While typing away on our DIN, PS/2, USB or Bluetooth keyboards one of the questions which we rarely concern ourselves with is that of how the keyboard registers which keys we’re pressing. One exception here is when the keyboard can only register a limited number of simultaneous keypresses (rollover). Even though most keyboards today use a matrix which connects the keys, there are many configuration choices even here, which much like other keyboard configurations come with their own advantages and disadvantages. As a good primer we can look at this article by [Daniel Beardsmore] as he takes us through both historical and current-day keyboards.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://hackaday.com/2024/04/08/a-brief-history-of-keyboard-encoding/