Spi keyboard module for a parking meter and a parking meter having an spi keyboard module
AssigneeJ.J. MacKay Canada Limited
InventorsGeorge A. MacKay, James G. MacKay, Adrian I. O'Neil, Gregory E. Chauvin, Neil S. Erskine
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Abstract
A serial peripheral interface (SPI) keyboard module for a parking meter comprises a plurality of key switches and at least one controller configured to detect a key press, determine a predetermined indicator associated with the pressed key and transmit the indicator to a keyboard interface of the parking meter. The SPI keyboard module provides a low power keyboard module that can be easily adapted to provide different keyboards or layouts without requiring significant changes to the parking meter electronics.
Claims24
A metering device comprising:
- at least one metering device controller executing instructions to configure the metering device to provide:
- operating functionality;
- and
- a keyboard interface comprising a serial peripheral interface (SPI) bus interface;
- and
- an SPI keyboard module connected to the at least one metering device controller by an SPI bus, the SPI keyboard module comprising:
- a plurality of key switches;
- and
- at least one keyboard controller configured to:
- detect pressing of a key switch of the plurality of key switches;
- determine a predetermined indicator associated with the detected key switch that was pressed;
- and
- transmit over the SPI bus the predetermined indicator associated with the pressed key to the keyboard interface of the at least one metering device controller,
- wherein the at least one metering device controller receives the transmitted predetermined indicator associated with the pressed key and determines an associated functionality of the pressed key based on the received predetermined indicator,
- wherein the keyboard interface determines a keyboard identifier of the SPI keyboard module and selects a keyboard mapping associated with the SPI keyboard module based on the keyboard identifier,
- wherein the keyboard interface uses the keyboard mapping to map the received predetermined indicator to a particular key.
An SPI keyboard module for connection to a metering device controller in a metering device by an SPI bus, the SPI keyboard module comprising:
- a plurality of key switches;
- and
- at least one keyboard controller configured to:
- detect pressing of a key switch of the plurality of key switches;
- determine a predetermined indicator associated with the detected key switch that was pressed;
- and
- transmit over the SPI bus the predetermined indicator associated with the pressed key to the keyboard interface of the metering device controller, and
- transmit over the SPI bus a keyboard identifier of the SPI keyboard module for use in selecting by the metering device controller a keyboard mapping associated with the SPI keyboard module, wherein the keyboard mapping selected based on the transmitted keyboard identifier allows the metering device controller to map the predetermined indicator to a particular key,
- wherein the transmitted predetermined indicator allows the metering device controller to determine an associated functionality of the pressed key based on the transmitted predetermined indicator.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.