Thread: N900 will not allow USB OTG!
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joerg_rw is offline joerg_rw
2010-05-30 , 11:31
Posts: 2,222 | Thanked: 12,651 times | Joined on Mar 2010 @ SOL 3
#983
where exactly have you reached guys in making OTG easy to use for everyone? will a normall cable (mini usb - USB) work?
This isn't OTG. It is NOT easy to use for anybody, as it doesn't exactly work at all yet. If eventually we get to have a plain working hostmode, then a simple adapter A-FtoA-F will suffice, together with your CA-101 cable that came with the phone.

well can we have a tutorial on this? step by step? please
As soon as we got something useful to describe in such a step by step HowTo, of course you'll get one and we'll do a BIG announcement on that - we're just not there yet.
So please stay calm and patient, we're working on it. The previous posts might suggest there's more than we actually got, but we are close

[edit]
The HowTo will be very simple btw (just the package is still missing ;-D ):
install package hostmode-easy-now
klick the h-e-n icon
from the menu select "hostmode, powered" (a red USB icon will show up in systray area)
attach your USB keyboard, memstick, IrDA adapter, or whatever, using your CA-101 cable and a female-to-female adapter
or
from the menu select "hostmode, charging" (a white USB icon will show up in systray area)
attach your USB peripheral and a USB charger capable to deliver at least 1A, using CA-101, F2F-adapter, and a Y-cable

To stop hostmode, or to switch between powered and charging hostmode, click on systray and select the option you like from the pulldown menu

To finetune hostmode behaviour, click h-e-n icon, and select "config" from menu.
You will see a list of all previously attached USB peripherals that have been configured, plus the currently attached peripheral which is highlighted. On the right you can select for the highlighted item whether your N900, when the peripheral is being plugged in, should automatically change from powered to charging mode (for selfpowered drives etc), and if the screen dim should be disabled. There's also a wildcard item with the name "powered mode" in the list, which will have "disable dim" option only, to disable dimming of screen as long as device is in powered hostmode (you might not care about saving screen backlight power, while USB blasts out 5V to a hungry peripheral)
There's also an option to make indicator LED flash red during powered hostmode, to warn you about the power drain.

hostmode-easy-now will power up the USB and enter hostmode as soon as you click the h-e-n icon and the main menu shows up. Depending on your selection, it will switch to hostmode,charging, or revert to whatever was the USB state before on selecting "config".
When hostmode wasn't enabled when you click the h-e-n icon, and the automatic enabling of powered hostmode makes an already attached peripheral become visible for N900, and if this peripheral is a configured item, then the hostmode and other option are set according to the config for that item, and the main menu is closed immediately. Put simply, if you first attach a known and configured device, then clicking h-e-n is all you need to do to make it start.
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Last edited by joerg_rw; 2010-05-30 at 14:25.
 

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