Sunday, August 14, 2016

Arduino Sketch Updates for Keyboard Debounce Timimgs

I've made some minor changes to the Arduino sketches over the weekend. The alterations affect the debounce timings, where I've hopefully improved keyboard response while in EMULATOR modes. The latest Code can be downloaded from Project Files page.

A new switch DBEM ON / OFF, for piping to the Arduino serial console, has been added. The switch is designed to set the STANDARD mode debounce timimgs to those use in EMULATOR mode. This is particularly useful if the emulator frequently requires the keyboard to be switched to STANDARD mode. I found that in particular ZEsarUX requires STANDARD mode to be set quite often to load files or change options etc.

The below example  sets the keyboard to EMULATOR mode, sounds the BELL and turns DBEM ON.

echo emulator bell dbem on> /dev/ttyACM0

Setting DBEM ON will also negate the use of the BEEP ON option. For more extra information on switches see the earlier blog entry AZ15 and A Tale of Two Features.


Command Line, Mode and Options Selection
BELLSound the LeoStick Piezo. Could be used to forward audio system notifications etc. 
BEEP OFFTurn off Keyboard Sounds. Sounds are off by default.
BEEP ONTurn on Keyboard Sounds. Similar to the keyboard clicks made by ZX Spectrum when typing. The keyboard only emits clicks in Standard mode. In Emulation mode sound is always off.
DBEM OFFUse normal STANDARD mode debounce timings. This is the default option.
DBEM ONUse EMULATOR keyboard debounce timings in STANDARD mode. Good to set if switching to STANDARD mode frequently while using an Emulator. Switch was added with ZEsarUX in mind in particular. Default if off.
DEVICEReturns message "ZX81_KEYS" to the console. Useful if unsure you have the correct serial port. You must be monitoring incoming streams to get the return message. eg cat /dev/ttyACM0
EMULATORSwitch the keyboard into emulator mode.
STANDARDSwitch the keyboard into standard mode.


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