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News
May 20th 2008
A new version (0.92) of the USB mouse driver is released. It's still alpha, but it shouldn't crash now when run in 060 mode with a NetUSBee.
Thanks for being patient for this fix, and please, keep sending those comments.
March 8th 2008
Thanks to those people that wrote me to tell me of a bug in the 0.91 version of the mouse driver. Some CT60/63 owners with NetUSBee will find that the mouse driver will crash after you try to install it, if you are running in '060 mode.
The bug has been identified, and I'm working on a fix now.
July 24th 2007
I have released version 0.90 of the USB mouse driver. Apart from several bugs removed, like the fact that the driver stopped reporting the devices name, the ability to parse a config file has been added, which you can use to change or turn off debug logging.
Still I ask for emailed responses from those people that have tested it, and thanks to those people that already responded.
July 20th 2007
Ok, so no news for over 1 year, and suddenly this. I know, it's not ideal, but I have been in touch with the 'scene' during this time, so those of you who REALLY wanted to know what was going on were able to (and some did) get in touch. In this year I have found it hard to spend as much time on the USB stuff as I'd liked, mostly because of being married, emigrating from my home country, starting a new job, learning a new language etc etc. Really. Which brings us to today...
I'm releasing an Alpha of the USB mouse driver. Note, I said 'Alpha'. Not 'Beta'. It's a work in progress, and there are several things I need to fix or improve before it can be called a 'Beta'. However, it seems to work correctly on my prototype EtherNat and NetUSBee's, in both Tos and MiNT. It has been tested (although somewhat limited) on my 1040STFM, TT, and CT60. It can run from an Auto folder, from the desktop, or started from XaAES when it boots. One thing I ask, is if you try it please send an email to me, with information on your system (Hardware, TOS, AES and Desktop version) whether it works well or not at all, and which mouse(s) you tried. Any bugs and/or feature requests should also be included in the report. As detailed as you can Please. Your feedback is very important for the future development. Get it from the Downloads section.
February 26th 2006
I moved into my 'nice apartment'. Click here if you want to see where I live now. The furniture has arrived and unpacking has started. I can see my dev Falcon over there on top of a pile of boxes, but I cannot set it up yet, I don't have the time. I have ordered a big new desk, something that can take my Mac, Falcon, printer, soldering iron, tools... etc etc. When this comes I will be able to create a good dev environment. I decided that I would continue some work, I will definitely not be continuing development on the complete USB stack, but maybe I will finish the mouse driver and a printer dump utility. I will see what happens after that.
Jan 19th 2006
Received an email from Rodolphe Czuba. The CTLink hardware is cancelled. Bummer. The CTLink is the reason I started this journey, to bring USB support to the majority of Atari's that are still in use today, like the TT's, and unaccelerated Falcons. This means that any work I do now is only for the EtherNat card which is only for the handful of CT60 users that are out there. I need to have a good think about what I do next, and whether I am going to continue with the development.
January 2006
Sorry for the lack of updates. I will try to explain what has happened. When you read this you will know why..
Nov '05.
Rumours are going around that our project that I support is going to be offshored. Already quite a few contractors have been told that their contracts are not being renewed. I am not one of them yet but I have been busy looking for another opportunity. I have had an interview for a job in the Czech Republic, and I have accepted the position. This means a major upheaval, for both me and my wife.
Dec '05.
I have had to suspend work on the USB drivers as I have way too much to do here with the relocation issue. I have visited the Czech Republic twice and have not been able to find somewhere suitable to live yet. Everything is going into storage, as we will not be able to ship our furniture and move at the same time. The website has been copied from the TT to my ISPs webspace, the email server has been switched off and the DNS records changed. The TT has been decommissioned for now.
Jan '06.
I started work for my new company. I am living in a bed and breakfast this month while looking for a nice apartment.
October 2005
I have started work on a second USB test program. This one will test dumping of files to a printer. The way to do this is to print something from your favourite program and existing drivers, but instead of to the printer, select 'print to file'. This creates a file that the test software will be able to feed through the USB to an attached printer. This test program will be the core of the printing driver and maybe the application too. I intend to make it so that you can just drag a printer dump file onto the printer icon on the desktop to print it.
September 4th 2005
I made a JTAG cable and updated the CT60. Now I can talk to the EtherNat. Actually I found that I could talk to the EtherNat before the CT60 was updated, but there was an issue with interrupts.
August 25th 2005
Today I received an Ethernat prototype! I need to update my CT60's ABE to be able to talk to it, then I can continue driver development.
August 9th 2005
The Ethernat prototype is finished, according to news released today from Nature. I should be receiving a prototype any day now, so that I can continue the USB drivers. Orders for one of the production Ethernat's should be submitted in the first instance to the Nature team via email. Head over to Nature for more information on how to get your hands on one.
August 2005
I will be attending Jagfest this year, and I hope to be demonstrating the Ethernat and CTLink cards working in the CT60 Falcon, and if the adapter card is ready on time, the TT030 too. Watch this space for further announcements...
April 24th 2005
History is made. The first succesful USB enumeration on the 16/32bit Atari platform was done today. The Nature team enumerated a mouse, a digital camera, and an MP3 player. Visit Nature and take a look at the screenshots. This was achievable thanks to the influenza virus, which kept me off work and away from doing chores for 3 days, so I could concentrate on the coding.
March 2005
Spring is almost upon us, and the dark cold winter flees. With the better weather comes a renewed inspiration :-) Henrik at Nature has almost got the Ethernat ready for production, just a couple of small things to sort out and it should be ready (hopefully!). The ethernet portion of the card is working great in MiNT (with MiNTnet). I am currently working with Nature to make sure that the USB function on the card is electrically sound before the card goes into production.
3th August 2004
Rodolphe from Czuba-Tech today officially unveiled the CTLink. Take a look at the CTLink page here.
13th July 2004
Henrik from Nature has sent me the latest board layout. It is nearly finished.
3rd July 2004
The Cypress SL811HS has been junked in favour of the Philips ISP1160. This USB Host controller is much better for our application. The chip has 16bit data paths, 32bit registers, and has TWO downstream ports compared to the SL811HS' one.
1st July 2004
We have been talking to Nature about their Ethernet card for the CT60 Bus, and they have used the LAN91C111 from SMSC. This IC is designed to directly connect to the 68K Bus and is also a 100Mbs device, so we have junked the CS8900 in favour of this superb IC. The Nature project have decided to get involved with the CTLink and have agreed to let us use their ethernet drivers.
Mid June 2004
The first schematics have been drawn and the board design incorporates a facility to either use the onboard sockets or to snap off this part of the PCB and mount it on a backplane.
Early June 2004
After having a bad experience with Transdimension through one of their dealers (who wanted $15,000 from us just so we can use their source codes) we decided to use the inexpensive Cypress SL811HS USB host IC instead. There is a linux driver and examples of code for other embedded OS's available from Cypress, and their drivers are OPEN SOURCE. (WAKE UP TRANSDIMENSION!!!)
May 2004
The Transdimension TD243 USB host was chosen for the project as it is very intelligent, reasonably priced, and can be used with 16 and 32bit busses. We have also chosen the Crystal CS8900 Ethernet controller.