I am trying to make it work under win8... It isn't a Prolific 2303 and it isn't an FTDI FT232 or similar... Win8 does notice it was plugged in (it beeps) but nothing new (that I can see) appears under Control Panel / Devices. I would expect a COM port with a Hayes compatible modem behind it. That is what their older models do. The old 7100 is a straight RS232 Hayes modem, but the XT is USB only. The modem has a config for two things: Modem and USB. Neither makes any difference, but the 1st one suggests that perhaps it does have an RS232 interface...
Thuraya XT satphone - what USB chip is used?
Started by ●February 28, 2014
Reply by ●February 28, 20142014-02-28
>I am trying to make it work under win8... > >It isn't a Prolific 2303 and it isn't an FTDI FT232 or similar... > >Win8 does notice it was plugged in (it beeps) but nothing new (that I >can see) appears under Control Panel / Devices. > >I would expect a COM port with a Hayes compatible modem behind it. >That is what their older models do. The old 7100 is a straight RS232 >Hayes modem, but the XT is USB only.You might want to plug it into a Linux box (boot a Linux live CD image or USB stick on your current machine, if you wish) and do an "lsusb" and "lsusb -v". This should show you plenty of information about the device characteristics. An increasing number of devices these days are publishing a CDC (Communications Device Class) endpoint... behaves a lot like a modem or serial port but there's no concept of baud rate.
Reply by ●February 28, 20142014-02-28
dplatt@coop.radagast.org (David Platt) wrote>>I am trying to make it work under win8... >> >>It isn't a Prolific 2303 and it isn't an FTDI FT232 or similar... >> >>Win8 does notice it was plugged in (it beeps) but nothing new (that I >>can see) appears under Control Panel / Devices. >> >>I would expect a COM port with a Hayes compatible modem behind it. >>That is what their older models do. The old 7100 is a straight RS232 >>Hayes modem, but the XT is USB only. > >You might want to plug it into a Linux box (boot a Linux live CD image >or USB stick on your current machine, if you wish) and do an "lsusb" >and "lsusb -v". This should show you plenty of information about the >device characteristics. > >An increasing number of devices these days are publishing a CDC >(Communications Device Class) endpoint... behaves a lot like a modem >or serial port but there's no concept of baud rate.Interesting. Is there a Linux image which can go onto a USB flash stick and "just work"? Years ago I had something like that on a boot CD. But for this experiment I obviously need something much more current. One unix user reports that the Thuraya phone worked straight off, detecting it as a Hayhes modem and with a popup asking for the APN! Somehow it must have assumed that this is not a DUN device but a GPRS/3G device, knew the number to dial is *99#, and just needed the APN and the login/pwd.
Reply by ●February 28, 20142014-02-28
In article <53110840$0$1136$5b6aafb4@news.zen.co.uk>, John-Smith <noospam@noospam.com> wrote:>Interesting. Is there a Linux image which can go onto a USB flash >stick and "just work"?Quite a few Linux distributions come, or are compatible with USB-stick imaging programs.. http://www.pendrivelinux.com/ has pointers and instructions, including a "Universal USB Installer" app for Windows which can image many different sorts of bootable image (Linux and otherwise) onto a USB stick. Ubuntu seems to recommend this installer as the best way to get a bootable Ubuntu stick. http://www.debian.org/CD/live/ has live-install images for CDs and USB sticks. Naturally, such imaged USB sticks will only boot on systems whose BIOSes possess this capability... which is most modern ones, I believe.
Reply by ●February 28, 20142014-02-28
On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 10:36:56 +0000, John-Smith wrote:> I am trying to make it work under win8... > > It isn't a Prolific 2303 and it isn't an FTDI FT232 or similar... > > Win8 does notice it was plugged in (it beeps) but nothing new (that I > can see) appears under Control Panel / Devices. > > I would expect a COM port with a Hayes compatible modem behind it. That > is what their older models do. The old 7100 is a straight RS232 Hayes > modem, but the XT is USB only. > > The modem has a config for two things: Modem and USB. Neither makes any > difference, but the 1st one suggests that perhaps it does have an RS232 > interface...There's tons of microcontrollers on the market with USB ports. If you're building 1000 a year or more of something it's probably worth the trouble to make that work rather than wasting money and board space on a separate chip. -- Tim Wescott Control system and signal processing consulting www.wescottdesign.com
Reply by ●February 28, 20142014-02-28
On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 22:05:20 +0000, John-Smith wrote:> dplatt@coop.radagast.org (David Platt) wrote > >>>I am trying to make it work under win8... >>> >>>It isn't a Prolific 2303 and it isn't an FTDI FT232 or similar... >>> >>>Win8 does notice it was plugged in (it beeps) but nothing new (that I >>>can see) appears under Control Panel / Devices. >>> >>>I would expect a COM port with a Hayes compatible modem behind it. That >>>is what their older models do. The old 7100 is a straight RS232 Hayes >>>modem, but the XT is USB only. >> >>You might want to plug it into a Linux box (boot a Linux live CD image >>or USB stick on your current machine, if you wish) and do an "lsusb" and >>"lsusb -v". This should show you plenty of information about the device >>characteristics. >> >>An increasing number of devices these days are publishing a CDC >>(Communications Device Class) endpoint... behaves a lot like a modem or >>serial port but there's no concept of baud rate. > > Interesting. Is there a Linux image which can go onto a USB flash stick > and "just work"?Ubuntu does that very well. I'm sure there's others, but I'm only familiar with Ubuntu. -- Tim Wescott Control system and signal processing consulting www.wescottdesign.com
Reply by ●March 1, 20142014-03-01
Tim Wescott <tim@seemywebsite.please> wrote>There's tons of microcontrollers on the market with USB ports. If you're >building 1000 a year or more of something it's probably worth the trouble >to make that work rather than wasting money and board space on a separate >chip.Yes, but equally the equipment manufacturer is not going to be writing their own windows drivers for any of these, because that is an absolute pig of a job. I wonder which of these are the main players? I will try that USB monitoring program, from the FTDI website. I know FTDI - we use them at work. Good chips and a good company.
Reply by ●March 1, 20142014-03-01
On 03/01/2014 08:38 AM, John-Smith wrote:> > Tim Wescott <tim@seemywebsite.please> wrote > >> There's tons of microcontrollers on the market with USB ports. If you're >> building 1000 a year or more of something it's probably worth the trouble >> to make that work rather than wasting money and board space on a separate >> chip. > > Yes, but equally the equipment manufacturer is not going to be writing > their own windows drivers for any of these, because that is an > absolute pig of a job.You could implement a CDC class device, and use the standard drivers.
Reply by ●March 1, 20142014-03-01
On Sat, 01 Mar 2014 09:52:38 +0100, Arlet Ottens wrote:> On 03/01/2014 08:38 AM, John-Smith wrote: >> >> Tim Wescott <tim@seemywebsite.please> wrote >> >>> There's tons of microcontrollers on the market with USB ports. If >>> you're building 1000 a year or more of something it's probably worth >>> the trouble to make that work rather than wasting money and board >>> space on a separate chip. >> >> Yes, but equally the equipment manufacturer is not going to be writing >> their own windows drivers for any of these, because that is an absolute >> pig of a job. > > You could implement a CDC class device, and use the standard drivers.This is a really useful thread to me, because I didn't know nuthing about this CDC device class stuff -- does Windows automatically try to hook it up to a COM port so you can just pretend its serial, or is there some other API that you have to use? I'm currently putting an FTDI chip into something because an FT230X is smaller than the crystal that the microprocessor requires if you go with USB, but a secondary reason was not wanting to mess with programming USB in the chip. -- Tim Wescott Control system and signal processing consulting www.wescottdesign.com
Reply by ●March 2, 20142014-03-02
On 2014-03-01, Tim Wescott <tim@seemywebsite.please> wrote:> On Sat, 01 Mar 2014 09:52:38 +0100, Arlet Ottens wrote: >> >> You could implement a CDC class device, and use the standard drivers. > > This is a really useful thread to me, because I didn't know nuthing about > this CDC device class stuff -- does Windows automatically try to hook it > up to a COM port so you can just pretend its serial, or is there some > other API that you have to use? >Assuming we are talking about the CDC ACM interface, there are a couple of things you need to be aware of: 1) I've seen reports the Windows CDC ACM drivers are not as good as they should be. However, be aware that's hearsay: I have no experience with the Windows CDC ACM drivers. (Also, those reports were about WinXP IIRC; I don't recall seeing anything about Windows 7). 2) There's no way for the CDC ACM device to communicate the CTS status back to the USB host; it's not part of the CDC ACM specification. Microchip have a MCP2200 IC which implements the CDC ACM protocol; they handled this problem by implementing hardware flow control on the IC itself. Only you can decide if this is a issue for you. :-) Simon. -- Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world
