Hi there fellow geek friends.
I've been trying to gather information about a little project of mine, to resurrect old laptops with SoC computer chips like the Raspberry Pi. Now I know many might not like it and they will recommend me to do another way that is way easier, but I'm sick of the "throw anything that seems broken away" society. The pleasure to create something new out of spare parts is what's animating me lately.
To give you a headstart: I am capable to use the laptop screen through a driver board and the trackpad through a PS/2 workaround, it's fairly easy. Now this is why I'm here, the keyboard ethusiasts. Using the keyboard of an old laptop is quite a difficult task since the keyboard is just a flex cable without any drivers or controller whatsoever. The real controller are (mostly) embedded on the mainboard. So, not usable for my purpose (yet). But what I've heard is that you
can use a controller from USB Keyboards. You just have to find a way to create some sort of adapter that puts the flex cable on the controller pins. But yesterday I found something that caught my eye. You all probably have seen these Android keyboards that you can buy at any Radio Shack.
Inside them is a small controller, that has the same distances of your flex cable and you can just fit it right to your laptop keyboard. Disclaimer, the following pictures are not mine, so I haven't laid a finger on it. This is something I'd like to discuss with others first before I give it a try. Especially because I have gathered no experience in stuff like that yet.
That thing fits mostly perfectly to any flex cable. Sometimes maybe 2 or 3 pins could be missing as you will see on the following picture, but it's usable.
In theory, the laptop keyboard will now be used as an USB device. Now here's where I need you, especially the friends of soldering parts by their own hands. You probably, most definitely have to create a custom keymap, but in Linux, almost everything is possible. And putting in every hardware to a serial bus would be nice since I can just put another SoC chip inside the laptop.
Here's my question: Is my idea possible? If it is, would someone agree to assist me in showing/explaining me how it's made? If not, has someone another idea for a workaround?
Leave your thoughts in the comments.
*SMALL EDIT: I have no Laptop yet, so I might be open to suggestions like a Thinkpad.
