how do i write a peripheral driver?

[edmicman]

Hi, my friend is making for a project a sort of flight data device that will be flown in a model rocket and record various things like pressure, temperature, etc. Part of the project is to make an interface that will let this device transfer the recorded data to a PC. Everything has to be made from scratch as well, whatever connection they use, etc. I think this sounds pretty cool, but have a question. Where would we start to do something like this? We're thinking along the lines of like a USB port or something like on the TI-8x calculators where you could plug in a cord and connect the device to the computer. But where do you start? For something like USB, I imagine you'd have to write a driver, but where/how do you do that? In C? Something else? And should it communicate through windows or DOS? Can anyone point me in a good direction? Thanks!

 

[Nothinman]

Well if you don't know C you're going to hard up for a driver, I believe MS has a DDK (Driver Development Kit) with simple example code but I wouldn't know how in-depth it goes or how good of quality it would be.

Linux has all the source code available, you could grab an existing USB driver and try to get it to work with your device.

 

[Zach]

Data aquisition board may work.. I play around with micro controllers too, like for robot hobbiests (and real industry applications).. these often have serial interfaces and the ability to print/take data from a terminal window. INstead of just sucking the data out, you could plug it into your system and talk to the onbaord computer.