looks interesting, is there a Synergy2 client for the tablets?

It could probably be compiled easily enough, not sure if the tablets X server supports the XTEST extension though.

I'll give it a shot in a few.

I spoke to somebody who tried this a year or so ago and he said that it compiled OK and worked, except that because there is no mouse pointer on a tablet it was not really usable because you could not tell where you were. He tried using Neko to track the mouse position, but did not keep on with the project.

It looks like there's a way to make it visible:
https://garage.maemo.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=1121