This might sound crazy but is it possible to make a full qwerty keypad for the pi pico?

Hi so I've been wanting to make a little pocket dos/basic inspired handheld computer system inspired by the ones from the 1980s and early 2000s pdas and I want to make a blackberry style qwerty keypad for it. Does anyone have any advice for making qwerty keypads while saving as many gpio pins as possible as I need as many pins for the other elements of the system. I am using a raspberry pi pico to make it.

Something like this? https://www.cnx-software.com/2021/05/25/picomputer-raspberry-pi-pico-qwerty-keyboard-display-lora-module/

Yes that’s exactly the kind of thing I want to make

But I’d want to write my own dos and basic environment

like PyDOS https://blog.adafruit.com/2021/11/12/turn-your-raspberry-pi-pico-into-a-ms-dos-like-computer-piday-raspberrypipico-circuitpython-retiredwizardus-raspberry_pi/ ?

Yes

Then its just to start building 🙂 Good luck in your endeavour.

Thanks I’ve done some research and it looks like I have to make a keyboard matrix system a write a driver for it

Then I have to write the operating environment

And then my version of basic or I could make a python sdk

And then attach a speaker

Not sure if this could be something you would like

https://youtube.com/shorts/E7WQZdJKsbM?si=MRXqGYQhAz69LZt0