Poseidon Registrations End

[voxel]

@ ikir :

Selling a product affirming that it's cheaper and faster than the competition and that the driver (A.K.A. poseidon stack (the ONLY stack that works with it)) is included and forcing the customer to register it (poseidon) cause the seller don't want to pay for an OEM license to chris IS STUPID!

There is a VERY BIG difference between a DEVELOPPER licence and an OEM licence :

- the first one is for INTERNAL MANUFACTURER use ONLY, to test and addapt the software closelly to the hardware and NEVER meant to go outside of the laboratories, this one can be FREE :-) but not everytime...

- the second one is for the CUSTOMERS (YOU) of the finished product that get a hardware in working conditions AND the software FULLY REGISTERED in OEM form (at the name of the hardware vendor AND working SOLELY WITH THAT HARDWARE), this one COST MONEY and that's why you pay some bucks more your hardware :-)

It seems that ELBOX hasn't yet understand that simple facts :-x

They are OK to sell lots of Spider cards but they don't want to pay for an OEM licence, they want YOU to pay YOURSELF for THEM that licence by registering the stack, but forget to tell you BEFORE YOU BUY that the included stack is an unregistered demo version YOU MUST REGISTER BEFORE to get the full fonctionnalities!

That's what I call STUPID and VERY BAD commercial acting!

In fatcs, if they were supplying a generic stack of their own with the Spider (fully fonctionnal) AND let you have the possibility to prefer using Poseidon instead by registering it directly, there will be NO PROBLEMS at all!

In the present case, and after all that Chris had to support from Elbox, he made the RIGHT and ONLY decision to have, he is not attacking users as the registered ones will continue to get support.

Now, the only choice Elbox have is to BUY an OEM licence (like Michael did for it's Highway, Subway and Algor cards per example) or develop a stack themselves.

Amigalement,

Jean-Francois, Amiga ONLY since 1985 and Poseidon active supporter since it's very first version!

[voxel]

@tjaoz :

>3. Elbox clearly informs that Poseidon stack needs to be bought separately, see Spider page. Elbox USB 2.0 DRIVERS for Poseidon stack are enclosed with the Spider card.

FALSE! : it is never stated on the pages that you MUST BUY poseidon apart to fully use the card! reread carrefully that pages.

The drivers from Elbox are the HARDWARE drivers (i.e; the small part of code that's needed by Poseidon to recognize WHAT USB CARD is present in the Amiga).

Amigalement,
Jean-François, Amiga ONLY since 1985.

[voxel]

@ tjaoz :

>And what was the meaning of the sentence:
'Registration of the Poseidon stack for Mediator users will be provided by Chris Hodges,'
which is in their website here? (link to an old news page somewhere on the website)

Do you really think that the common user that want to buy an usb card for his Amiga will do a site search to find obscure pages one years old before validating his order? NO, but he would have to.

Most of the times he will read the category page : http://www.buy.elbox.com/cgibin/shop?info=770S20 ,
and eventually follow the link in it to the product page where it can find more infos (they said) : http://www.elbox.com/products/spider_usb_20_pci.html
but don't go any further.

And on these two pages, the most visible to the average user, it is NOT stated that you cant use the card WITHOUT poseidon and that you MUST register it yourself to do so and there is no links to any news pages...

>i.e; the small part of code that's needed by Poseidon to recognize WHAT USB CARD is present in the Amiga
>You are completely ignorant what you are writing about.

It is said that UHCI and OHCI drivers are included for Amithlon and Mediator systems.

Let see the USB Host Controler Interface (UHCI) design guide :

1. OVERVIEW
A USB Host System is composed of a number of hardware and software layers.

* USB Driver (USBD). The USBD system software that supports USB in a particular operating system.
* Client driver software. This software executes on the host PC corresponding to a particular USB device. Client
software is typically part of the operating system or provided with the USB device.

Hey! is it not here that we found Poseidon services ? :-) lets continue...

* Host Controller Driver (HCD). HCD provides the software layer between the Host Controller hardware and the
USBD. The UHCI's HCD interprets requests from the USBD and builds Frame List, Transfer Descriptor, Queue
Head, and data buffer data structures for the Host Controller. The data structures are built in system memory
and contain all necessary information to provide end-to-end communication between client software in the host
and devices on the USB.
* Host Controller (HC). The Host Controller is managed by the HCD software layer. The UHCI's Host Controller
executes the schedule lists generated by HCD and reports the status of transactions on the USB to HCD.
Command execution includes generating serial bus token and/or data packets based on the command and
initiating transmission on USB. For commands that require the Host Controller to receive data from the USB
device, the Host Controller receives the data and then transfers it to the system memory pointed to by the
command. The UHCI's HCD provides sufficient commands and data to keep ahead of the Host Controller
execution and analyzes the results as the commands are completed.

This is what Elbox is providing : interface beetween the USB controler CHIPs on the Spider, memory and Poseidon services.

And poseidon is providing the interface between USB Devices and it's services drivers (masstorage.class, hid.class, ect...) through the UHCI or OHCI drivers.

* USB Device. This is a hardware device that performs a useful end-user function. Interactions with USB devices
flow from the applications through the software and hardware layers to the USB devices.

And that is the usefull hardware thingies you want to connect to your USB card (printer, scanner, card reader, keyboards, etc, ect...) :-P

So if you remove the UHCI/OHCI drivers (spideruhci.device or whatever it is called), you dont have access to the USB controler and Poseidon is unable to access the USB devices connected to it,

and if you remove Poseidon you have a useless USB card... :-P

Amigalement,
Jean-François, Amiga ONLY since 1985.

[voxel]

just a little note to tjaoz :^)

Yes you're right, I forget EHCI driver is provided with spider. Thanx to remind me :-)

BTW, according to it's specs, EHCI is what it's name says : an "Ehanced" HCI for usb 2.0 hardware controlers, it works together as a complementary layer of the USB UHCI/OHCI control software, like UHCI but for usb 2 controler chipset.

So my precedent post is still valid :-P

Amigalement,
Jean-François, Amiga ONLY since 1985 and until earth cease spinning ;^)