An Overview Of The PS/2 Keyboard To 16x2 LCD
The PS/2 Keyboard to LCD system designed in this article was meant to show you how these I/O devices are not mysterious in their operation, but logical. They all have protocols that drive them and can be understood if you take some time to read them and test them out. The system converted PS/2 keyboard inputs to LCD character outputs which is the fundamental I/O necessary for any system that people would want to use.
What To Do Now
With a system like this, you can really expand in many different directions. For starters, the next logical step (at least in my mind) is to build a command-line driven system, where you can enter commands and the system executes them. This would make things like a full-fledged computer. Other places you could go would be to try testing out PS/2 mouse input and see where that takes you.
Conclusion
As an article and a project, I feel everything here was successful at conveying the theory and practice of how you can design a Keyboard to LCD system. It's not easy, but it's not impossible either. The system did what we expected, keypress yielded output on the LCD, but things like capslock or shift were left un-implemented. Perhaps in a future article we can delve into how to add these other functions to a system. For now, thanks for reading this article and I hope you learned something here.
If you have any further questions, I implore you...don't be shy, take a look at the forums or ask a question there. I check them out regularly and love getting comments & questions.
The PS/2 Keyboard to LCD system designed in this article was meant to show you how these I/O devices are not mysterious in their operation, but logical. They all have protocols that drive them and can be understood if you take some time to read them and test them out. The system converted PS/2 keyboard inputs to LCD character outputs which is the fundamental I/O necessary for any system that people would want to use.
What To Do Now
With a system like this, you can really expand in many different directions. For starters, the next logical step (at least in my mind) is to build a command-line driven system, where you can enter commands and the system executes them. This would make things like a full-fledged computer. Other places you could go would be to try testing out PS/2 mouse input and see where that takes you.
Conclusion
As an article and a project, I feel everything here was successful at conveying the theory and practice of how you can design a Keyboard to LCD system. It's not easy, but it's not impossible either. The system did what we expected, keypress yielded output on the LCD, but things like capslock or shift were left un-implemented. Perhaps in a future article we can delve into how to add these other functions to a system. For now, thanks for reading this article and I hope you learned something here.
If you have any further questions, I implore you...don't be shy, take a look at the forums or ask a question there. I check them out regularly and love getting comments & questions.