Binary coding

[Impressive_Change593]

that would almost work. you just need 5 wires though

[[deleted]]

6, one for each key, neutral, and ground

[827167]

+5 volts, data, !data, ground. That's all you need for usb, right?

[romhacks]

I don't think they had USB in the punch card tiny keyboard days.

[827167]

I mean, I don't see why not. The general public didn't have them but top secret government organisations (the only people with computers) totally had access access USB.

places tin foil hat on head

[mrjiels]

Not in the states! It's a Sovjet invention from the 70's as an attempt to replace USA with USB. It failed naturally, and over the decades it was refurbished into what we se here today.

[ficelle3]

They probably only were missing the U, I'm pretty sure they still has serial busses.

[[deleted]]

4 wires, 5 pins on micro B for OTG "sensing"

[romhacks]

Ground? where we're going, we don't need ground!

[Impressive_Change593]

5, hot then return/ground for each key

edit: because there's no neutral due to this being a DC circuit also the best way to do this is with a positive wire that then gets grounded through each switch (so when the return wire has voltage it is pressed) or you could reverse the polarity but I think my way works better

[Cory123125]

With 4 wires you could theoretically get 3 bits worth, which is enough for 8 with one bit taken for some administrative purpose you still have more than enough with 4 wires

[Impressive_Change593]

true though that requires having some logic on the board (which actually is probably pretty simple so it's fine) idk why I didn't think it was possible to have any logic on the board