I had a Microsoft chatpad keyboard in my box of electronic stuff. These can be obtained quite cheaply now and can be easily used with microcontrollers.
They output a 4800baud serial signal which can be connected straight to the serial port of a microcontroller.
The pinout for the one I have is:
red wire: 3.3v supply
black wire: data out (I connected to pin A0 but it doesn't really matter)
orange wire: gnd supply
(Note that black isn't used for its traditional use of ground- a mistake I nearly made while wiring this up)
I figured that this could be quite neat when combined with a SIM800 mobile phone module - could build a programmable mobile phone to send and receive SMS, download text data etc etc.
The code is:
function onInit() {
Serial1.setup(4800, {rx:A0, tx:A2});
Serial1.on('data', function (data) {
Terminal.inject(data);
});
}
OK. Time to get rid of this Macbook. It's now obsolete, having been replaced by the latest low powered Espurino open source DIY laptop. (I think....)
Nicely done Colin! I believe this is an external keyboard mini-computer first. Can't wait for the Puck gesture interface that you have been working on that would complete this project.
Espruino is a JavaScript interpreter for low-power Microcontrollers. This site is both a support community for Espruino and a place to share what you are working on.
Hello,
Inspired by the "Pixl.js home computer" tutorial (https://www.espruino.com/Pixl.js+Home+Computer) I figured I'd make a tiny laptop.
I had a Microsoft chatpad keyboard in my box of electronic stuff. These can be obtained quite cheaply now and can be easily used with microcontrollers.
They output a 4800baud serial signal which can be connected straight to the serial port of a microcontroller.
The pinout for the one I have is:
red wire: 3.3v supply
black wire: data out (I connected to pin A0 but it doesn't really matter)
orange wire: gnd supply
(Note that black isn't used for its traditional use of ground- a mistake I nearly made while wiring this up)
I figured that this could be quite neat when combined with a SIM800 mobile phone module - could build a programmable mobile phone to send and receive SMS, download text data etc etc.
The code is:
OK. Time to get rid of this Macbook. It's now obsolete, having been replaced by the latest low powered Espurino open source DIY laptop. (I think....)
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