Thuraya XT satphone - what USB chip is used?

I am trying to make it work under win8...

It isn't a Prolific 2303 and it isn't an FTDI FT232 or similar...

Win8 does notice it was plugged in (it beeps) but nothing new (that I can see) appears under Control Panel / Devices.

I would expect a COM port with a Hayes compatible modem behind it. That is what their older models do. The old 7100 is a straight RS232 Hayes modem, but the XT is USB only.

The modem has a config for two things: Modem and USB. Neither makes any difference, but the 1st one suggests that perhaps it does have an RS232 interface...

Reply to
John-Smith
Loading thread data ...

You might want to plug it into a Linux box (boot a Linux live CD image or USB stick on your current machine, if you wish) and do an "lsusb" and "lsusb -v". This should show you plenty of information about the device characteristics.

An increasing number of devices these days are publishing a CDC (Communications Device Class) endpoint... behaves a lot like a modem or serial port but there's no concept of baud rate.

Reply to
David Platt

snipped-for-privacy@coop.radagast.org (David Platt) wrote

Interesting. Is there a Linux image which can go onto a USB flash stick and "just work"?

Years ago I had something like that on a boot CD. But for this experiment I obviously need something much more current.

One unix user reports that the Thuraya phone worked straight off, detecting it as a Hayhes modem and with a popup asking for the APN! Somehow it must have assumed that this is not a DUN device but a GPRS/3G device, knew the number to dial is *99#, and just needed the APN and the login/pwd.

Reply to
John-Smith

Den fredag den 28. februar 2014 23.05.20 UTC+1 skrev John-Smith:

Ubuntu will, though it does take some googling to figure out how to make that USB flash

anyway, in windows you can use usbview from MS, can get it here:

formatting link

-Lasse

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

Quite a few Linux distributions come, or are compatible with USB-stick imaging programs..

formatting link
has pointers and instructions, including a "Universal USB Installer" app for Windows which can image many different sorts of bootable image (Linux and otherwise) onto a USB stick. Ubuntu seems to recommend this installer as the best way to get a bootable Ubuntu stick.

formatting link
has live-install images for CDs and USB sticks.

Naturally, such imaged USB sticks will only boot on systems whose BIOSes possess this capability... which is most modern ones, I believe.

Reply to
David Platt

There's tons of microcontrollers on the market with USB ports. If you're building 1000 a year or more of something it's probably worth the trouble to make that work rather than wasting money and board space on a separate chip.

--
Tim Wescott 
Control system and signal processing consulting 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Tim Wescott

Ubuntu does that very well. I'm sure there's others, but I'm only familiar with Ubuntu.

--
Tim Wescott 
Control system and signal processing consulting 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Tim Wescott

Tim Wescott wrote

Yes, but equally the equipment manufacturer is not going to be writing their own windows drivers for any of these, because that is an absolute pig of a job.

I wonder which of these are the main players?

I will try that USB monitoring program, from the FTDI website. I know FTDI - we use them at work. Good chips and a good company.

Reply to
John-Smith

You could implement a CDC class device, and use the standard drivers.

Reply to
Arlet Ottens

Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote

I tried that - thanks. Here is an update, to recap:

Windows doesn't show it as any device whatsoever, in Control Panel/ Devices.

According to Thuraya, win8 is not supported. Now this could just be a script monkey reply, so I investigated further.

Google turns up a driver but it turns out to be the usual scam which is an executable which scans your computer (or pretends to) and then finds loads of "problems" and offers to fix them... yeah right.

I downloaded a USB analyser from

formatting link
(a known good company which makes USB chips) and this shows all devices I connect, via a hub perhaps, but for the phone it shows absolutely nothing. No device ID, no device name, nothing.

The Lenovo Tablet 2 beeps when the phone is connected or disconnected so it has seen "something" allright but that is the only indication of life.

The phone offers two configs for the USB port: "USB", and "modem" and for the latter they offer a baud rate setting. Neither of these two does anything.

Presumably Thuraya are using some microcontroller with a USB Slave interface, but whose? It isn't Prolific or FTDI who are the two main players in that business.

I have tried running the phone under a winXP VM but the Thuraya winXP software says the OS version is invalid and won't install. I tried installing the win7 driver under a win7 compatibility mode and it installs but doesn't do anything.

Reply to
John-Smith

This is a really useful thread to me, because I didn't know nuthing about this CDC device class stuff -- does Windows automatically try to hook it up to a COM port so you can just pretend its serial, or is there some other API that you have to use?

I'm currently putting an FTDI chip into something because an FT230X is smaller than the crystal that the microprocessor requires if you go with USB, but a secondary reason was not wanting to mess with programming USB in the chip.

--
Tim Wescott 
Control system and signal processing consulting 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Tim Wescott

e

yeh, it is like keyboards/usb flash etc.

though I think you still have to write an inf file to tell it that your vid/pid uses the standard usb serial driver

yeh, and as a second advantage you might not need a bootloader because the USB is always running and you migth be able to bootload via that

-Lasse

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

that suggests that that cable may be for charging only.

what does the event log say?

--
Neither the pheasant plucker, nor the pheasant plucker's son. 


--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news@netfront.net ---
Reply to
Jasen Betts

Jasen Betts wrote

The cable is definitely the right data cable.

I suppose it might be faulty...

What event log, and how do I get to it?

Reply to
John-Smith

I got this from someone:

The 1st proposed driver has to be purchased - not doing that.

The 2nd proposed solution needs expertise I don't have.

The .inf file I don't have a clue about...

However what I find surprising is that the FTDI USB analyser utility shows absolutely nothing connected to the USB port. Is that consistent with the above propositions?

Reply to
John-Smith

The windows event log, I'd have to ask you want version of windows you were using, and then I'd have to google it.

--
Neither the pheasant plucker, nor the pheasant plucker's son. 


--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news@netfront.net ---
Reply to
Jasen Betts

Jasen Betts wrote

Plugging or unplugging the USB cable does not generate any entries under any of the five or so event log categories. Windows 8, tablet.

The phone says "data cable" [connected] when the cable is plugged into the computer, so *it* recognises something too.

Reply to
John-Smith

Sounds to me that the OS already knows what it is and has installed the appropriate drivers for it. Have you taken a look at the file manager to see the existence of a new drive when plugged in? Oh wait, you're on W8, you may need to put the Lego's away from the screen to see what is actually going on!

Jamie

Reply to
Maynard A. Philbrook Jr.

"Maynard A. Philbrook Jr." wrote

:)

No - nothing whatever shows in windows explorer.

I have the w7 UI installed, so you get a Start menu as usual, and also the stupid Metro Desktop is suppressed (it appears as a amnu option on the start bar.

Reply to
John-Smith

It's very possible it requires the host application to operate.

I have a couple of devices over here (HID) that do not alert the OS when plugged and you can more or less say it just isn't plugged in, however, the host program designed for it see's it just fine.

Jamie

Reply to
Maynard A. Philbrook Jr.

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.