saklotz | # 191 | 2008-03-05, 08:04 | Report

I agree! I too got a good laugh with that pic of the "Ultimate Laptop".

jolouis - I will try the method used by brecklundin to loosen up the fit of the mini b connector on the OTG adapter with a mini b socket on an expendable device. To be honest, I hadn't thought of trying that. Thanks to both of you to explain that with a little extra effort all should work fine.

One other nice hack that I have installed and seems to work fine is the "Status Bar Switch" found at the bottom of the wiki here[URL="http://www.internettablettalk.com/wiki/index.php?title=HOWTO:_USB_Host_mode_on_the_N800_u sing_OS_2008"]. This method installs a small box in the status bar of the home page (desktop) of the tablet that continuously scrolls the cpu usage and the memory usage. The icon will display a drop-down menu when clicked, where the "Settings" choice will allow you to add custom commands. The two custom commands suggested by the wiki are "Host Mode" and "Otg Mode", which need to be configured to start the scripts developed by Mara (you need to follow the instructions of the entire wiki for installation of the Mara scripts). These commands, once configured, allow you to toggle between host mode and otg mode very quickly from the home page.

I have used the host mode to successfully connect;

1. Iomega 512MB Flash Drive
2. HP USB 2.0 4 Port Powered Hub - PM093A#ABA

However, the hub would power down when I connected the Iomega flash drive to the hub while it was connected to the Nokia IT and receiving power from the IT and not its power adapter. I do not have a portable USB keyboard to try with the hub, but the IT-hub-keyboard setup may work.

I have tried the following devices directly connected without success;

1. SanDisk MicroMate SDHC card reader - SDDR-113
2. SanDisk Extreme USB 2.0 Reader - SDDRX3-3IN1
3. IdotConnect CF Card Reader & Writer
4. Lexar USB 2.0 Multi-Card Reader - RW018 Rev C
5. Canon EOS 20D Digital SLR Camera

Items 1 - 4 from the above list will work with the hub when it is powered from its power adapter. I also have purchased and tested an Igo battery-powered charger to power the hub. I spent over $40.00 US to purchase the Igo PowerXtender and two power tips. One of the power tips "Igo's number B25" is for the HP USB hub and the other power tip "Igo's number A105" is for the Nokia IT. I had to file one corner of the Igo PowerXtender's black plastic connector (male), which is designed to fit the power tips that Igo makes for every phone on the planet. The power tip for the Nokia IT, which is the same as for most Nokia phones does not require this physical modification of the PowerXtender's connector. It is the B25 power tip that is slightly incompatible with the PowerXtender's connector, which requires the filing modification. It was explained to me that the typical device for which the B25 tip was intended would require more power than the PowerXtender (being battery-powered) is capable of supplying - without burning up! Since I knew I would be using this with a small portable USB hub, I felt the physical hack was functional and safe - others would need to determine for themselves if this is a safe hack for their application or not. The hub connected to the IT and powered from the Igo PowerXtender will successfully connect all of the devices 1-4 in the list above.

Unfortunately for me, I was not able to successfully connect the Canon EOS camera to the IT set in USB host mode. The Canon cameras of this type require special software supplied by Canon to be installed on your Mac OS or Windows OS computer in order to be able to communicate with the camera's controls and/or file system. Perhaps someone on these forums knows of a Canon driver that has been ported to the Nokia IT's operating environment. If I could connect directly to the camera, I would not need all of the other card readers, hub and battery-powered power supply for the hub.

I hope all of this long-winded explanation of my journey into the world of Nokia IT USB host mode is useful to someone. I certainly have had fun with it and it solves my main goal. I needed a device that could be configured to "push" image files via ftp to my magazine's ftp server, while photographing a sporting event in locations where there would be no ac power and no laptop. I have my backpack full of photographic equipment and don't have room or the time to sit down and use a laptop in the middle of a golf course or on an athletics track. The Nokia IT, properly configured, permits me to transfer files from the camera to the IT while on location during a lull in the action and to start an application that will compress the image files "using ImageMagick" and "push" the image files to the ftp server "using MaemoFTP". The other piece to this equation is staying connected to a wifi access point. I haven't totally worked this out as yet, but there are ways!

Cheers!
Steve

DJames1 | # 192 | 2008-03-05, 16:10 | Report

That's true - the Canon cameras unfortunately use the brain-dead PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol) instead of the more sensible USB Mass Storage protocol (except for a few high-end models that have a menu option to switch). I tried the N800 with my Canon camera just to be sure, but as expected it says "no file system". But I guess I can always transfer the SD card or use my USB card reader instead.

I did some testing of USB host mode with some of my other devices, directly connected and with an nGear hub in powered/unpowered mode.

Both my 1 Gbyte Sandisk USB memory stick and my 4 Gbyte OCZ Rally USB memory stick worked fine when directly connected. The card reader did not: the power LED went on when connected, and it appeared to be detected, but as soon as a memory card was inserted the power LED went out and the N800 gave the "unrecognized USB device" and "no file system" errors. Power issue, I assume.

The behaviour with the hub was a bit strange. When the hub is powered from its own power supply, and I connect to the N800, it is detected ("unrecognized USB device" as usual). But the power LED on the hub goes out a second later (huh?). However, it comes back on when a device is connected. That's not normal behaviour, at least not when I use the hub on a PC.

The 1 Gbyte memory stick worked fine on the hub, whether the hub was powered or not. The 4 Gbyte memory stick did not work very well on the hub, whether powered or not - I only got it to be properly recognized once out of 10 tries. The memory card reader did work successfully on the hub when it was powered.

When I say that devices worked, I don't necessarily mean that they were recognized immediately every time while I was plugging and unplugging various devices. Sometimes a device was not recognized on the first try, but unplugging and replugging made it work. I did not reboot the N800 during any of these tests.

I'm not sure how to interpret all that. It seems like the N800 has some issues with the hub that it doesn't with the devices connected directly.

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Last edited by DJames1; 2008-03-05 at 16:18.

dormant | # 193 | 2008-03-05, 17:08 | Report

I want to take you to task on the "brain-dead" PTP protocol.

There is Linux software called gphoto2 that works well with the PTP protocol. I can control almost all aspects of my Nikon D200 from my laptop using a simple perl script.

Gphoto2 seems to have problems with Canon cameras and I think it is down to the way Canon implemented the PTP protocol.

I would dearly love to see gphoto2 ported to OS2008.

qole | # 194 | 2008-03-05, 18:24 | Report

I have tried two powered USB hubs without success. Devices that were recognized when connected directly to my N800 are not detected or are non-functional when connected through these hubs. It doesn't matter what order I connect things, whether I have the power on or off, nothing. I was thinking of buying a third hub (third time's the charm, right?) and I was wondering if anyone had experience with it?

Bytecc BT-402

DJames1 | # 195 | 2008-03-05, 18:35 | Report

Fair enough - my opinion is based on the fact that the Canon PTP support on Windows is inconvenient to use, a major resource hog, and accomplishes nothing significant that USB mass storage protocol couldn't do. That's partly the fault of the Canon software for not implementing some of the more advanced control functions. But regardless, the most important and useful feature of the interface is to be compatible with the widest variety of host devices possible, and that's where PTP fails miserably.

linux_author | # 196 | 2008-03-05, 18:36 | Report

- i ran across a problem with x86 Ubuntu 7.04 and my Canon A507is... here's my solution (see my post in the thread):

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=455725

- my Sony DSC s700 works great with my n800...

- i'll try to do a port of gphoto2 for the n800 sometime this weekend... (command-line version)...

jolouis | # 197 | 2008-03-05, 18:45 | Report

I would submit that the biggest problem with your testing (and all the strange hub/non hub working oddities) is due to the nGear equipment rather than the IT support for USB hubs in general. I picked up a few different pieces of Ngear USB equipment to try out with the IT since they were relatively cheap and seemed like neat products (combination card reader/USB Hub... that's a neat idea); unfortunately I ran into all kinds of problems with them. I'm not sure if it's manufacturing, the choice of chips/firmware, etc, but they do not work properly.

For example, the USB hub gets detected as a Hub, and appears okay. Plug in one device to the first port and it shows up, things work fine. Plug in a device to the second port (even if it's a low power device like a keyboard) and the whole hub locks up, takes a dump and just dies. Worst part: it's a powered hub. The card reader that I got only appears as a single lun'd device, which contradicts everything I've ever encountered with other multi-card readers which tend to appear as 2 or three luns (i.e. one for the MMC/SD, one for the CF, one for the MemoryStick sort of thing).

Anyways, so I figured hey, maybe it's just those, it happens, some devices don't work fair enough. Other USB hubs and card readers (card readers connected to powered hubs of course) work. There does seem to be an issue with card readers and different card slots, but I have a feeling that has to do with the USB storage driver on the IT not expecting to have to try and mount/deal with anything beyond lun0 on a device.

Tried an NGear USB-Ethernet adapter, loaded the pegasys module that the supports the chipset, plug it in, check dmesg... detected the correct chipset, but pegasys module refuses to load and actually recognize it.

Alright, how about a USB-Serial adapter, should be straight forward as I know there are only a few chipsets out there. Again, grab an NGear one, plug it in... detected as pl2303 chip, no problems, but then pl2303.ko refuses to load. Now, this one seems to be due to the fact that pl2303 driver has been hard coded to only support specified manufacturer IDs, so fair enough the thing may work with a bit of hacking to the code, but overall the conclusion I came to was this:
Pay a few extra bucks and buy a decent product rather than getting the bottom dollar one and having to muck around with it.

That's just my experience though.

qole | # 198 | 2008-03-06, 18:23 | Report

I would pay $20 for a very small powered hub that is known to work with the NIT. Any suggestions?

I tried a cheap PS/2 -> USB adapter and several PS/2 keyboards. They work on Windows, but not on the N800. No "Num Lock" light or anything. Power issue?

GeneralAntilles | # 199 | 2008-03-06, 18:33 | Report

Go to Office Depot, pick one up? All of my macally, Belkin and D-Link hubs seem to work fine.

darethehair | # 200 | 2008-03-06, 18:47 | Report

Hey dormant and linux_author, have you seen this 'gphoto' thread?

http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...hlight=gphoto2

In my own humble way, I have already invested quite a bit of effort in compiling 'gphoto2' for OS2008. Unfortunately, it is rather flaky in real life.