W83C43

The W83C43 is a keyboard controller designed to provide the functions needed to interface a CPU to a keyboard or to a PS/2 mouse. The W83C43 can be used with IBM^®-compatible personal computers or PS/2-based systems. The controller receives serial data from the keyboard or PS/2 mouse, checks the parity of the data, and presents the data to the system as a byte of data in its output buffer. The controller will interrupt the system when data are placed in its output buffer. The keyboard and PS/2 mouse are required to acknowledge all data transmissions. No transmission should be sent to the keyboard or PS/2 mouse until acknowledge is received for the previous byte sent.

This fast keyboard controller W83C43 can improve the performance of IBM PC/AT^® 386™ DX/SX and 486™ DX/SX machines and their compatibles. Hardwire methodology is used in this controller instead of software implementation, as in the traditional 8042 keyboard BIOS. With full hardware  implementation, this enables the keyboard controller to respond instantly to all commands sent from the keyboard and PS/2 mouse to the CPU BIOS.

The keyboard controller W83C43 enables popular programs such as AutoCAD^®, Microsoft^® Windows™3.1, NOVELL^®_, and other programs to run much faster.