From: George Styles <ripnetuk_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2006 11:53:00 +0000

Serial coms sounds promising

On 2/7/06, Alun Thomas <athoma00_at_orcon.net.nz> wrote:
>
> George Styles wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I want a rockbox-capable, video capable, small, 60gig+ player. It seems
> > the iPod video is perfect, except for one thing, it doesnt have a LCD
> > remote (which is the killer feature of my H140).
> >
> > Looking at
> >
> http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/IriverHardwareComponents#Remote_Control
> >
> > and
> > http://ipodlinux.org/Dock_Connector
> >
> > it seems that the iPod doesnt have any digital IO lines on its dock
> > connector, but does have a serial interface.
> >
> > I was thinking we could have a PIC chip connected to power and serial on
> > the iPod, with a simple program to drive the LCD remote. I imagine it
> > would accept a serial input from the iPod and bit-bang the data into the
> > LCD remote, and monitor the buttons for presses and return them to the
> > iPod via serial.
> >
> > Of course, it would require software support on the iPod, but now we
> > have a (almost working) Rockbox port, that should be simple.
> >
> > The main problem I see is that this would not be 'mainstream' so I would
> > be left porting my changes to each new release of Rockbox. And getting a
> > connector to mate with the odd iRiver remote.
> >
> > Of course, the Rockbox project could 'adopt' a LCD remote of some kind
> >
> > Any comments? anyone know of a LCD remote that already works via serial
> > only? (how do the Sony minidisc ones work?) ideally one that is still in
> > production.
> >
> > g
> >
> >
>
> On sony minidiscs the buttons use a resistor network with different
> values for each button. The ones with a display use serial comms for
> this part of it AFAIK. It's a while since I had one though.
>
>
Received on 2006-02-08