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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.
@consolenaut
Hi there Gordon! I wanted to ask your advice on the best approach to take writing some keyboard matrix scanning code.
I had a go at this a couple of years ago using an MCP23017, clocking the row outputs sequentially from the espruino & reading the column inputs on the MCP each cycle to determine which keys were pressed. This worked okay but I had a couple of weird quirks with the MCP chip & ended up burning way too many espruino cycles just turning the row lines on and off - not the best approach!
I'm taking another crack at it, this time using an MDBT42Q instead of a Pico, I think using the NRF52's PPI to keep as much off the processor as possible is the right approach. I was thinking of using the NRF52's GPIO pins to drive the rows sequentially again, then listening for an interrupt from the MCP to know when to read its buffer to get the column states, and if anything has changed send it back up to the processor properly to send a keycode. I wanted to ask if that sounds sensible and, if so, which events and tasks it would make sense for me to set up.
I appreciate that's a reeeeaallly long question, but I'd love a nudge in the right direction to get me going :)