From: Forrest Kenney [Forrest.Kenney@hp.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 2:19 PM
To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
Subject: Re: USB Support on Alpha



mcbill20@yahoo.com wrote:
> 
> I have seen a few recent posts regarding USB support on Alpha but I am
> looking for a little more specific information and hopefully, pointers
> to documentation. I understand that it's not cost effective for VMS
> engineering to add any more support for Alpha. However, I still am
> hoping to be able to talk to certain USB devices on my Alpha.
> 
> In one recent post, someone mentioned that any PCI USB card with the
> NEC chipset _should_ work. Does anyone know of any specific brands
> that do work? I hate to have to buy several brands just to find one
> that may work.

	There is no list if the card says it is USB High speed capable
it is more than likely based on the NEC chip set.  They are in well over
90% of all the High speed cards I have seen.  You can try purchasing a
Belkin add in card.  That last I checked they used the NEC chip.  But 
like much of the stuff in the PC world they change things without
changing
part or model numbers.

> 
> I understand that some of the IA64 machines have some USB support.
> However, as I have Alpha systems at present and can't really afford to
> buy an Itanium system for hobbyist purposes, I am hoping to make this
> work with my current hardware (PWS500, Alphaserver 4100, Alphastation
> 255).
> 
	You really need to be on V8.3 but with an add in card that uses 
the NEC chip set you will be ready to go.

> Can anyone point me to any documentation and/or code examples of
> talking to USB devices? Right now I have quite a few devices that I
> communicate with through terminal servers (DS90TL's, DS700's and
> DS200MC's). Unfortunately for my hardware situation, most new devices
> these days come with USB ports rather than serial ports. Specifically,
> I am looking to connect to: 1) UPS, 2) GPS, 3) Power meter.
> 
	There is no single document that will tell you how to add support
for a random USB device.  There is a fairly good book on USB 
"Universal Serial Bus System Architecture" published by Mindshare.  You 
can go to the www.usb.org and pull down more specification than you can 
imagine.  As of V8.3 we supply a USB Generic Driver that allows you to 
directly talk to a USB device.  There are even some examples there with
more coming in the future.  But the key thing you need is the protocol 
message exchange the device requires.  Unless you can talk a vendor into 
giving you that information you have to reverse engineer it using a BUS 
analyzer and the windows driver that should have come with the device.  
If you are lucky there may be a Linux driver and you can use that as a
a starting point.

> While poking around the web I found a kind of "USB terminal server"
> made by Keyspan:
> 
> http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=591105

	Don't know about the keyspan but we support a number of USB to 
RS232 devices.  Thers is supposed to be a pointer to them on the 
OpenVMS web site.  If they are not there send mail to Leo.Demers@hp.com
asking for the information on USB to RS232 devices.

> 
> I am unable to determine if this would work via a TCP/IP connection
> with VMS. I have an e-mail request in to the company and am waiting to
> hear back.
> 
> Any ideas?
> 
> Thanks,
> Bill

Forrest