7 Jan
2008
7 Jan
'08
7:11 p.m.
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 08:54:38 -0800 (PST)
From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com>
It would seem that the cheapest way to do it is a
discardable PC.
Input character
print it
loop
Only barely possibly the cheapest. A $2 PIC or AVR or even 8051-
family chip can do the same job for a fraction of the power and space
and noise. And the code is out there--I've seen code for getting
PS/2 keyboard data into both PICs and AVRs. The output side would be
a piece of soup.
And a PIC could be considered "retro"; certainly an 8051 would be.
Both are descended from mid-70's chip designs.
But to answer an earlier question--no, a simple serial-in, parallel-
out shift register won't do the job with a PS/2 keyboard--the
interface has a bidirectional protocol--it just doesn't blindly send
out scan codes.
Cheers,
Chuck