usb communications to uC

Hi,
I need to be able to send & receive "text data" to a remote micro-controller
connected to my windows XP host via USB.
Do i need a driver to do that or can i do it on an application level.
If on the application level what kind of api is there to use? I'm
thinking i could use CreateFile/WriteFile/ReadFile api's but what would
I use for a device name?
I dont want to spend a lot of time in a development process and learning
curve because while important to be able to talk to this thing, its only a
small part of the whole picture and as always I'm very time constrained.

Thanks
Eric

 

You can make your device a HID device and use Windows' built in class
support. Depending on the data rate you need: low speed USB devices are
~9600 baud, high speed devices can handle ~250Kbaud.

Marc Reinig
System Solutions

 

So if i open it with CreateFile I can use WriteFile and ReadFile to talk to
it? What do i use for a device name? Where can i find some sample C code?
Thanks
Eric

 

It depends on what class the device advertises and what kinds of pipes it
uses. USB is more structured than RS-232; you can't just start talking to
a USB device. You have to know quite a bit about the device first.

There has to BE a driver somewhere. In some cases, it is a driver supplied
by the system, and in some cases you have to provide it.

There is an open source package called libusb-win32 that provides a simple
driver to allow access to USB endpoints from user mode, but you'll still
need to know some details.

Perhaps you should hire this out. Many folks on this newsgroup do contract
driver work.

 

I'll see what i can find out, at this time i dont even have the device, I'm
only being told "what it will be"

I'm a little familiar with that same package for linux - i didnt know it was
available for windows.

I cant, I'm just a peon in a big company.

 

Probably the best bet is, this book and these websites:

"USB Complete" Jan Axelson, Lakeview Research, http://www.lvr.com ,

and http://www.usb.org/phpbb

Marco
________________________
Marc Reinig
UCO/Lick Observatory
Laboratory for Adaptive Optics