HiJackZX1

Its the internet, not english class. Alot of people just type super fast to get it over with. Kimota, Im getting closer to finishing my PC install. The PC is working and running super fast. CF came out with CF 2.0 RC1. So far its nice and uses new phone software, havent tried it yet. So next meet it will be super RX8 RR PC versus Super Durango CF PC, lol.

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Defiler

Uhhh. yeah. Or it's just p i s s poor grammar.

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LiveToRide

I am one for fast typing and the fact that i can spell makes it look like im a retard when i make posts :S. But i do draw a line and our little ghetto freind here stepd it

Kimota

I look forward to our next meeting young Jedi

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HiJackZX1

How do you know I am not a Sith, BWAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Yesterday I finished the case. It is keeping a pretty stable tempature. Remember my PC will be tilted at a awkward angle almost facing downward, so I had to do alotttttt of testing. Next i just got to order the digital converter for my screens.

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AnimeCommander

I too found this video and followed it to his site. I'm wondering if his application just initializes the communication and one could do it once and leave it (ie run the 360 application once). I'd play with it myself but I lack the chat pad. I'm sure someone could reverse engineer his source to make it PC only. I'll do more looking myself, I'd hate to see this great idea die.

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texasranger556

Is anyone still working on this? I've begun picking parts to build a carputer and agree this keypad would work nicely. Picked up a chatpad yesterday and tore it apart. First time on the forum...

I've dug into the serial connection between then chatpad and the controller with a digital o-scope while its connected to my xbox360 wirelessly. Really my first attempt at figuring a protocol out like this, so feel free to jump in.

Here are some of myfindings:
-Bits are ~52us wide which tells me 19200 baud rate. Still haven't put my finger on the exact settings beyond the baud rate.
-The controller sends a series of initialization "packets", 3 total and they vary between 47 and 49 bits, or possibly two subsets close together making 6 total packets. I haven't decoded them
-The initialization packets come in the same order each time.
-While the controller is connected to the xbox, the controller sends a packet every second, again 47-49 bits long. This packet is not the same each time, there are 4 total and they repeat every 4 seconds.
-The chatpad responds with a series of 11 packets, a group of 4 after the first packet sent by the controller, a group of 7, then it goes into idle mode mentioned next.
-At idle, the chatpad responds with a series of 4 identical packets each second. They are separated by ~40ms and consist of ~105 bits total, more likely divided into 18 bits, a pause, then another 57 bits. Each of the 4 packets are the same.

-When a key is pressed, the pic waits until the idle packets are transmitted, then sends a series of 8 packets representing the key press. Each packet looks similar in length to the idle packets.

I've never probed a USB port during enumeration, I will look into that next as this seems extremely complicated for a simple serial connection. Anyone with USB knowledge please weigh in.

Here are some screen shots (literally) from the scope.

1st packets, blue is the chatpad Rx, Yellow is Tx.


2nd set of packets


3rd set of packets


4th set of packets, really the first "idle" sequence

jz321

I have successfully reprogrammed the pic to read the keyboard, all that is left to do is write some ps2/usb code to send the data out as a standard windows keyboard.
-Jacob

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texasranger556

Cool, I just started analyzing the communication between the chatpad and controller with a scope this week. Did you figure out the protocol, or just rewrite the code to detect the keystrokes and spit out ascii/scan codes?

Ultimately I would like to figure out how to use the chatpad and controller wireless with my PC via a modified windows driver...a ways off for sure, but a fun project.

Also, what programmer did you use? I am in the market for one to do in circuit programming. Thanks!

jz321

I just wrote new firmware for the pic to scan the keypad. Right now it just sends out ascii chars over a serial port. My plan is to make it into a wireless ps2 keyboard. I already have the wireless link for data up and running. I just need to make some ps2 code on the receiving end to dump the data to the pc as a keyboard.

The programmer I use is homemade one, search the web there are many simple designs. I used some pcb layouts on Bob Blick's project website. Free software I have used for the programmer: PicPgm, IC Prog, and WinPic.

Grumbel

I haven't tried it, but I only looked at the source, but from the looks of it the Xbox360 controller never connects to the PC, instead the Xbox360 controller connects to the Xbox360, which then launches a networked connection to which the PC then connects, the controller events are send over the network connection to the PC.

So while interesting, it doesn't help with reverse engineering the chatpad, since the PC never talks to the controller, its all handled on the Xbox360 side.

Grumbel

My USB knowledge is rather slim, I however did manage to hack together a Linux driver for the Xbox360 gamepad, available here. If you manage to grab any communication between the gamepad and Xbox360 during initialization I'd be extremely interested to have a look at it, since the chatpad is one of the things that so far I couldn't make to work.

texasranger556

Well out of curiosity I hacked apart a USB extension cable so I could probe it while hooked to a USB mouse. There is a whole lot more data transfer than over the chatpad>controller data lines.

As I find out more about USB, the chatpad is definitely not USB in the sense that USB uses D+ and D- for data transfer instead of Tx and Rx as I've been used to with serial.

Here is a crude capture of the serial data shown in the first picture of my last post. There are 4 captures of the same packets to compare if they are the same each time Sampling 52us wide bits with 40us between samples should provide unambiguous results.

kayrose

hell yeah, it has to work, after all, original and new xbox controllers work on pc's. i considered using the old xbox controller, but i'd go for the new one just for the keyboard. plus, you can actually get a program{its name escapes me right now}online that would let you use the analog stick as a mouse, just map two buttons for right click+left click. great idea, especially if you can't get a touchscreen{budget issues}

jz321

The connection between the chatpad and the controller is connected to the TX and RX pins of the pic's built in harware serial port.

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