Registered: Sep 2000
Location:
Posts: 6

Since the Visor already supports USB in it's hardware, would it be possible to make a springboard module with a USB port in it. Imagine fitting a printer into your visor and being able to print properly. Could you accept USB harddrives (20gigs of palm OS applications.....)Or even (long way off) USB speakers which would makeit a real multimedia device.

I imagine that there would be a problem with the drivers needed for the hardware, but other than that, could it be possible? Is anyone working on one?

What sort of things could work with it? A mouse? I use the stowaway and havign a mouse would be great.

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Plant City, FL
Posts: 385

The Visor's USB support on it's serial port won't help a bit with a USB Springboard since none of the USB port lines are routed to the Springboard slot and the drivers are not modular enough to allow reuse of any portion of them.

Never the less, from a hardware standpoint it still wouldn't be that hard to make a USB Springboard. Software is the killer. Don't take this as a flame, but it always amuses me when somebody says "aside from the software, could we make X piece of hardware?" That's kind of like saying "aside from the engine, would it be hard to design and build a car?" Well, no, I could slap something together that would roll and turn, but what are you going to do with it? Sooner or later, someone has to come up the an engine

You have to have a custom driver not only for the USB interface in general, but also for each USB device you want to plug in. For a mouse or keyboard, that may not be too hard, but a USB hard drive is another matter. PalmOS has absolutely no support for any kind of mass storage. Apps are expected to run right from storage, but with a hard drive you need to move them into RAM first and then run them. That may seem like a trivial problem on the surface but believe me it's not. I'm struggling with it right now for a CF adapter I'm working on and I still haven't found a solution that I really like.

As for USB speakers, sending audio data to them might be easy but where's that data going to come from? The Visor's CPU doesn't have enough horsepower to be a CODEC for compressed audio and raw wave files would chew up RAM so fast that you wouldn't be able to fit more than a few seconds of CD quality audio. I guess if you had your USB hard drive and speakers hooked up you could stream audio off the hard drive ... but what's the point? If you're going to carry all that stuff around with you, why not just have a laptop?

I just dont see the need for PDA's to be "multi-media" devices. Yeah, I know MS hypes it (what else are they going to hype? From a useability standpoint PalmOS beats them hands down), and Sony is using it to try to differentiate their PDA from its Palm and Handspring cousins, but I just don't see the need. If I'm missing something here, somebody enlighten me

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<ul><li>Dave Kessler<br>President - Kopsis, Inc.</li></ul>

Registered: Sep 2000
Location:
Posts: 117

Springboard CF slot

I would guess that the Springboard CF projects that anybody might be undertaking would be dogged by the same problems. Not only would you need to write a driver for the CF interface, but for the device as well. I would hope somebody at IBM would write a driver for the Microdrive on a Springboard CF adapter (provided one existed in sufficient quantities for there to be a market). Frankly, I'm surprised that there is no movement by TRG in this area for a complete out-of-box solution. If there is movement, they aren't talking.

Registered: Jun 2000
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Posts: 216

Re: Springboard CF slot

quote:

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Originally posted by zelchenko
...Frankly, I'm surprised that there is no movement by TRG in this area for a complete out-of-box solution. If there is movement, they aren't talking.

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