[squeak-dev] Squeak and USB

Martin Beck martin.beck at hpi.uni-potsdam.de
Wed Jun 18 18:20:50 UTC 2008


Hi there,

and again, another topic about Squeak and its usb capabilities. At the 
moment I'm in the very need of the possibility to use bi-directional 
usb-communication within squeak.
I'm using usb devices with my own firmware which of course have no known 
vendor and product ids. Thus, Linux does not show them under 
/dev/ttyUSB*, only if I do a
# modprobe usbserial vendor=0x0694 product=0xff00
before connecting, which I do not consider as user-friendly. Maybe I'm 
doing something wrong here, but I could not find much documentation 
about the usbserial generic driver for linux and it seems not to have an 
option to mount all unknown devices capable of a serial interface 
automatically.

Thus, I want to use something like libusb, which could simply enumerate 
usb devices and send data to or receive it from them. Basically, there 
are three options:
- build a vm plugin using a usb library (like libusb)
- include libusb via FFI
- use an external program capable of sending usb commands and connect it 
via OSProcess or sockets

I read some messages about squeak and usb on this mailing list and 
google. Also, about a phidgets connection, which would need a usb 
connection, too, as far as i can see.

So, what is the current state of these efforts, is it possible to use 
any of them? Or do I have to implement one on my own? Which of the 
implementation options above would you prefer, in order to achieve my 
goals easily? Perhaps any other ideas or solutions?

Thanks in advance,
Martin



More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list