GENERIC KEYBOARD EMULATOR ARCHITECTURE FOR TRANSPARENT ACCESS TO STANDARD SOFTWARE BY HANDICAPPED INDIVIDUALS.

One very powerful method to allow handicapped individuals to access computers and standard software is the use of keyboard emulators. Different computers, however, use widely varying technologies, necessitating emulators which operate quite differently electrically. It is possible to capitalize on the functional similarities of the emulators to minimize the redesign necessary to create new emulators. In order to alleviate this problem, to provide a mechanism for more timely development of new keyboard emulators, and to provide a mechanism for lower-cost development of keyboard emulators for new computers, a program was initiated to develop a generic architecture for keyboard emulators. This approach consisted of two parts: the development of a single-chip, microprocessor-based emulator architecture which could be easily adapted to create keyboard emulators for new computers as required; and the development of a standard code for communicating with keyboard emulators and handling keyboards having differing numbers of keys and a variety of special non-ASCII keys.