Hopefully the next batch of RAs will arrive soon and I can get on with selling them.

Something about the combined installer for the software and drivers was preventing it from working.

The solution was to install the software on a Windows XP machine and then copy the files manually from the XP system to the Windows 7 one. I then pointed Windows 7 to the copied files when it requested drivers for the scanner. The application program was copied in the same way and I simply set up a shortcut on the start menu pointing to the program file.

Aside from the main program directory the drivers were spread out in various system directories. It took a while to find them all.

It took me a long time to sort all that out. There are a  lot of posts on the internet written by people with the same or similar scanners who are unable to make them work on Vista or Windows 7. As far as I know we are the only people who have ever managed to make it work with Windows 7.

 LED Power     01 - 02       Column
 Row           03 - 04       Break
 Row           05 - 06       Row
 Column        07 - 08       Row
 Column        09 - 10       Column
 Column        11 - 12       Column
 Column        13 - 14       Column
 Column        15 - 16       Column
 Column        17 - 18       Column
 Row           19 - 20       SHIFT+CTRL
 Row           21 - 22       Column
 LED Caps      23 - 24       Column
 LED Anode     25 - 26       LED Shift Lock

The LEDs all have suitable resistors on them and can run directly from 5V. Break is pulled up by the same line as the power LED uses for 5V so is effectively on it’s own row. Inside the BBC it is used to trigger a hardware interrupt IIRC.

The SHIFT+CTRL pin (20) is special. These two keys use diodes that allow them to be read by pulling lines 21 (SHIFT) and 24 (CTRL) low in turn.

EDIT: Made some minor corrections

I tried to use it with Arkanoid. That game uses a spinner control which can rotate endlessly clockwise or anti-clockwise, unlike a paddle which has a set range it can cover (typically 360 degrees). MAME does not support absolute positioning for spinner controls (or dials as it calls them). The Sega controller reports back a position from 0 to 255 but MAME needs left/right pulses as you would get from a decoded optical Gray code sensor of the type commonly used in mice.

Apparently absolute positions are usable with mice so I will try to set the controller up in that mode tomorrow.

This kind of problem seems to be common with emulators.

The protocol is quite simple. Data is read from the controller in the same way as a normal gamepad. The first 8 bits are the same, followed by 4 bits of y axis offset and 4 bits of x axis offset. Finally there is an ID nibble of 1000. The axis data is in two’s complement format, most likely just the output from some up/down counters.

I opened the trackball up for a look and it uses a custom Hori controller IC labelled “TRK-81-R01″ and “BU3219 844 315″. The only other components are two optical encoders for the ball, two switches (high/low speed, left/right handed), a few resistors, a single power supply capacitor and a 4093 Schmitt trigger. The two ICs are both DIP format. The PCB is single sided and does not use any jumper wires; however there is a patch wire which corrects a off-by-one-pin wiring error. The whole thing could be done in pure logic ICs but Hori must have thought it was cheaper to use a custom IC. Considering the age and limited popularity of the device that’s somewhat surprising.

Unfortunately the deletionists destroyed the Wikipedia article on Hori.

The correct pinout is:

 1 - GND
12 - Latch
13 - Data
14 - Clock
15 - 5V

There are some other lines connected to the microphone input, but I didn’t trace them. The controller I have has two PCBs held together with wire links so I could not see the markings on any of the ICs or even where many of the traces went. The controller has autofire which works well, although the two speed settings both seem quite fast. My guess is that they are clocked by the latch line so speed would depend on how fast the game reads the controllers.

I am on contract with T-Mobile and have unlimited data. You really need a good data plan, even if you have WiFi at home and work. Android loves data. Unfortunately T-Mobile’s coverage is crap.

First the phone itself. The design is generally good, and the “chin” makes a lot of sense when you use it. Build quality is good. The only issues I have are that the the volume buttons are too easy to press when using or fishing the phone out of your pocket, and the ringing volume is not loud enough. The latter would be okay if the vibration was powerful enough, but it isn’t. I sometimes don’t notice it.

Sound quality on calls is good, including the speaker phone. The headphone output is rubbish though. Sound quality is below par and there is constant hiss. It makes listening to audio books at low volume a bit annoying. My old N97 was much better. Still, it is usable and at lest there is a standard socket instead of the stupid Nokia pop-port.

Speaking of standard ports the Hero has mini USB. Even better it mounts the SD card as a standard flash drive. No stupid sync software or special modes required. There is a sync app which is on the SD card and is portable (does not need installing). I have not tried it because it does not work on XP x64.

Battery life is pretty good. I normally charge the phone in the evening and then keep it on overnight. I then have the WiFi on all day at work and when I get home the battery shows almost no drain. Of course these meters are often highly misleading but I have been really pushing it lately and it doesn’t suddenly drop right down like my old ipod does. Even with WiFi a.d GPS on for wardriving it comes well. It is easy to charge over usb.

WiFi deserves a paragraph or two. It generally works pretty well, although roaming could be a boy more aggressive. It seems to struggle with very low signal access points. Seems on a par with other phones though.

The most frustrating thing is that it is such a missed opportunity. Android is based on Linux and so in theory a port of aircrack is possible, but lack of driver support is holding it back. Even if there was just a packet capture app… A slightly better antenna would make a big difference too.

The version of Android on the phone has the HTC Sense skin on it. It isn’t that different from normal Android, the main differences being the home screen and they virtual keyboard. The home screen works well. You can customize five pages of. Mixed apps, widgets and shortcuts. I mostly use Android or downloaded ones rather than the HTC widgets as they are q bit big and flashy.

The keyboard is generally good. Vibration feedback is provided buttons make it less responsive. Prediction seems to be excellent and does not overly favour user dictionary words like my Nokia did. After I sent some DNS settings by text it always put ‘DNS’ instead of ‘for’.

The HTC keyboard is a bit different to the standard Android one. I have not really used the standard one so can’t compare, but I hear the HTC is usually judged favorably against it. It lags a bit with the vibration or sound feedback on which sometimes causes it to think you long-pressed a key when you only tapped it. There is no pound key either – a major omission!

I can type pretty fast one or two handed with it. I wondered about getting a hardware keyboard but I don’t think it would be worth it.

Now, the apps. There are so many fantastic apps, and most are free. You are not limited to the app store either, you can install them from any site or the SD card. Apple recently deleted all the WiFi finding apps from their app store and reject a lot of good stuff like emulators and replacements for the built in ones. None of that nonsense here.

One of the best features is the detailed permission display when installing an app. It tells you exactly what the app is allowed to do. The comments system on the store is also very good, and bad reviews are not censored.

The Google apps are pretty good. You obviously need to have a Google account but you can use POP or IMAP etc. with other providers.

The apps all tie together well. For example your contacts brings together gmail, Facebook, Twitter and more. If you install a file manager it can be used to choose files in other apps. All apps can use the notification system.

I only wish the was a WiFi packet capture app, or even better a port of aircrack.

One of the most useful apps is RMaps. It is similar to The built in Google Maps app but can use offline map data. I downloaded all of they greater Tokyo and surrounding areas so that I can have maps when I don’t have am unlimited data connection. The GPS works pretty well once a fix is acquired but it does help to be stationary at first.

Print quality isn’t bad. Blacks are very deep and should hopefully stay that way since it’s a thermal printer and does not use ink. That also means no smudging. It’s 300 DPI which is fine for labels and some basic graphics like logos and barcodes.

The supplied P-Touch Editor software is okay. All the usual functions are there for working with text, except for a spell checker. It can generate barcodes too, including QR code. The interface is actually pretty good, presumably because this is a business printer and so forgoes all the usual consumer oriented fluff. I have not tried the Address Book software yet as it looks like it’s oriented to mail-merge tasks, but there is a MS Word plug-in which lets you select an address and print it directly from the context menu. It seems to work well enough.

The printer can use both separate label rolls and continuous rolls, and comes with one of the latter. It has a cutter built in which slices the roll up automatically. Unlike the Dymo at work it’s very quiet too, in fact you don’t realise it’s printing until the cutter kicks in. Even set to quality mode it’s pretty fast too, printing a 62x50mm label in less than 1 second and taking about 1.5 seconds to cut it.

Oh, and being a Japanese company Japanese language support is naturally excellent. For example, you can enter Japanese text into the barcode generator which is something most online ones can’t do.

Everything is at http://retro.world3.net, including an online shop where you can buy ready made adapters and kits via Google Checkout.

I’ll add more stuff to the shop side in the next few days. In particular I hope to have some extension cables for sale for making connectors. They are hard to come by, but if there is demand I’ll get them.

It occurred to me that I can use the same PCB for a Wii/Gamecube version, so I am now working on the Retro Adapter Wii. It will support all the same controllers as the Retro Adapter, and will in fact use the same code where possible. One thing I’m not sure about is firmware updates, I need to look into the options.