iBook touch pad controller

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Felino
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iBook touch pad controller

Post by Felino » Sat Mar 15, 2008 12:10 am

I found my old ibooks (g4) touch pad before. It seems to have a usb controller, it has 4 leads coming from it, one black, all the rest brown.

The main chip on the board is.

Synaptivs
T10048 0502
BFMK7A

I was hoping to muck around with it over usb. It has multitouch sensing (to some degree).

-Fel

EDIT: Blury webcam photo of the board. Taken agaisn't my maths assignment.

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sgtpepper
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Post by sgtpepper » Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:41 am

According to System Profiler, the trackpad is on the USB bus, so I'm 99% sure you could just hook up those leads to a standard USB connector and voila. I also know that some guy a couple years back took the leads from the trackpad connector and hooked up a bluetooth dongle internally so that he wouldn't have it taking up an external USB port. So basically, yes, it's USB :P
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Bibin
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Post by Bibin » Sun Mar 16, 2008 7:08 pm

Could the same be done with the keyboard?
...

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nitro2k01
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Post by nitro2k01 » Sun Mar 16, 2008 9:46 pm

I have seen a discussion about this before. I don't remember all the details, but the bottom line was that some iBooks are using USB and some are using an older proprietary protocol. So it could be either one.

Since there are four wires, it's likely to be USB. If you want to try it out, follow these guidelines:
But don't do this if you don't understand what I'm saying here. I'll take no responisibility for your actions.
1) To a 99% certainty, black is ground. As long as black is correctly connected, the risk of frying something from misconnecting the other wires is small. However, connecting anything but USB ground to the mousepad ground will immediately fry it.
2) Next step is to find +5V. Follow the path from the black wire (Ground) on the circuit board until you reach a capacitor. +5V should join with Gnd at a capacitor.
3) When you're fairly certain you got Gnd and +5V right, it's time to get the two data pins right. There are only two possible ways to connect the last two pins, and of them is correct. Connecting these two pins the wrong way around will not permanently damage anaything, but it obviously won't work.
Good luck!
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Felino
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Post by Felino » Mon Mar 17, 2008 8:35 pm

Kai. A question. What on the ibook mobo (i curently have no cpare screen or hdd) would go live when the laptop is on?
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sgtpepper
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Post by sgtpepper » Mon Mar 17, 2008 9:12 pm

Bibin wrote:Could the same be done with the keyboard?
Nope, the keyboard just hooks up through a proprietary connector with many pins, around 24ish?
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Felino
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Post by Felino » Tue Mar 18, 2008 12:29 am

Kai.

Guessed the signal lines. Under windows, one way does nothing. The other way it says the device is unrecignised.

UPDATE:

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