KeyZilla: Keyboard Encoder for arbitrary input

R

Rich Grise

Guest
Well, I got the keyboard hack thing done. Here's kind
of a picture story:
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/

I'm especially proud of these:
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/XOver1.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/CrossPoint1b.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/CrossPoint2b.jpg

Be careful! shorting 1 and D or 1 and G shuts down the computer, and 2
and something and some other pair put it to sleep - the rest seem
to be keycodes or something that doesn't show up on the little
scan code utility I've got, but that doesn't matter - I've got
WAY more inputs than I'll need for awhile!

Need a universal input device? One of these and as many crosspoint
switches as you need, and voila! Input!

Lots of inputs! :)

I put an analog voltmeter on the crosspoint pins, but didn't
see any deflection - Watson, you got a 'scope I can use? Or
a spare keyboard with this board? Actually, it doesn't need
to be a spare - if you take the back off, you can probe the
edge connector lands right there.

Cheers!
Rich

(The joysticks should be here tomorrow ...)
 
Rich Grise wrote:
Well, I got the keyboard hack thing done. Here's kind
of a picture story:
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/

I'm especially proud of these:
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/XOver1.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/CrossPoint1b.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/CrossPoint2b.jpg

Be careful! shorting 1 and D or 1 and G shuts down the computer, and 2
and something and some other pair put it to sleep - the rest seem
to be keycodes or something that doesn't show up on the little
scan code utility I've got, but that doesn't matter - I've got
WAY more inputs than I'll need for awhile!

Need a universal input device? One of these and as many crosspoint
switches as you need, and voila! Input!

Lots of inputs! :)

I put an analog voltmeter on the crosspoint pins, but didn't
see any deflection - Watson, you got a 'scope I can use? Or
a spare keyboard with this board? Actually, it doesn't need
to be a spare - if you take the back off, you can probe the
edge connector lands right there.

Cheers!
Rich

(The joysticks should be here tomorrow ...)
Click to expand...
I got curious and opened up a brandnew keyboard and saw the same COB
blob and flexible key system.
It seems to me that there are no contacts, that it works strictly on
change in capacitance.
 
"Robert Baer" <robertbaer@earthlink.net> wrote in message
I got curious and opened up a brandnew keyboard and saw the same COB
blob and flexible key system.
It seems to me that there are no contacts, that it works strictly on
change in capacitance.
Click to expand...
The "contacts" are the little pads under the keytops. And yes,
it's a simple SPST switch. I've got it on the breadboard now,
and it's working like a champ.

Here's the latest pics:
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/CrossPoint1b.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/CrossPoint2b.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/Interface.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/JoySticks1.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/Robotron1.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/Robotron2.jpg

Or, you should be able to just go to my images dir and see a list:
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images

Cheers!
Rich
 
Rich Grise wrote:
"Robert Baer" <robertbaer@earthlink.net> wrote in message

I got curious and opened up a brandnew keyboard and saw the same COB
blob and flexible key system.
It seems to me that there are no contacts, that it works strictly on
change in capacitance.

The "contacts" are the little pads under the keytops. And yes,
it's a simple SPST switch. I've got it on the breadboard now,
and it's working like a champ.

Here's the latest pics:
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/CrossPoint1b.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/CrossPoint2b.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/Interface.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/JoySticks1.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/Robotron1.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images/Robotron2.jpg

Or, you should be able to just go to my images dir and see a list:
http://home.earthlink.net/~entheos_engineering/images

Cheers!
Rich
Click to expand...
I looked at the pads, and everything was plastic - which led me to
change of capacitance.
 
"Robert Baer" <robertbaer@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:40B445ED.E555022B@earthlink.net...
Rich Grise wrote:
"Robert Baer" <robertbaer@earthlink.net> wrote in message
I got curious and opened up a brandnew keyboard and saw the same COB
blob and flexible key system.
It seems to me that there are no contacts, that it works strictly on
change in capacitance.
I looked at the pads, and everything was plastic - which led me to
change of capacitance.
Click to expand...
Well, I'm not surprised that they're out there too - at first I
kinda assumed that mine was, except that a couple of the articles
I found seemed to indicate that just an ordinary switch across
the key contacts would work - so I took an ohmmeter to it (well,
a beeper, actually) and got a very definite spst switch. On mine,
there's a hole in the plastic on the side facing the other contact.

So people might still have a chance, and what the heck - at five
bucks a pop, it's worth a try!

Just open the back of the keyboard, while it's operating, and
run notepad or one of those keystroke programs, and short a couple
of the pins and see what happens. :)

Cheers!
Rich
 
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