[Coco] $4 USB HOST a chip

[John W. Linville]

On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 07:26:42AM -0600, Allen Huffman wrote:
> No drivers needed. A joystick would just plug into a joystick port and appear like a joystick, a keyboard would just plug into the keyboard for your like a keyboard, and other devices could just plug into a serial port.
> 
> You would need to write code for dealing with a flash drive and things like that, but just using USB input would be plug and play.

That's just not true. Code running on the CoCo that probes the PIA
for keyboard input is not going to work with a USB keyboard, no matter
what the USB chip pushes down the serial port.

You are probably thinking that the USB chip can handle HID-style
devices already, which might be true. But there will still need to
be something running on the CoCo to translates whatever the USB chip
sends on the serial port into useful input for programs running on
the CoCo. Frank is right, it will be easier to centralize that piece
of software in OS-9. Code running under DECB will need every program
to be individually patched for the new USB chip's input.

John

> A few years ago, IA bought parts for a prototype that allows using USB input, and parts for one that goes the other direction so a CoCo joystick can hook to a modern computer. This chip cuts the cost by 90%!
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> > On Feb 23, 2017, at 6:04 AM, Francis Swygert <farna at att.net> wrote:
> > 
> > Sounds very interesting Allen! This does open the CoCo up to some USB devices, but there would still have to be a driver written to support it. Not that big a deal in OS-9 of course, but pretty useless to DECB users. 
> > 
> > Still waiting for someone to build a printer driver that will simply plug into the bit-banger and output to a modern dumb inkjet printer. Would have to be something like an Arduino or RPi that takes the output from the CoCo and translates it, but should be an easy software project. That $4 USB chip might make it easier to get from the CoCo into the controller though... Frank Swygert
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-- 
John W. Linville		Someday the world will need a hero, and you
linville at tuxdriver.com			might be all we have.  Be ready.