Espruino mini-laptop with chatpad keyboard

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:

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 It's now obsolete, having been replaced by the latest low powered Espurino open source DIY laptop.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....)

2 Attachments

Wed 2020.04.29

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.

Wow, that's awesome. I'll have to see if I can get one of those!