Timer-ing ATKBD Communication?

Could someone please give me a hint (function name, pointer to example code or docs) how to accomplish the following?

I'm trying to implement additional communication between kernel and a PS/2 connected AT keyboard. What I have right now (in 2.6.4-52 so far) is:
-- one additional branch in
drivers/input/keyboard/atkbd.c::atkbd_interrupt() that recognizes
the keyboard's (different) responses, processes them, and keeps
them away from the normal atkbd_interrupt() processing
-- another additional branch that, if a special key was pressed, uses
atkbd_sendbyte() to initiate the communication. (Note that this
being hooked into atkbd_interrupt() provides me with direct access
to struct atkbd *atkbd to fill the first param of atkbd_sendbyte().)
The actual communication seems to work (awaiting kernel upgrade and stress testing), but I need part of the communication initiated at regular intervals (about every second or so) instead of keying off other keyboard activity ...

TIA,
J. Bern