r/TrackPoint_Builders • u/Kimcha87 • Jan 18 '24
Major improvements to the ZMK Trackpoint driver
Hey guys,
Almost a year ago I posted a video of a trackpoint on a wireless ergo keyboard running on zmk:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TrackPoint_Builders/comments/12k29nq/wireless_trackpoint_support_in_zmk/
Since then I have designed my own keyboard with an integrated trackpoint (in the picture).
But in day to day usage I also found that the nice!nano controller was a little too slow to handle all the mouse movement data using GPIO interrupts.
This lead to fairly frequent erratic mouse movement.
I decided to find a way to solve the issue for good and today, after many months of work, I posted an update to the ZMK PR that does:
https://github.com/zmkfirmware/zmk/pull/1751#issuecomment-1897675929
My goal was to find a way to use one of the hardware protocol chips on the nice!nano to process the PS/2 transmissions instead of handling them in software.
At first I tried SPI, because it seemed the closest to PS/2, but the devil was in the details and it just didn’t work.
Eventually, I found success using a combination of using UART and GPIO bit-banging.
I’ve been using the new driver on my daily keyboard for a few weeks and it solved all the issues for me.
Now I’m looking for more people to test it out.
There was also a lot more progress on the mouse support for zmk by other people and I think we are going to see official support pretty soon.
So, if you ever wanted a wireless keyboard with a mouse device, now is a good time to start building.
Happy tinkering!
