Skunkworks PS-2 <-> ADB Project

[techknight]

Because keyboards back then supported both the HID and legacy PS/2 protocols. the MCU inside the keyboard knew to switch into legacy mode when it detected the PS/2 clock frequency. Optical mice were this way as well, and they too, dont support dual protocols anymore except for more expensive ones.

Some more expensive models still do, but ive noticed the cheapo 10 dollar keyboards that you can pick up at the garden variety store no longer support legacy PS/2 so as soon as you put the little "green" adapter on it, nothing happens.

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I'm exhausted, so I'm not sure what I was babbling about earlier, or now for that matter, but here's the link:
USB <- OR -> TTL Seria Adapter Threadl

PL2303HX USB to TTL Converter Module

Since my brain is firing on just three of eleven badly tuned cylinders ATM:

How about just skipping all the wiring mess and converting Bluetooth KBD/Mouse Protocols to an ADB pigtailed receiver box?

[Gorgonops]

Trash, I'm pretty sure you're conflating USB peripheral vs. host devices again. (Granted, I'm having trouble following things again.) To really grossly oversimplify it, it's a lot easier to make a USB peripheral than a USB host, and anything that converted a USB keyboard and/or mouse to ADB would be a *host* while your little TTL->USB toy is a *peripheral* and there's no way to turn it around to be a host.

There are some small microcontrollers that are fast enough to do USB Host in software; example:

https://courses.cit.cornell.edu/ee476/F ... index.html

It implements enough of a low-speed USB 2.0 hub on an AVR32 to drive a mouse and convert its output to serial. There are also "prefab" USB host chips that can be used to offload the entire USB protocol stack into a "black box":

http://www.ftdichip.com/Products/ICs/VNC1L.htm

Thus if you really wanted to use USB devices instead of PS/2 if you certainly *could* use them without an impossible amount of effort. Really though, if you're talking about actually *developing* something I'd strongly suggest using PS/2 devices for the initial version simply because PS/2 is basically known backwards and forwards, there's tons of driver code you can steal, and it's simple from an electrical and timing standpoint. It's the ADB side you need to figure out, why pile on complexity on the front end when it's the back end you're worried about?

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Trash, I'm pretty sure you're conflating USB peripheral vs. host devices again. (Granted, I'm having trouble following things again.)

Indubitably, I can't follow anything involving the concepts of USB, MicroController or programming for I/O involving these when they're involved in a single project.

But thanks for your continued tuteldge.

Reason:

My mind is a visual conflagration of competing conceptual imagery, roiling, boiling, melting and fusing in seemingly endless confusion that makes sense in certain snapshots.

Strategy:

I've given up on trying to fully understand or DO any hacks beyond the NuBus Architecture and 6500 PCI level projects already on my plate. However, I HAVE decided to keep bringing up the crazy notions I come up with like this last, because the next couple of generations of hackers are fluent in the languages that are my weaknesses.

When I make my inevitable, mistaken, uninformed impressions as clearly as I can in .TXT, there are corrections forthcoming from knowledgeable old guard brothers-in-arms such as yourself and younger comrades like Bunsen. Such corrections/explanations will remain lost on myself, but will remain useful to those comrades with the ability and will to go to hacking heights/depths into current/less ancient architectures where I care not tread.

Excuse for continued posting of apparent drivel:

My mistake in buying the <$3.00 USB <- OR -> TTL converter for the Duo's Modem Bay inspired two competent comrades to assault the obstacle by flanking manouvre.

[Gorgonops]

It's all right, I hope I didn't sound too snippy. The world needs "idea men", don't get me wrong.

I don't know if it would help much, but maybe here's an analogy that might help for understanding USB in the future: USB peripherals are like drill bits and accessories. There's all sorts of cool things you can attach to a drill: spade bits, sanding disks, hole saws, screwdrivers, miniature lathes... heck, I've used a hand drill powered emergency sump pump before. The one thing all drill bits have in common is they need to be chucked onto a *drill* before they can work. The drill is the USB host, which is almost always a "computer". Just like there's no way you can chuck two bits together and have them do anything useful there's no way you can take a USB peripheral and connect directly it to another. Without a "drill" there's no "power", and thus you are dead in the water before you start.

This is basically how it works. USB is point-to-point, not really a bus at all. A given USB host device can talk to one peripheral device at once, and the host directs the entire conversation. I know, wait, what about USB hubs? In this analogy imagine that a USB hub is a sort of gearbox that can transfer torque from one input "drill", the host, to any of a number of output shafts. When a computer is using multiple USB devices "at once" on a hub it's actually shifting the "transmission" rapidly from one device to another. USB devices are not like Firewire or SCSI, which are peers of the host interface and have their own busmastering capability; USB devices are complete slaves to the host and cannot talk directly to each other. You *need* a host of some sort, be it a full-fledged computer or a minimal microcontroller-based implementation, to drive the conversation, and no off-the-shelf peripheral like a USB-to-serial converter is going to have the brains to be the host.

(The one exception is "USB On-The-Go", which is a specification for things like mobile phones or media players, which sometimes act as USB peripherals and sometimes act as hosts. A good example of this is the USB cable that Apple sells for iPods to let them download photos from a digital camera on the go. When the iPod is plugged into your computer it's a peripheral emulating a hard disk, but with the digital camera cable the iPod is a host for the camera, which itself is probably emulating a USB storage device. But really what the specification covers is how in the case of two OTG devices cross-connected to each other they negotiate which should be the master and which should be the slave. Once the devices have chosen their role they then act like normal USB hosts or peripherals respectively.)

Anyway. Maybe putting it in those sort of terms might help. But if not, no worries.

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

You didn't come off snippy at all, I wasn't being defensive or apologetic, and thanks for the generous compliment.

The drill/bit analogy/imagery works well for me. I've always thought of USB as the fleet of foot, higher powered, hot-swappable offspring of ADB, which I've yet to make a study of as well. Maybe it's because my thought processes are so in tune with the parallel worlds of the fast and slow I/O buses of the Mac's ancient architectures and the SCSI Peripheral Model that I'm not drawn to the world of serial comms. My brain is more a massively parallel imagery co-processor gone wild, with a stunted verbal center that gifts me with a wonderfully whacky turn of phrase based on wild word combinations when it's working well. But I can't tell a story, a joke or explain a project worth a da . . . whatever . . .
. . . it's fun trying and I can sketch out a concept in isometric detail in seconds when words fail me!

< overly personal drivel mode alert >

I rather enjoy the respect I get around these parts, and over on 'fritter, as the, crazy, wild eyed creative type/dreamer. It's a role I've always played at in real life, only to finally discover that I was gifted with ADD and, much more recently, the manic-depressive/artistic temperament so well described by Kay Redfield Jameson. Both were tremendous advantages in the graphic arts and sign industries, as well as in the creation of the "font emulator" electronics start-up. My gifts have garnered a lot of respect IRL, I've lived a very blessed life. The most precious blessing of all has been the passing of my penniless/priceless, family inheritance on to my son. Hopefully not the Bi-Polar portion, but he's got the master craftsman's hands of both my grandfathers, the visual abilities and sculptor's touch of his tight cooper great-great granddaddy, my father's and his maternal grandfather's razor sharp intellects, my artistic/creative abilities, coupled with his mother's heart, verbal/social skills and gifted mind as well.

It's almost three years ago today, since my release from the hospital into this most wonderful of my several lifetimes. I mark April Fool's Day, the anniversary of the day HP-Mini brought me back to my longtime virtual homes and sources of comradeship online, and out into the WiFi Coffee Shop Society IRL, as my third birthday. Having found the "where is jt? posts" here while I was in the hospital was a call back to this wonderful new life.

Thanks gang!

< /overly personal drivel mode alert >

[Bunsen]

There are some small microcontrollers that are fast enough to do USB Host in software

And there are a number that have USB Host in hardware, too, with standard HID drivers.

Subject: SCSI for the 512K (or 128?)

seems like you can get ARM Cortexes for under $2 in single quantities these days. Add a handful of bucks for one with lots of built in I/O.

Lots of potentially useful clues in this thread:
http://forums.parallaxinc.com/forums/de ... 5&m=426250

the latest 32-bit line-up from NXP / ARM Cortex range. / basic 8K/8K 50MHz version / only $1.31 in 100 quantities ($1.76 one off), and only slightly more for 32K Flash versions. What am I doing even thinking about 8-bit'rs? /

Then there was the LPC1343 with built in USB MSC and HID capabilities! Ok, these weren't under $2, but around $5, which is what I pay just for an FT232R anyway. /

A free development environment exists based on the Eclipse IDE.

It's the ADB side you need to figure out

I quite agree. Everything else - PS/2, USB HID etc, is both fully documented and available ready-rolled as open source code, or indeed in hardware. Get one or more micros talking to the Mac first, and then worry about the downstream side.

[techknight]

And, that has already been done, discussed in a Microchip PIC application note.

[MidnightCommando]

If it's already been done, why are we still sitting around measuring our ... *ahem* hard drive sustained transfer speeds? >_>

[techknight]

Wasnt done by me, it was done by Microchip Inc. and the application note is published. I dont use their products so I cant do much with the information, but its out there nonetheless.

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

No EPROM erasure indicated, further testing required . . .

Also in this shot of the RadLab:

SuperIIsi™ goodies:

IIsi NuBus Adapter
Radius Rocket33
SCSI II DaughterCard
Radius Studio Array SCSI II RAIDbox

Miscellania and Tanning Salon Equipment:

PowerBook 160 in off config of its on again/off again boot attempt basis trickery
PowerBook 160 Battery Bay BootSafe Security Device
21" Radius PrecisionView 2150 showing off again Video Mode
21" MAG Innovision MX21F video display from pet IIfx
21" ViewSonic G810 Portrait Display
22" ViewSonic Professional Series P225fNinja

(sorry about the brightness and contrast levels: set for clickey input message-n-KBD clarity)

[Bunsen]

[ADB] was done by Microchip Inc. and the application note is published

Well then - find a PIC with USB HID support, add the ADB code from their appnote, write a few lines of glue code, bang, done.

(he says, as he slinks off to work on something else...)

[techknight]

There is only one problem. I use AVR microprocessors, never used a PIC, so am unfamiliar with how a PIC operates. Thats the whole issue. lol. if the appnote was in AVR, it wouldnt be an issue at all.

Only thing i can really do is study the appnote well enough to convert over to AVR.

Oh, and for the record Bunsen Sir, I may be reading this the wrong way, but the way I read it is your comment was uncalled for. Yes I may have multiple projects, but the information that I had posted is in for a forum for not just I, but others to read. I had even posted code for the AVR that is a fully FUNCTIONAL PS/2 stack for others to read, if i didnt think anyone else could use it, i would have never posted it. You treat me as if I was the only one running this show. There are others that could take the information I posted and do something with it. I am not the only one here.

I realize the comment made, and various others by other members all lead to the basic same thing: Your getting sick of my shit, many projects and master of none. I've completed a few as time allowed, but not all. Anyway, thats no problem, I completely understand, ill stop, so no further comments against me can be made.

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I'm sorry you''re taking it that way, I don't think Bunsen is trying to give you a hard time. In a place like this, with varying level of expertise, interest and curiosity in so many different areas, I feel like it's impossible for people NOT to come off as being flip. I, for one, really enjoy your input here.

There's just too much assumption and not enough real communication going on in the fora. IRC doesn't count, it's what is laid down in .txt in these threads that makes this place a great place to be a member.

It's also what convinces lurkers to become new recruits.

whatever . . . I'm tired and cranky and . . .

[Bunsen]

I may be reading this the wrong way

Indeed, sir, you are.

I was referring to myself, slinking off to work on something else, not you; "he says..." being what I thought was a reasonably well known self-referential meme - my mistake. An attempt to acknowledge my slight twinge of guilt that, though I make what seems an obvious suggestion, I do not at this time plan to participate in bringing it about, as I am trying to focus on one project at the moment. The comment was aimed at no-one apart from me - and the suggestion itself - aimed at no-one but whoever might stumble upon it and decide to make use of it.

I'm certainly not "sick of" your anything right now. As far as I can tell, your contributions hereabouts are quite valuable. I too tend to have a thousand and one plots and schemes bubbling away in the back of my mind, and give myself an excruciatingly hard time about lack of focus and follow-through. Hence, trying hard not to get distracted by the new shiny.

I've completed a few as time allowed

I know - and thus you're already a few ahead of me

[techknight]

I am sorry if i misread that statement. I thought it was directed towards me. My deepest apologies. That is the problem with text. it can be read 500000 different ways. I read it the wrong way. lol.