You can still obtain the Mitel (then Zarlink, then
Microsemi) MT8812
units from the factory and other places. That's what C=Key uses.
RIght, thanks, I;ll look into those.
Of couese the problem with crospoint switch ICs is that they will act
like an array of mechanical switches, and could have 'sneak paths'. If
the origianl keyboard has a diode in series iwth each key (or with some
of the keys, like SHIFT), then the crosspoint switch IC may not correctly
simulate the keyboard's behaviour.
A good solution would seem to be a set of latches (one for each column),
feeding open-collector buffers (enabled by the column scan lines), the
outputs of corresponding buffers of each latcvh being linked togeter and
to the row lines. Problem is, there is no 8-bit latch with open-colelctor
outputs that I can quickly spot, so it's 2 or 3 ICs (3 ICs, say a '374
and a couple of '03s ) for each column. I suppose you could program an
FPGA to do it, but that's horrible...
-tony