New to USB, Is this possible?

Hi everyone, 

So I'm working on a new project where I want a web browser to a certain
site to open whenever my USB device is plugged in and send some data. I
plan on using a Cypress Encore chip and am looking over all the app notes
and sample code but most of it just directly sends data like a mouse or
keyboard. Is there a good resource on sending commands to a PC/Mac? Please
let me know if you have any ideas on how to implement this system or if
you've encountered something similar.

Thank you in advance,

Travis Cochran

On Jun 12, 1:19=A0pm, "Sivart" <travis.coch...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So I'm working on a new project where I want a web browser to a certain
> site to open whenever my USB device is plugged in and send some data. I

You can't really do it without writing a custom app on the PC.

You CAN however make your device look like a storage device, and put
an autorun file on it that will cause Windows to open a browser and
load your site - you can embed active content in it that will send
whatever it is you're trying to send. But on any properly configured
machine this will not work.

On Jun 12, 1:19=A0pm, "Sivart" <travis.coch...@gmail.com> wrote:

> So I'm working on a new project where I want a web browser to a certain
> site to open whenever my USB device is plugged in and send some data.

Two ideas:

1) Using an operating system like windows insecure enough to
automatically execute code off of untrusted media, you can have your
device emulate a USB mass storage (ie "thumb drive") and have an
autorun.inf on it.  This would read data from an emulated file on the
device and upload it to the web site.  This is a common method for
viruses to propagate, so it may be closed off at some point.

2) Write a USB driver for your device for various host systems.  Have
the driver automatically read the data and upload it when the
operating system's USB  stack tells your driver that it has a newly
connected device to deal with.   This is safer, but the user will have
to install a driver for your device (and you have to provide a version
of the driver appropriate to their operating system)

> Is there a good resource on sending commands to a PC/Mac?

It's best to do this from software executing on the PC/Mac, triggered
by the presence of the USB device.

cs_posting@hotmail.com wrote:
> On Jun 12, 1:19&nbsp;pm, "Sivart" <travis.coch...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> So I'm working on a new project where I want a web browser to a certain
>> site to open whenever my USB device is plugged in and send some data.

> 2) Write a USB driver for your device for various host systems.  Have
> the driver automatically read the data and upload it when the
> operating system's USB  stack tells your driver that it has a newly
> connected device to deal with. 

On a Linux system with a kernel 2.6 or later, or on a BSD system, it ought 
to be possible to write udev rules to trigger your choice of actions when a 
USB device is found.

	Mel.

On Jun 13, 11:06 am, Mel <mwil...@the-wire.com> wrote:

> On a Linux system with a kernel 2.6 or later, or on a BSD system, it ought
> to be possible to write udev rules to trigger your choice of actions when a
> USB device is found.

Good point.  Of course you could argue that this constitutes writing a
driver - just in a particular high-level language.

>On Jun 13, 11:06 am, Mel <mwil...@the-wire.com> wrote:
>
>> On a Linux system with a kernel 2.6 or later, or on a BSD system, it
ought
>> to be possible to write udev rules to trigger your choice of actions
when a
>> USB device is found.
>
>Good point.  Of course you could argue that this constitutes writing a
>driver - just in a particular high-level language.
>
>


Thank you for all of your ideas. I think right now my best bet is to have
my device recognized as a storage device and have either a autorun file or
a driver install file on it since I won't have access to all of the
computers this will be used on before hand. This shouldn't be too hard to
accomplish with a Cypress USB MCU. 

Thanks again for all your help.

-Travis

Sivart wrote:
>> On Jun 13, 11:06 am, Mel <mwil...@the-wire.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On a Linux system with a kernel 2.6 or later, or on a BSD system, it
> ought
>>> to be possible to write udev rules to trigger your choice of actions
> when a
>>> USB device is found.
>> Good point.  Of course you could argue that this constitutes writing a
>> driver - just in a particular high-level language.
>>
>>
> 
> 
> Thank you for all of your ideas. I think right now my best bet is to have
> my device recognized as a storage device and have either a autorun file or
> a driver install file on it since I won't have access to all of the

Is this a "catch 22" ?

If the driver is on the device,
and you need to load the driver *before* the device can be used,
how will the driver ever get loaded ?

Did that make sense ??

Also, can a single USB device enumerate as two devices ??

Say, a hard drive and a serial port ?

Or any two devices ?

How does the enumeration process work aon the device side, can the same 
device hardware respond twice ?

Thanks

don

> computers this will be used on before hand. This shouldn't be too hard to
> accomplish with a Cypress USB MCU. 
> 
> Thanks again for all your help.
> 
> -Travis

On Jun 15, 11:23=A0am, don <don> wrote:
> Sivart wrote:

> > Thank you for all of your ideas. I think right now my best bet is to ha=
ve
> > my device recognized as a storage device and have either a autorun file=
 or
> > a driver install file on it since I won't have access to all of the
>
> Is this a "catch 22" ?
>
> If the driver is on the device,
> and you need to load the driver *before* the device can be used,
> how will the driver ever get loaded ?

No, because the operating system typically implements the mass-storage
device driver.

It's not clear if his custom "driver" will be a new driver to put the
device in some other mode that is not mass-storage, or just something
that extends the functionality of a device still treated as mass-
storage by the operating system's USB implementation.  I'd recommend
the later.