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The surface of the concept keyboard is touch sensitive. Input is by touching one of the pads marked on the keyboard surface.
The image above is of the Archive's A4-128 concept keyboard. This has a matrix of 128 pads arranged in a 8 x 16 grid. The A3 version is identical except that it is bigger. It is possible to obtain keyboards with a grid of 256 pads. Above the main keyboard grid are three special buttons. Normally when a pad is touched a single input is made. The REPEAT pad allows the input to repeat as long as the input pad is touched. The BEEP ON/OFF pad switches on/off a beep to indicate a pad has been touched. Each pad in the grid generates a number in the range 0 - 127 or 128 - 255. The SHIFT LOCK pad is used to switch between these number ranges to give a maximum of 256 different inputs. The light to the left of the SHIFT LOCK pad indicates when the second set of values is being used. In use a paper or plastic overlay is positioned on the keyboard surface. The overlay has printed input prompts on it. The user touches the prompt on the overlay and the computer program using the concept keyboard recognises where the user has touched and translates that position into the appropriate input. For example, a program dealing with money could have an overlay showing pictures of British coins on it. Pressing a coin picture will input the value of that coin into the program. In this way the concept keyboard can make the computer more accessible to very young children or to children with special needs. Although there are 128 touch pads available not all have to be used. In addition it is possible to group the pads to have 1, 2, 4 ... 128 touch sensitive areas. All of this is under program control.
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Last updated July 2025
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