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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga Hardware News => Topic started by: System on April 07, 2002, 11:59:51 PM
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Poseidon is the software solution that brings USB to the Amiga. It will run on every Amiga equipped with OS3.1 or higher.
To give the users and developers an overview on the state of the software, please read these facts.
The hardware interface allows to use any USB controller hardware, if the drivers are written for it:
- As already reported a few days ago by Michael Böhmer, Poseidon will be the official USB stack included with the Highway and Subway products. It has been developed using these fine cards.
- A native PPC compile for MorphOS will be possible. Moreover, the MorphOS development team (cyfm) is working on a hardware driver (UHCI) for the Pegasos. By the time of writing, the keyboard and mouse classes already work with more coming soon.
- Benjamin Vernoux has started with a OHCI driver implementation.
Currently, we have got the following class drivers:
- hub.class for the root hub and external hubs. Allows real plug-and-play and unplugging of USB devices at the user's will (tested with an external hub and a composite keyboard-hub).
- bootmouse.class for mice (lots of different mice tested).
- bootkeyboard.class for keyboards (several keyboards tested).
- printer.class delivering an usbparallel.device for printing (tested with Canon S400/S450/S500, Hewlett Packard printers)
- mass storage.class for flash card readers and other mass media.
A lot of people already have received the software developer packages and said to contribute with digicam/webcam drivers (Felix Schwarz from innovative), printer drivers (TurboPrint), scanner drivers, etc.
More drivers are still to come. Remember that Poseidon is work-in-progress.
There is already a tool to read out pictures from Webcams using the STV680 chip. Other drivers (which will have much more features) will be provided by Felix Schwarz for VHI Studio. You can find the first Amiga USB Webcam at http://www.platon42.de/platon/gfx/webcam.jpg
Trident, a GUI for Poseidon, is already on the way, although the stack is so easy to handle, that advanced users will probably stick to the few CLI commands for loading Poseidon. The whole stack and its class drivers can be made ROM resident, so that the USB mouse and keyboard is already available in the boot menu. Even more, it is planned to add booting capabilities to the massstorage.class.
Developers, who want to contribute may apply for the SDK by sending an email to poseidon@platon42.de. Also have a look at http://www.e3b.de/usb for more detailed technical information. The Poseidon USB stack is Copyright 2002 Chris Hodges. All rights reserved.
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A bit late for usb when the amigaone is almost here anyway what other than mice and keyboards will work with it.
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no - I think usb is nice for classic Amiga. it is late, but it is a nice alternative to getting a PC keyboard/mouse adapter.
the networking add-on for the highway is also nice.
was also curious - is the poseidon usb software stack also intended for usb controllers to be used in the pci busboards?
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> was also curious - is the poseidon usb software stack also intended for usb controllers to be used in the pci busboards?
That's what the UHCI and OHCI stuff is all about.
Best regards
Chris Hodges
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A bit late for usb when the amigaone is almost here
Not really. You can't expect the usb ports on the AmigaOneGE to work without software support and drivers. So OS4.0 will need a USB stack like poseidon and drivers too. I don't know if this is the stack Hyperion intend to use in OS4 (probably not since there is no mention of it in the news article).
Pteppic
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Okay, I am sure that this is dumb ?, but . . .
I read this for OS3.1 and higher, does that mean
OS4.0? If so, does this I can buy a USB Keyboard
for my AmigaOne? I am interested in knowing what
keyboard I will be able to use with my AmigaOne? I
would like a really good keyboard and I am wondering.
Thanks
Warren
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for keyboard I am really wanting to keep my A4000 one :(
maybe someone will build an converter interface. Why doesnt someone get designs for the Amiga stlye layout and build standard PC keyboards with the Amiga look?
Pteppic. btw Above all other casing/mouse/monitor I think the keyboard is the face of the machine
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> Okay, I am sure that this is dumb ?, but . . .
I doubt, it is :-\
> I read this for OS3.1 and higher, does that mean
> OS4.0?
If you've read the statements of Ben Hermans and the executive update, they
said that they've got USB mice and keyboards working so far. This, however,
has got nothing to do with Poseidon.
I cannot make any assumptions on Poseidon running on AOS4, as I don't know
any internals about it. I will have to wait and see, if/when it comes out.
> If so, does this I can buy a USB Keyboard
> for my AmigaOne? I am interested in knowing what
> keyboard I will be able to use with my AmigaOne?
If the Hyperion team has got a working hardware driver for their stack,
sure, why not? They've promised USB support, so I guess you'll be getting
USB support with the AmigaOne.
> I would like a really good keyboard and I am wondering.
Ah, those keyboards are crap :) There's nothing better than the
RealThing(TM) (the Amiga keyboard layout has got all keys at the right
place; no "Alt-Gr ?" for the backslash etc.)
Best regards,
Chris Hodges
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Does the following line include USB-hard-drives as well?
"- mass storage.class for flash card readers and other mass media."
Anyone know???
That would be really great for me!!!
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> Does the following line include USB-hard-drives as well?
Yes, it should (we didn't have any usb hard drive
to test though), but be aware that usb 1.1 is not
that fast to support harddisks in a reasonable
way. Normal SCSI/IDE harddisks are an order of
magnitude faster.
Regards,
Chris Hodges
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Great work, guys!! I'm all for it. And for all you folks cryin' about it's "too late" arrival, my Classic Amiga is right here, today. I don't see any of Your AmigaOnes, or your OS4 either. In my mind, it's all vapor untill I have my hands on it.
I think I'll be touching a Highway card or a Mediator way before an AmigaOne box! 'Nuff said.
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A cool USB device is the Creative Extigy, an external USB SoundBlaster. An A1200 with an Extigy would be great.