Re: [NTLK] Giving the Newton some USB [and Bluetooth] lovin'

Andrei Chichak wrote:
>> In any case, I think I would prefer the larger square one.
>
> This depends entirely on what you want the device to do. The larger
> square one is a B connector and it lives on a slave (peripheral)
> device. You would not get to plug in a Flash drive.

A connector is a connector. It doesn't care what type of data you make
it carry. That is not what dictates whether or not you get to plug in a
flash drive. It's just a policy, but you likely already knew that.

>
>> BTW, where, exactly, will the "driver" software be located--so that
>> you can plug in the Newton to a modern machine? on the computer or on
>> the Newton?
>
> On my board, the driver is on the modern machine end. Again, the
> Newton is then a slave and you cannot plug in things like Flash
> drives, keyboards, cameras ...

Right, because it's a bridge, not a true USB port at all. It can only do
one thing, convert serial data to USB data, much as my embedded
bluetooth SPP (Serial Port Profile) bridge does, which simply bridges a
wired serial port to a bluetooth SPP "port" on one's local machine, via
bluetooth. Now I am just working on trying to get the bluetooth bridge
module shrunk enough to be embedded in my MessagePad. This would be
trivial to do in an eMate, since there's a ton of room.

>
>> In other words, how will the computer see the Newton, and how will the
>> computer see the computer? Or will there be driver software on the pcb
>> so that the Newton sees serial and the computer sees USB? How will
>> this work software-wise? Thanks
>
> On my board, the computer sees the newton as a serial port.
>
> Iff the Newton was turned into a master (host, hub), the driver would
> live on the Newton, you would have to determine what peripherals you
> wanted to plug in and write drivers for them, you won't be able to
> use it to dock/sync since you would be talking host to host, AND the
> Newton would have to be able to supply 500mA at 5V or 2.5 Watts. That
> will chew into your battery life.

While it would be a gross violation of the USB specification, it doesn't
*have* to provide that kind of current. Many external USB hubs have a DC
input on them, so power could be provided this way if you needed to use
your newt with such a peripheral. Also, while the USB spec itself may
stipulate 500mA @5v max current draw, in reality very few peripherals
actually consume that kind of current.
>
> Andrei
>

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