Thread: CONTEST: Xbox Chatpad Driver Challenge

Originally Posted by WazzaJB

GAFBlizzard, will you driver support wireless controllers? As the first post doesn't state it as a requirement.

Keep it up!

Thanks, I finally got some data through on my other communication method, so I may have found a solution to my pipe problems. I had been actually having instant computer resets in Vista 64 with NO BLUE SCREEN while I was experimenting with stuff.

As for wireless, no, it won't be supported initially. In the last page or two if the original thread, some people started talking about it and linking protocol information, however:

xbox360 chatpad, awsome backlit mini keyboard

So eventually we might support it. Also, there's already a third-party wireless controller driver, I think, called x360wc. If you Google it, there's a tripod site that claims to have English source code, BUT BE CAREFUL NOT TO CLICK THE BIG DOWNLOAD BUTTON. At least when I went there, I got an ad banner with a download button that presumably takes you places you don't want to go. The actual content of the website presumably has legitimate source code, though, and the original Japanese source should also be around.

Originally Posted by GAFBlizzard

Thanks, I finally got some data through on my other communication method, so I may have found a solution to my pipe problems. I had been actually having instant computer resets in Vista 64 with NO BLUE SCREEN while I was experimenting with stuff.

As for wireless, no, it won't be supported initially. In the last page or two if the original thread, some people started talking about it and linking protocol information, however:

xbox360 chatpad, awsome backlit mini keyboard

So eventually we might support it. Also, there's already a third-party wireless controller driver, I think, called x360wc. If you Google it, there's a tripod site that claims to have English source code, BUT BE CAREFUL NOT TO CLICK THE BIG DOWNLOAD BUTTON. At least when I went there, I got an ad banner with a download button that presumably takes you places you don't want to go. The actual content of the website presumably has legitimate source code, though, and the original Japanese source should also be around.

Does that basically mean the 'messages' sent by the wired & wireless controllers are different? If so, damn :P

Surely if you were to win the competition, you could use a small portion of your winnings and invest in a wireless one

Good luck again dude, may have to buy a wire for my controller now.

PS: You know the plug n play kit for the wireless controllers? Will using one of those with a wireless controller work the same way as a wired one?

no. the wireless controllers only have that optional usb cord for charging purposes. you still need the wireless receiver to make them work.

Originally Posted by trader007

no. the wireless controllers only have that optional usb cord for charging purposes. you still need the wireless receiver to make them work.

yet it can send data threw the cord?

Originally Posted by ddxcb

yet it can send data threw the cord?

Does this mean it will work without a battery in (for example) with the plug n play cable in, or does the cable just act as a power source? Or is it able to act like a wired controller would?

no data gets sent through the cord on the wireless controllers. it is there only for power. yes, you can take out the battery and still use the controller if you want (or if your battery is shot), but the controllers are absolutely useless if you dont have the wireless receiver because that is where the data is sent through.

its something i should have thought about when writing the rules for the contest. i dont use the wired controllers, but if thats all that will be supported at first then so be it. maybe blizzard will win the pot and share how he did it to others so they can get the wireless controllers working....

I would hope that wireless controllers could be supported eventually (see the information in the other thread etc.), especially since we already have source for one. I think the single biggest problem is the wireless interaction though. XBox 360s have a built-in wireless receiver, right? PCs have to use the dongle thing as far as I know. If the chatpad works with wireless controllers on the 360, that's great. For all we know, though, the PC dongle might not even be programmed/designed to allow the chatpad channel to communicate.

*edit*
I worked a lot over the last two days, and yesterday I feel like I spent a lot of time actually writing code that needed written instead of stuck on problems, so that's good. I still have a couple of freeze/crash issues to fix with the pipe stuff I am currently working on, but after that point pipe reading should be nearly done in the driver, and I'll just need to learn how to properly wire the requests to userspace. Pipe writing should be easier and I might even finish that part tonight. Once those two things are done, a kernel driver mode switch thing is finished, and any freeze/crash stuff is fixed, I think most of the remaining work is in userspace, and that's where the sample code I had already written should come in handy. Some of it should be fairly simple stuff like tables to decode the remaining chatpad symbols (which I already have to an extent, but I only have letters/numbers/a few punctuation characters coded in right now).

Oh, and my main kernel driver code alone is over 2000 lines (including comments and whitespace) now. I think the file may be approaching 100KB in size. :P

The main driver code file is now shorter (under 2200 lines :P), and I fixed a crash. The read path for one pipe works now. Implementing it for the other pipe is mostly a matter of copying and should be simple. I am going to take a quick look at the write pipe before bed.

On a positive side note, though I do not have an installer for any OS finished yet, I tried just compiling an x86 build instead of the Vista 64 build I have been developing. With virtually no code changes required, it actually...installed on XP 32-bit, required just one reboot, and just plain worked the same as it did on the other system. Hopefully that means it will do the same on Windows 7 and other configurations. Hooray for KMDF!

*edit* Writing data from userspace into the kernel driver pipe now works. There aren't enough hours in the day... Tomorrow night, if I'm lucky, will be working on the remaining read pipe stuff and wiring it to userspace.

I have been checking back to the original thread from time to time since my first post over a year ago to see if any progress is being made. Congrats on getting this far Blizzard, and kudos if you haven't been using a virtual machine during development!