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.jpgTrident, 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.
