Coding Device Drivers for Unsupporting Hardware

[noah howard]

So, Merry Christmas, everyone (whether you celebrate or not, cheer doesn't hurt anyone).

My wife completely surprised me with a bluetooth virtual keyboard today. I've been nuts about the things for a good while. Unfortunately, Mac OSX isn't supported, and my Windows box is older than bluetooth.

I've been meaning to learn how to make device drivers for a while and figure this is good enough motivation. Does anyone have any advice or know some good resources from experience (good articles ad crap articles all look the same to google). I'd really like to give this a shot.

Thanks

[Makdaam]

Writing drivers without the tech. specifications is a real pain. You would have to sniff on the bluetooth first to discover how your keyboard is communicating with an another PC. And then possibly write a driver that uses the already loaded bluetooth driver to communicate and emulating a keyboard on the system side. (I'm not sure how the MacOS driver architecture works)

Does it really require special drivers? Maybe it's a generic device (like headphones for mobile phones? - they don't require special drivers to use with the mobiles so there must be some kind of a standard)

[noah howard]

I'll have to try it out and see, I just know it lists the technical requiremenst ad OSX isn't on there... may just mean I can't use some software they've included.

[zizdodrian]

It should still work. Half of the hardware in my house which I regularly use with my Mac and Linux machines (flawlessly, I might add) claims to only support 'Windows XP'.

[Hellmark]

On the bluetooth keyboards I've seen, they followed the generic specs laid out, so should work just fine.

[noah howard]

Thanks all, it works splendedly... now I just have to get used to the keyboard layout.. it's alimited European layout... and lacks an 'apple' key.

[zizdodrian]

On windows there's Remapkey. I wonder if there is a Mac OS X equivalent.

[Hellmark]

If it has a Win key, that works as Command. Otherwise, I've seen Alt be used as command for keyboards lacking a winkey.

Basically, what you want to do, is goto the System Preferences, then open up the Keyboard and Mice settings. In the keyboard tab, will be an option for Change Keyboard type, and also for setting what the modifier keys do. Run through that, and you should be able to get it working fine.