Pin bridging

Hey guys,
I was wondering if there is a way to detect if two pins on a picaxe chip have been bridged, so it can act like a keyboard controller. There would be buttons each connecting a certain pair of pins together on the chip when pressed. I'm assuming the way to do this would be to have half the pins permanently high, but is there a way for the picaxe to detect when one of those pins has actually been connected to a load, ie. connected to another input pin (obviously through a 1k protection resistor)?

cheers guys

It is possible and that is how keypad multiplexing works which is what you probably need to investigate.

For example; four outputs and four inputs with pull-downs can be wired as a crosspoint network. When one output line is set high the PICAXE can check which input has also gone high and determine which key was pressed. Diodes can be added to allow simultaneous key presses if required.

http://www.picaxe.com/Circuit-Creator/Switches/Keypad