On 11/13/2011 10:33 AM, Dan Smith wrote:
I think it's *feasible* to get your RT Systems cable working, but it may be more trouble than you're looking for.
I'm not a mac user, so I can't really help much. The first quick google hit is an FTDI manual that says to change the VID/PID in the FTDI driver on OS X, you need the Xcode dev environment. Failing that it says to contact FTDI to get a custom version of the driver.
http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Documents/InstallGuides/Mac_OS_X_Installatio...
There are some interesting bits on this page:
http://staton.us/electronics/python/OSX_FTDI_USB.html
First there's a Python module for talking to the FTDI D2xx driver on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X,
http://pypi.python.org/pypi/ftd2xx/bzr12
There's a python script for changing the Product ID which could possibly be used for changing the RT System's VID/PID back to the default FTDI VID/PID. Looks like that script only changes the PID, though it looks straightforward to add a function that also changes the VID.
This got me curious enough so I tried FTDI's programming utility under MS Windows.
** FTDI's FT_PROG Utility (Windows) **
http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Utilities.htm
It looks like it should be straightforward to reprogram the FTDI chip in the RT Systems cable on a windows box using their FT_PROG utility. I ran it on my system, and read the EEPROM from both my RT Systems cable and a "generic" FTDI USB cable. the changes that I think are necessary:
1. Under "FT EEPROM -> USB Device Description", change "Custom VID/PID" from "custom" to "FTDI Default".
2. Under "RT EEPROM -> Hardware Specific", uncheck "Load D2XX Driver".
You probably don't need to change the text device strings and can leave the descriptions as "RT Systems", etc.
IMPORTANT NOTES:
- I did not try this. You could make your cable completely unusable by doing this. I won't be trying it on mine because I occasionally still use the RT Systems software.
- Changing these parameters will mean you can't use the cable with RT System's software without changing them back.
- It does look like you can use "Save as a Template" to make a backup of the cable.
Hope This Helps, --Rob