[E3-hacking] Please help in collecting more information on the mailboard interface

[Janusz Krzysztofik]

Hi,

Before I get to work on inventing a driver for the E3 mailboard that could be 
accepted upstream, I'd like to learn more about the keyboard interface.

In 2006, Jasmine Strong wrote:
> > Huh --- I did look at the defconfig file, but it never occurred to me to
> > look at that bit (after all, the mailboard is most decidedly *not* a PC AT
> > keyboard)... 
>
> Actually, it is-  it's a PS/2 device.  It just happens to be connected to
> some IO lines, rather than a FIFO, like it ought to be.

Jasmine (I hope you still read this ML), or anyone else who knows anything 
more about that, could you please provide me with as much information on that 
matter as possible? Can it be proved in any way that the keyboard is a PS/2 
device?

For me, the fact that Matt's serio driver interacts correctly with a standard 
atkbd keyboard driver means that reusing atkbd is not as wrong solution as 
Dmitry suggests saying a new keyboard driver should be created. Maybe just 
removing the scancode translation functionality from the Matt's serio driver 
and somehow pushing a custom keymap for E3 into the atkbd instead could be an 
acceptable solution here?

But before I take this way, I think I have to be able to prove that this 
keyboard is not really different from a standard AT keyboard, and writing a 
separate keyboard driver for it, just because the E3 has a non-standard 
keyboard port, may not be a good idea.

Thanks,
Janusz