You need to install OS X drivers for your cable. It looks like RT Systems only offers Windows drivers, so the best you can do is contact them and and ask if their cable manufacturer also supports OS X. If they use a common USB chipset like FTDI VCP or Prolific PL2303 you will be able to download OS X drivers from the manufacturer's website.

I think Robert confirmed that they use FTDI, but with a weird vendor code, which makes the vanilla FTDI drivers not identify it without a little legwork.

Kerry, to answer your question, I think the *easiest* think would be to get the OPC-478U, or the OPC-478 and a mac-friendly USB adapter like the Keyspan. I think it's *feasible* to get your RTSystems cable working, but it may be more trouble than you're looking for.

As I understand it, the RT Systems software *only* works with their dongles so I would expect that they are actually looking for their proprietary VID/PID codes. I guess this can go two ways:

- You're looking to use an RT Systems cable with a generic system like OSX and Chirp :: reprogramming it back to a standard FDTI code should work. I have some FTDI serial dongles here that I can get the codes from if need be. Alternatively, you can look at all the VID/PIDs known in the Linux kernel (I added the US Interface Navigator unit): http://lxr.linux.no/#linux+v3.1.1/drivers/usb/serial/ftdi_sio_ids.h

- With that Python software you found, you might actually be able to reconfigure a generic FTDI serial dongle to identify as a RT System cable just in case you lost your RT cable but still want to use their Windows software.

--David

Robert Terzi wrote:

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_Installation_Guide.pdf

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

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