Poseidon is the software solution that brings USB to the Amiga. It will run
on every Amiga equipped with OS3.1 or higher.
To give the users and developers an overview on the state of the software,
please read these facts.
The hardware interface allows to use any USB controller hardware, if the
drivers are written for it:
- As already reported a few days ago by Michael Böhmer, Poseidon will be
the official USB stack included with the Highway and Subway products. It
has been developed using these fine cards.
- A native PPC compile for MorphOS will be possible. Moreover, the MorphOS
development team (cyfm) is working on a hardware driver (UHCI) for the
Pegasos. By the time of writing, the keyboard and mouse classes already
work with more coming soon.
- Benjamin Vernoux has started with a OHCI driver implementation.
Currently, we have got the following class drivers:
- hub.class for the root hub and external hubs. Allows real plug-and-play
and unplugging of USB devices at the user's will (tested with an external
hub and a composite keyboard-hub).
- bootmouse.class for mice (lots of different mice tested).
- bootkeyboard.class for keyboards (several keyboards tested).
- printer.class delivering an usbparallel.device for printing (tested with
Canon S400/S450/S500, Hewlett Packard printers)
- massstorage.class for flash card readers and other mass media.
A lot of people already have received the software developer packages and
said to contribute with digicam/webcam drivers (Felix Schwarz from
innovative), printer drivers (TurboPrint), scanner drivers, etc.
More drivers are still to come. Remember that Poseidon is work-in-progress.
There is already a tool to read out pictures from Webcams using the STV680
chip. Other drivers (which will have much more features) will be provided
by Felix Schwarz for VHI Studio. You can find the first Amiga USB Webcam at
webcam.jpg
Trident, a GUI for Poseidon, is already on the way, although the stack is
so easy to handle, that advanced users will probably stick to the few CLI
commands for loading Poseidon. The whole stack and its class drivers can be
made ROM resident, so that the USB mouse and keyboard is already available
in the boot menu. Even more, it is planned to add booting capabilities to
the massstorage.class.
Developers, who want to contribute may apply for the SDK by sending an
email to poseidon@platon42.de. Also have a look at http://www.e3b.de/usb
for more detailed technical information.
The Poseidon USB stack is Copyright 2002 Chris Hodges. All rights reserved.
(sd)
[News message: 08. Apr. 2002, 00:06] [Comments: 0]
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