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[full disclosure: I've only worked with FTDI COMx USB with my AVRs.]In this modern age, isn't the cute thing to be one of the "classes" that Windows supports? And can't that be done fairly easily with the Maxim offering? E.g.,Quote:How many endpoints does the MAX3420E support?The MAX3420E contains four endpoints:EP0, bidirectional CONTROL endpoint, 64 byte FIFO.EP1, OUT BULK or INT endpoint, 2x64 byte double-buffered FIFOSEP2, IN BULK or INT endpoint, 2x64 byte double-buffered FIFOSEP3, IN BULK or INT endpoint, 64 byte FIFOWith these endpoints, it is possible to build USB peripherals that support popular USB class drivers, such as a Human Interface Device (HID), Mass Storage, Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP), and Printer.So you pretend to be one of the supported classes. Hmm--I don't see comm port in there anywhere--I thought that was built-in to XP?Quote:How does my Windows application talk to the MAX3420E?A Windows application talks to the PC's USB host controller through a driver. The driver may be built into Windows or it may be custom. Windows includes built-in drivers for standard device classes, such as Human Interface Devices (HID) and Mass Storage Devices. If your firmware supports one of these standard classes, your customer does not need to load a custom driver.If you are designing a device that does not conform to one of the built-in Windows standard device classes, the end user must install a custom driver when your USB device is plugged in the first time.Does Maxim supply a custom Windows driver?No.What example code does Maxim supply?You can find example C code for implementing a HID application on the Maxim website at USB Enumeration Code (and More) for the MAX3420E. This example code emulates a PC keyboard, which types a text string into any Windows application that accepts text (e.g., Notepad) whenever a pushbutton is pressed. By conforming to the standard HID class, the application runs without a custom Windows driver. Regardless of your target application, most of this example code is USB 'boilerplate' that can be used as a starting point for your code.I want to design a MAX3420E-based device that does not conform to a standard Windows class. What do I use for a Windows driver?There are two alternatives:Write the Windows driver yourself. This is complex and difficult, recommended for specialists only.Purchase a general-purpose driver. These typically consist of the USB driver and a companion library of C functions to access the driver. Drivers are matched to the VID (Vendor ID) and PID (Product ID) in your device descriptor.Microsoft has announced a general-purpose BULK driver for USB in the upcoming "Vista" version of Windows.How does the MAX3420E compare with USB 'serial bridge' chips?USB serial bridge chips connect to a PC using its USB port, but appear as a virtual COM port to the application running on the PC . A custom driver, supplied by the chip vendor, is required to do this COM-USB transformation. A Windows application that talks to a serial (COM) port (e.g., HyperTerminal) can be used to talk to an USB-connected device using this method.The advantage of this approach is that no enumeration firmware or host driver is required. The disadvantages are in performance, flexibility, and support:Performance: Because the bridge approach emulates a serial port, the maximum achievable bandwidth is about 1 Megabit per second, well below the USB signaling rate of 12 Megabits per second.Flexibility: The serial-USB bridge chips are hard-wired to emulate serial-port devices. They are not capable of implementing standard Windows class devices (like HID) or custom device types.Support: A product you design using one of these chips will require the companion driver to be installed by your customer. Because it is a custom driver, it is not guaranteed to work with future versions of the operating system. If you choose this approach, try to make sure that the vendor is committed to supporting the driver for the lifetime of your product.What are the advantages and disadvantages of the MAX3420E approach?The disadvantages are that firmware is required for the MAX3420E controller and that Maxim does not supply a custom Windows driver. Instead, Maxim supplies example firmware to illustrate how to conform to a standard Windows device class (HID), and thereby to use a built-in Windows driver.The advantages to the MAX3420E approach are performance, flexibility and support.Performance: The MAX3420E SPI port (its interface to the controller) can run up to 26MHz. If the controller supports a high SPI clock rate, the MAX3420E can support USB transfers up to the maximum available full-speed bandwidth of 12Mbps.Flexibility: The personality of a device using the MAX3420E is entirely determined by its firmware. Therefore, it can implement any type of USB device.Support: Once operating systems natively support general USB (BULK) transfers, the need for serial-USB bridge chips will rapidly diminish.(above from http://www.maxim-ic.com/appnotes.cfm/ap ... umber/3597 )I hear you on the Maxim phantoms--big fanfare, samples in hand and tested, production quantities never show up at the distributors.It certainly looks like they put quite a bit of effort into the supporting documnetation, such as the completely-worked HID "panic button" example.Lee
2/ Part numbers for the 24-pin flex connectorFH12A-24S-0.5SH(55) Digikey part HFK124CT-NDThe 24-pin flex connector was added to the verdex motherboard in response to customer demands for a daughtercard on the 120-pin side of the motherboard that provides UART, USB host etc function on the 24pin/120pin side of the verdex motherboard as these functions are normally "60-pin" type functions.With a flat flex cable, it should be easy to bring those functions from the 24-pin flex connector onto a custom board on the120-pin side of the verdex motherboard in order to reduce the thickness of the board "sandwich".Additionally, for very simple gumstix implementation scenarios, (e.g. connecting say an I2C sensor to a gumstix), the 24-pin flex connector is lower cost & easier to integrate than the 60- or 120-pin connectors.Gumstix added the 24-pin flex connector to address several issues:1) being able to get a console while the motherboard is otherwise in use without the physical limitations of the tweener.2) USB Host3) Battery for RTC.4) Daughtercards that need a flex connector.
One person would have to spend $300 for the hardware to compile the software
cwn723 i dint know if you gave up or what not, I am glad you have been pushing along.