Micro­power

byte, so that the accumulator now contains a 1 at each position corresponding to a changed bit. The accumulator is now rotated right so that successive bits pass into the carry flag while a single bit is rotated left in the D register and the rotations are counted in the C register; this process stops as soon as the carry flag is set. The result is that D now contains a single bit set corresponding to the pressed key with the lowest column number, and C contains that column number.

D is now used as a mask to select the appropriate bit from the second read of the row (contained in E), and to compare it with the same bit of the mapping byte. If the two are identical, it is assumed that the first ‘change’ was spurious, and the routine continues with the next row. When the two are different, the mapping byte is updated and the status of the bit in E is tested. If this bit is zero, the change was caused by the release of a key, and no further action need be taken. However, when the bit is set a key press has occurred, and the routine now has to determine the ASCII code of the key.

The information identifying the key pressed is first combined into a single byte in which bits 0 – 2 represent the column number, obtained from the C register, bits 3 – 6 represent the row number, from the B register, and bit 7 is set to 1 if the shift key was pressed. A table is then searched for this identifying byte; The HL register pair is set to the top byte of the table, BC is loaded with the length of the table, and the search is carried out by the CPDR instruction (Compare, Decrement, and Repeat). The table is arranged in such a way that when the byte is found the C register contains tha ASCII code of the corresponding key. If the byte is not found in the table, the search is repeated for the unshifted byte (i.e., with bit 7 reset). If this second search also fails, the carry flag is reset and the subroutine aborted.

When an ASCII code has been obtained from the table the subroutine proceeds to test the shift, graphics and control keys, and the Keyboard Option byte (£0C27), modifying the ASCII code in the appropriate manner. Finally, the carry flag is set, to indicate that a valid key press has been detected, and the routine is terminated.

If two or more keys are depressed simultaneously, the key in the lowest row will be detected first; if the keys are in the same row, the one with the lowest column number will be detected first. The corresponding mapping byte will be updated, and on the next scan no change will be detected in the first key, so the routine will now deal with the next key in the row or column priority. You will note that row 0 is scanned twice; once at the beginning of the routine, when its status is stored at £0C01, and once at the end of the routine when it is scanned as row 8 and its status stored at £0C09. The first scan is a special one carried out because the status of the shift key is needed whenever a keypress is detected; in the second scan