Date: Wed, 09 May 2001 11:10:58 -0400 From: rdewalt@meridianksi.com (Ryan Dewalt) To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20010509111058.019020f8@mail.meridianksi.com>
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 (I attempted to post this to freebsd-hackers once before, but for some reason, my attempt hadn't made it to the list, so I swapped to a different e-mail account and posted this once again.) I've recently reverse engineered a small piece of hardware, The 'Microsoft Sidewinder Strategic Commander" (MSSC hereafter). Official page: http://www.microsoft.com/products/hardware/sidewinder/devices/SComm/ I've done some cursory searching and found no information on this device under FreeBSD, so in the spirit of hacking, I wrote my own. And have fleshed out how to use it for an input device on FreeBSD. (The MSSC is a 'game device' designed for the left hand with Real Time Strategy games in mind. X/Y/Rotate, plus 12 individual buttons and a 3pos slider.) I've gone as far as to cobble together a 'Frankenstein' version of 'moused' and it works just fine. I have been using it as a left handed mouse on my one machine for about three days now. Since I don't exactly have immediate usage for the device, and using it as a mouse is not the most optimal. (X only supports buttons 1-5 out of the 12 of the device, plus the granularity of the device is not that great for fine work. It was meant to be a game controller after all.) I'd like to release my code to the public for comments, and perhaps someone else can find use of my work. BUT, given the way the world has appeared to be to me, with legal battles and wars over intellectual properties I'm coming to this list for advice before releasing anything. However this device might have alot of potential for an input device for some other project. 1: Legally 'Covering My Fannie'. Speaking of Microsoft and Reverse Engineering is often done with the same care as someone handling a crystal-meth addicted rampaging bull. For personal reasons I do not wish to wander over to the Dark Side of the Force, and release the specifications knowingly stepping on potential legal toes. As I said above, I didn't need any unusual methods to RE the device, very 'clean room' as it were. The machine that I did all the work on is a dedicated FreeBSD computer, the Official Drivers were/are not even installed in any of the computers under my control during the whole time. That, coupled with the nature of USB making it almost trivial to RE a gamepad, it was not a particularly hard task for me. 2: Should I release the code that is wholly my own under the BSD license? Its experimental and practically useless as anything other than experiment/demonstration. The msscd program is a hack. A very ugly hack, but it works. However it was created by taking a chainsaw to moused and removing what I didn't need... That in and of itself has other issues as well. Can I release my findings without having the business end of a lawyer pointed at me? As you can probably guess, this is my first real attempt at this. - -Ryan -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 7.0.3 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com>; iQA/AwUBOvleAcMKzu1ijLJKEQItbwCfbSi0/m+JkAwcQB/KL45dLcjx47wAnjaT MEGq4VGVw5FjpU+e81kYymIz =MoWK -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Ryan Dewalt - Code Poet rdewalt@meridianksi.com . 7033229565x116 "When I say rare I mean just let it look at the oven in terror, then bring it out to me." - Wolf "The 10th Kingdom" To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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