Re: IIe Keyboard On A II Plus

["Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com>]

a2aviator@gmail.com wrote:
> /me hit me with a clue-by-four.
>
> I never even bothered to think about those encoders as micro
> controllers. Hell, and I have documentation not very many others have
> even seen.. apparently I've not looked at all of it either.

The older encoders really were just "encoders", not microcontrollers.

Not only were they not programmable (with anything other than a keycode
table), but they were very specialized matrix scanning hardware, made
of counters and decoders--no ALU.

Of course, any modern "encoder" that puts out serial codes, supports
a communication protocol, and has internal state, *is* a specialized
microcontroller.

-michael

AppleCrate: An Apple II "blade server"!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

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