Phil, (01)
Another developer (Jonathan Mackenzie) just got in touch with Eugene and
is offering to help build a Windows driver for the chord keyset. I will
keep you posted on if he really is interested and can help out, as well
as what progress he can make in this area. (02)
Jonathan (03)
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: FW: Engelbart's NSF project
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2006 20:52:02 -0800
From: Jonathan Cheyer <jonathan@cheyer.biz>
To: Jonathan <jonathanmackenzie@yahoo.com>
CC: Eugene Eric Kim <eekim@blueoxen.com>
References: <CCFACC5ADB1B1C4CA74C864D47364BC905AE4992@ss8mail2.ss8.com>
<20060214200208.3936.qmail@web32907.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
<20060216030519.GE13322@douge.blueoxen.net> (04)
Hi Jonathan, (05)
Thanks for offering to help! There are several different areas to work
on, both in hardware and software. (06)
We are trying to locate and collect as many existing keysets as
possible, so we can restore them to working condition and make sure they
work with modern day PCs. (07)
There are two (known) types of keysets. The two types differ in the
cable endings they have (DB-25 male vs DA-15 female). They all appear to
be analog-based devices. (08)
We have determined the exact pinout of the DA-15 female version. It is
quite similar to the wiring for an analog joystick port but not quite.
We have a hand-crafted cable that converts between the DA-15 female
keyset pinout and the analog joystick pinout. We can then use a standard
converter cable (bought from Radio Shack) to convert between the
analog joystick pinout and USB. That allows us to plug the keyset into
the USB port of the PC, which is very convenient. (09)
We have not yet determined the pinout for the DB-25 male version but
hope to do that soon. After that is done, we can determine the best
approach for converting the wiring to USB. We will use off-the-shelf
components and cables whenever possible but may need to build
hand-crafted cables if necessary. (010)
I have written a keyset driver in Java for the DA-15 female keyset that
reads data from the /dev/js0 device file and interprets them
appropriately. It is used by a Java-based Augment client that we have.
Unfortunately, it only works on Linux PCs due to its need to be able to
read an input stream from a device file. (011)
We will need a C-based driver for each platform (Linux, Windows, MacOS)
that will we can call from multiple languages (C, Python, Ruby). We also
have an existing Augment client that was written in VisualWorks
Smalltalk for Windows, so an added bonus would be to get the Smalltalk
code to use the Windows driver. (012)
The first keyset I received was a DA-15 female version, which is why I
have started with a driver for that. However, most of the keysets that
we have located are of the DB-25 male variety, so it may be more useful
to work on a driver for those. I will need to determine the pinout for
those keysets before work on a driver can begin. (013)
If you're willing to offer your help in writing a Windows driver for the
DA-15 female chord keyset, we could definitely use your help! Just let
me know, and I can give you additional technical information that you
will need to write the driver. (014)
Let's talk more about your availability and see if this is something
that you would be interested in helping with. (015)
Thanks! (016)
Jonathan (017)
Eugene Eric Kim wrote:
> Hi Jonathan,
>
> Thanks for the offer! I've cc'd Jonathan Cheyer, who's managing this
> aspect of the project. He's in Hawaii right now, but I'm sure he'll
> be in touch. Please make sure you're on the hyperscope-dev mailing
> list, as the discussion we have will probably occur on that list.
>
> http://blueoxen.net/c/hyperscope/wiki.pl?MailingLists#nid7
>
> -Eugene
>
> On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 12:02:08PM -0800, Jonathan wrote:
>
>>Hi Eugene,
>>
>>We met at the last Future Salon. I'd like to offer my
>>help with restoring chording keysets - I think I can
>>write a Windows/USB driver. I might also be able to
>>help with the mechanics / electronics.
>>
>>Kind regards,
>>
>>Jonathan.
>>(please note new e-mail address - change from:
>>Jonathan.Mackenzie@ss8.com
>>to:
>>jonathanmackenzie@yahoo.com)
>
> (018)
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