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Welcome to Techsurvivors => Tech => Topic started by: ADSR on July 27, 2010, 01:40:33 PM

Title: OS9/OSX Tiger USB
Post by: ADSR on July 27, 2010, 01:40:33 PM
Hub connected to the usb port of  the Apple studio display

When booted from Tiger mouse and usb key are on the desktop at boot

on  OS9..2.2,  must replug them to be active.. not a big problem, but is there a trick  for that?

GR
Title: OS9/OSX Tiger USB
Post by: Paddy on July 27, 2010, 04:44:21 PM
Is the hub powered (separate power plug) or is it drawing power from the USB connection ("self-powered")? I've usually found powered hubs more reliable overall. Don't know whether it would make a difference in this situation or not though.
Title: OS9/OSX Tiger USB
Post by: Xairbusdriver on July 27, 2010, 05:41:26 PM
I suspect that OS 9 simply looks at the hardware it assumes it is running on. If it has USB compatibility, it expects to "see"/"here" a signal when something on that buss happens ("Hey! Here's a key press!" "BTW, the mouse just moved.").

I don't remember exactly when USB became standard on Mac hardware, but I think it was quite a bit after OS X came out. OS 9 would have had to have some Extensions to even recognize that the USB hardware was even present. Thus, on Start up, the Extension would note the presence of a USB port and set up a way of watching for 'messages.' But it may not (depending on exactly what that Extension did, actually test to see if anything was plugged into the port. It may not even have allowed it to be powered before it relinquished control back to the next item of the Start up process. So, even if something was using the port(s), it may not have recognized that fact. Of course, when you plug something into the port, a message is sent and the OS now 'knows' that and starts acting accordingly.

BTW, I took a nap this afternoon and dreamed all this up... rolleyes.gif It may just be a European thing! laugh.gif
Title: OS9/OSX Tiger USB
Post by: Paddy on July 27, 2010, 06:56:17 PM
QUOTE
I don't remember exactly when USB became standard on Mac hardware, but I think it was quite a bit after OS X came out.


USB appeared in the Bondi Blue (first) iMacs in 1998, well before OS X debuted.

However, OS 9 does handle USB differently than OS X (extensions and whatnot) so there may be something going on there. I'm afraid that OS 9 has become the distant past for me...I haven't used it at home for almost 10 years and last used it at the newspaper over 5 years ago and there wasn't much fiddling to be done with the OS etc. then.
Title: OS9/OSX Tiger USB
Post by: ADSR on July 27, 2010, 07:16:51 PM
Now i know why... smile.gif

Thanks

GR
Title: OS9/OSX Tiger USB
Post by: krissel on July 27, 2010, 11:57:52 PM
Suspect that the extra steps off the main USB bus from the display is causing OS 9 to not recognize the attachments on boot. USB is a polled concept and requires the host to look for signals that something is attached. FW on the other hand can in a sense activate itself and act independently of a host controller. And USB is a shared pipe with the bandwidth divided among the devices sometimes needing a driver to initiate connectivity. In your case, uplugging and replugging the mouse signals the host that something needs attention.  OSX is better programmed to look for those attachments beyond the basic bus.

I think.  smile.gif

Here is a basic description of how the USB system works:
QUOTE
Host Controller Driver
As a request for a data transfer moves from the device driver, through the USB Driver, and through the USB Hub Driver, the request gains all the information needed for the host controller to generate the appropriate transactions on the bus. However, depending on the host controller, this information needs to be formatted in a certain way and added for scheduling by the host controller.
This task if given to the host controller driver. Requests reach the host controller driver in a system-defined format, often called a USB Request Block (URB), or an I/O Request Packet (IRP).
Additionally, host controller drivers are loaded by the PCI subsystem when a corresponding host controller is discovered during PCI enumeration. The host controller driver is thus also responsible for initializing the host controller and perhaps loading the USB Hub Driver and the USB driver. Combined, the USB driver, USB hub driver, and the host controller driver make up a USB subsystem.


More:

http://wiki.osdev.org/USB

And more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_2.0#USB_c...d_with_FireWire