piKey — A PSP Keyboard Driver

**Camelot** · March 20th, 2007, 23:40

via Psp-Hacks

Fanjita and harleyg have released what they call “piKey”. The introduction says it all…

πKey is a keyboard driver for your PSP. Its aim is to allow you to use just about any keyboard (or similar input device) as a natural method of input on your PSP.

Imagine being able to use your keyboard to control any PSP game or homebrew, and even the PSP’s XMB menu and on-screen keyboard, automatically and without needing any changes to the other software. This is what πKey aims to give you.

This is an early release, demonstrating just some of the possibilities. The open, extensible framework allows πKey to be extended with new plugins, to allow support for different types of input hardware, and different input environments on the PSP

It’s reported to work best under Dark_AleX’s custom firmware, and includes an installer for the easiest installation possible. Supported inputs are various infra-red keyboards and serial I/O via the PSP’s headphone socket. Usability is straight forward; see the provided user guide (docs/user_guide.html) to get started.

As for the future, here is what’s in store:

* New plugins for:
o Input via Danzeff on-screen keyboard, for those who don’t have any input hardware. The Danzeff keyboard is the most efficient software keyboard that I’ve seen.
o Output via Psprint and Danzeff keyboards, for homebrew that uses those already.
* Proper UTF-8 support for non-US-ASCII characters.
* An additional API for detecting keypress/release events - i.e. not just a character stream, but addressing individual keystates.
* Support for loading πKey via HEN.
* Improved configurability, for instance different keymapping in the CTRL plugin.

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**Zion** · March 20th, 2007, 23:55

Woah, sounds wicked

**DragonPimpsta** · March 20th, 2007, 23:55

fricking awesome!!!!! except my keyboard dont hook up to the psp usb thingy that way..

does that mean i cant do this? or is this for like those InfraRed keyboards??? :-O!!!

**psp411** · March 20th, 2007, 23:57

dats siiiiiiiikkkkkkkkk... cant wait to use
finally

**scarph** · March 21st, 2007, 00:01

good good great
all i need now is for fanjita to send me a free keyboard

**Camelot** · March 21st, 2007, 00:01

Originally Posted by DragonPimpsta

fricking awesome!!!!! except my keyboard dont hook up to the psp usb thingy that way..

does that mean i cant do this? or is this for like those InfraRed keyboards??? :-O!!!

Its for both IR and non IR keyboards but you have to find a way to hook non IR keyboards to the psp.

The only way I can think of is using some kind of female-female USB connector

**Cloudhunter** · March 21st, 2007, 00:05

Originally Posted by Camelot

Its for both IR and non IR keyboards but you have to find a way to hook non IR keyboards to the psp.

The only way I can think of is using some kind of female-female USB connector

... And even that won't work, as the PSP doesn't support being a host for devices.

The only other way to connect keyboards other than IR, is through the headphone remote serial port, as mentioned in the description... Currently, you can connect to a PC through that port and send text.

This is awesome news though! Can't wait to eventually get an IR keyboard or a SIO cable to test this out

Cloudy

**Zion** · March 21st, 2007, 00:05

a compat list of what keyboards work would be awesome now

i have a logitech one

wireless but i dont know if it uses ir or bluetooth

**Cloudhunter** · March 21st, 2007, 00:11

Well, all IR keyboards supported by the previously released IR keyboard driver... There is a config file which lists the type of keyboards it supports.

Cloudy