Apple Accessory Protocol, USB support

[bpmcgee]

Hi,

I'm interested in doing some research on this to try to see if I can advance RockBox in this direction.

I've read the forums here.  It sounds like there's a serial driver that currently doesn't work.  Is there more information about the hardware/software environment to which anyone can point me?  

I don't want to bother anyone with stupid questions that have already been answered.

Thanks,

B

[Chronon]

You can also read the wiki pages about the iPod port.

[linuxstb]

You're asking about two different projects - Apple Accessory support and USB support:

1) Apple Accessory support

This is via the serial port, and no work has been done in Rockbox to get the ipod serial port working.  The ipodlinux kernel has a non-working serial driver for the PP502x (the cpu in all ipods starting with the 4th gen).  The 3rd gen and earlier ipods had a PP5002, and I believe the IPL serial port driver is working on those ipods (but it hasn't been ported to Rockbox).

2) There is a Google Summer of Code project to implement USB in Rockbox.  See here for some info:

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/UsbSoftwareStack

It's been discovered that the USB hardware in the portalplayer chips is the same as the iMX.31 - and a full iMX.31 datasheet is available.

[bpmcgee]

LinuxSTB,

Okay, thanks.  I wasn't sure how the hardware was arranged -- i.e. if the Serial and USB support was intertwined.

Is there any doc available for the PP5021x chips?  I'm assuming not.

Also, how much different are the i/o components between the older pp5002 chips and the new ones?  I guess I'm wondering if a port of the pp5002 would be the best place to start.

I'm getting an update to my Cygwin installation right now so I can pull down the RockBox source tree and look at what's there.

B

[saratoga]

Also, how much different are the i/o components between the older pp5002 chips and the new ones?  I guess I'm wondering if a port of the pp5002 would be the best place to start.

Thats someting you're going to have to investigate.  My guess is they'll be fairly similar though.