BCDx36HP serial driver for Mac?

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samccormack

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What's the possibility to get a serial driver working natively on the Mac? I noticed the Windows driver just uses the standard Microsoft code with just some special Unidem device IDs. I suspect that if the Mac were clued in that the Uniden device is a serial port it would work but device driver coding is a bit beyond my programming skills.
 

Salvation

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I did a test with MacOSX and it communicates with the 536HD in serial mode only. It will corrupt the SD card in Mass Storage Mode though.. Not sure who has the issue on that side


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Salvation

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aja9ete4.jpg


Here it is communicating with my 536HD using a terminal program..


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RF23

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What's the possibility to get a serial driver working natively on the Mac? I noticed the Windows driver just uses the standard Microsoft code with just some special Unidem device IDs. I suspect that if the Mac were clued in that the Uniden device is a serial port it would work but device driver coding is a bit beyond my programming skills.

You should be able to find answers to this if you do a "Search" on this site as the topic has come up repeatedly.

What I understand now is that Uniden does not presently support the MacOSX but people have had good success with Parallels (SP?) but not Bootcamp. However, it may also depend on which MacOSX you are using.

I am only repeating what I have read, I have never used a Mac, but hopefully it will help you get started in finding what you need.
 

whsbuss

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You should be able to find answers to this if you do a "Search" on this site as the topic has come up repeatedly.

What I understand now is that Uniden does not presently support the MacOSX but people have had good success with Parallels (SP?) but not Bootcamp. However, it may also depend on which MacOSX you are using.

I am only repeating what I have read, I have never used a Mac, but hopefully it will help you get started in finding what you need.

I thought Bootcamp worked OK but Parallels corrupted the SD card.
 

Salvation

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I thought Bootcamp worked OK but Parallels corrupted the SD card.


Bootcamp is fine.. Parallels will work but a lot more finicky.. Have to make sure it only connects to windows and not MacOSX. It may be an osx issue that it corrupts the card.


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Houdini7

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Salvation,

Can you provide more details on how you connected over serial?

I've been trying for a while now, and I can't get any terminal to connect to the mac's usbmodem port.
 

dmaria

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You should be able to find answers to this if you do a "Search" on this site as the topic has come up repeatedly.

What I understand now is that Uniden does not presently support the MacOSX but people have had good success with Parallels (SP?) but not Bootcamp. However, it may also depend on which MacOSX you are using.

I am only repeating what I have read, I have never used a Mac, but hopefully it will help you get started in finding what you need.

I think you misunderstood the question. If I understand the OP correctly (and I would like to see the same thing), we would like to see "native" drivers for the Mac. Not Windows drivers.
 

RF23

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I think you misunderstood the question. If I understand the OP correctly (and I would like to see the same thing), we would like to see "native" drivers for the Mac. Not Windows drivers.

My second paragraph about Uniden not presently supporting MacOSX is actually from UPMan and the lack of native MacOSX drivers has been discussed a lot here on RR.

However, that is the only present source of info that I know of that may be helpful but for all we know Uniden is working on a native MacOSX but so far there has been no response that I am aware of from Uniden on this subject even with the multiple debates on this issue here on RR.

I wish I had more to offer, but when I first moved from 32 bit to 64 bit windows I found a number of my programs would not work on the 64 bit version and MS and the companies that wrote the programs both said they were not going address the issue. I was not amused!
 

thundermedic

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The serial driver would be nice, I'm looking for more details on why the Mass Storage mode keeps killing SD Cards
 
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Salvation

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You don't need a serial driver for OSX as the scanner works with it natively.. The Mass Storage Device does not though.. Been messing with It a little today and built a little app to scan each serial port to find a BCDx36HP and say what port it's on and what firmware version it has.. Just a stepping stone I guess..

unyze6ah.jpg



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Salvation

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I'm working on the Mass Storage issues now also.. I am thinking it is a formatting issue.. OSX sees the drive, it just can not read it. I plugged in my 536 and formatted the disk to HFS+ and OSX read and mounted the drive with no issues.. Just didn't work with FAT, FAT32 or exFAT.. I am now doing a low level format through it to see if that will work.. Will take a while to finish so will let it go overnight and test it in the morning.


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RF23

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I'm working on the Mass Storage issues now also.. I am thinking it is a formatting issue.. OSX sees the drive, it just can not read it. I plugged in my 536 and formatted the disk to HFS+ and OSX read and mounted the drive with no issues.. Just didn't work with FAT, FAT32 or exFAT.. I am now doing a low level format through it to see if that will work.. Will take a while to finish so will let it go overnight and test it in the morning.


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My understanding is that the 536 itself only officially supports FAT and FAT32 so if you do find a SD format that the OSX will work with the scanner probably will not.

People using BootCamp seem to have no problems with the x36HP scanners AFAIK but it will be interesting to see what happens with your experiment.
 

Salvation

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Low level format did not work.. I am going to try a couple other things.. Would love to get this all working natively in MacOSX without having to go into Windows except to upgrade the Database and Firmware in Sentinel (unless Uniden is willing to give out the info for updates).


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Jay911

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The serial driver would be nice, I'm looking for more details on why the Mass Storage mode keeps killing SD Cards

When I receive a flash drive, card, or other removable storage device that a Mac user has had, I find various "system folders" created on the drive by the Mac OS. I suspect that's the problem - Apple is writing stuff to the card that Uniden doesn't need or want.
 

Salvation

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Well my plans are to try and do some USB debugging to see if I can spot an error and get a fix without Uniden doing anything but I have a feeling they will either have to fix something on the firmware side or write a driver on the MacOSX side. My other plan is to build an applescript that will act much like Vonskie's project on the windows side. I also plan to build an app to program the scanner but may have to do it where it has to read/write the files from another source (sd card reader).

I am hoping that doing this would encourage a real coder to see that there is a market on the Mac side and would be willing to build a full scale application for the Mac. I am not a coder but can build scripts. Honestly I may even run into a road block that will stop me from even making it but I usually am able to find a way around a problem. The viewer will be my first task which I did a test script this weekend and got communications working so now it's just properly parsing and displaying things properly and maybe even TTS as well.


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