Editing the bios to allow for faster keyboard reading

Question

We have a linux app that depends on the speed with which the user can press certain keys. This is a human performance test.

I'm curious to know if anyone has any experience in modifying the bios to allow it to scan the key matrix faster? With Linux I can modify the keyboard driver to query the bios faster but unless the bios is modified to scan faster then there won't be any improvement.

We've spoken to a large hardware vendor and they say then can do it on their machines but they will charge 2x the price of a normal machine to do so as they will have to test and support it.

We would like to be able to do this on any machine if possible.

Answer 1

You're going to run into debounce problems with the mechanical keys.

Answer 2

I don't think the BIOS is actually involved when you're running Linux. I think you'll find that the Linux keyboard driver directly reads the appropriate keyboard hardware registers, and no BIOS code is executed at the time.

This sounds like a hardware limitation. I would investigate the use of the PS/2 interface instead of USB, and if that isn't sufficient then perhaps building a custom input device for your specific test.

Answer 3

The Avant Stellar keyboard:

http://www.cvtinc.com/products/keyboards/stellar.htm

allows you to set the keyboard repeat rate in the hardware. (i.e. the keyboard hardware -- it has its own memory and processor) It supports from from 0.20 sec to 1.85 sec. Perhaps this will work for you?