PRO-97 Programming API... want to make new software

[joey_camel_man]

Hello. Being rather disappointed in the lack of not only non windows software, but non-pay software available for the Pro-97, I was wondering if there was any information available on the communication protocol used for the PRO-97 scanner using the mono-serial cable. I'm planning on developing an open source (and therefor free, Probably GPL) GUI (Perl/Tk) Linux (and possibly... UNIX? Mac OS X? Windows even?) application to program the PRO-97. In the end it may well be cross platform... with Perl and Tk the logic and GUI are portable enough, but I'm not sure how much dealing with the serial port differs between platforms.

What I would really enjoy from the community:
- Suggestions about functionality and features
- Productive technical suggestions from other developers
- Most importantly, any info regarding the protocol between the scanner and the serial port!
- To know about how many people would be interested in using this


What i don't have the time or patience to deal with:
- reverse engineering the communication protocol
- taking crap from nay-sayers (so if you don't have anything constructive to say, keep it to yourself. I will not spare your dignity otherwise. ;-))
- dealing with laundry lists of nitpicky demands
- Overly entitled people that feel as though I owe them and the community something by starting the project, including instant bug fixes, support or enhancements. How about you come over my place and start doing whatever it is you do for work for the number of hours it takes to make a fully featured application, for absolutly no money and then have me indignantly complain about your work and tell you to redo parts of it because it doesn't match my specifications. Sound like it would be infuriating? You're right.

Really though, it would be nice to have some support on non windows OS's... and possibly a working free tool for the windows OS's.

Any thoughts?

/AJ

 

[Al42]

- Most importantly, any info regarding the protocol between the scanner and the serial port!

I think the only way you're going to get that is the old fashioned way - connect two of them together, clone one to the other, capture the serial data and analyze it.

- To know about how many people would be interested in using this

I'd definitely like to see it - I'd strongly suggest tcl, though, not Perl, if those are your two choices.

- Overly entitled people that feel as though I owe them and the community something by starting the project, including instant bug fixes, support or enhancements.

You're not planning on being on call 25/8? (J/k - I write freeware too.)

Really though, it would be nice to have some support on non windows OS's... and possibly a working free tool for the windows OS's.

Tcl would ensure cross-platform compatibility. I wish I could give you the protocol, but I think Don is the only one outside GRE who knows it, and I doubt he'd give it away.

 

[joey_camel_man]

Thanks for the reply!

Hmm, Tcl... I've never even really looked into it before but a cursory search on the net has me intrigued enough to give it a shot. There have to be 10 books on it around the office, I'll take one of them home this evening.

I just bought the scanner about a week ago and am not entirely familiar with all of the functions yet. didn't think to check out clone because I didn't have another PRO-97 (or any other scanner at all for the past 10+ years really). I didn't even consider the fact that it would give me a full dump, that's pretty useful... especially since my scanner came pre-programmed 'cause i got the floor model. Hopefully it's purely 1 way comm and there isn't any sort of challenge/response necessary... If that's not the case though, I'll just have to try and get the protocol docs somehow. I flat out refuse to spy on the communcation between the scanner and one of the commerical products, that's just a rip off as far as I'm concerned. Last thing on the planet that I would want to do is use someone's work against them when making a free product that does practically the same thing.

There's a lot going on around Boston on the airwaves and I'd really like to be able to take full advantage of that with my PR0-97.

 

[Al42]

Hopefully it's purely 1 way comm and there isn't any sort of challenge/response necessary...

Unfortunately I think there is - at least, from what I've seen happening with my Pro-95.

If that's not the case though, I'll just have to try and get the protocol docs somehow.

I don't think there are any. I'm not trying to be negative - I'm just saying that there's only one way I know of (other than being told by someone who knows) to get the protocol for a GRE scanner, and that's to establish 2-way communications with it and spy on the data.

But let me know if I can be of any help in any other way.

 

[MacombMonitor]

Have you tried contacting GRE? The guy (mikey60) who developed PRO96COM for the PRO-96/2096 was able to obtain the info needed to capture the data stream to support his software. I doubt it came from Radio Shack.

If you have access to a serial protocol analyzer, I don't think it would be stealing anything from other software developers to peek at the command structure. That had to originated from GRE, and had to be supplied to the other programmers in order for them to write their code. Odds are it's just an ASCII stream, not binary.

 

[pro92b]

Have you tried contacting GRE? The guy (mikey60) who developed PRO96COM for the PRO-96/2096 was able to obtain the info needed to capture the data stream to support his software. I doubt it came from Radio Shack.

If you have access to a serial protocol analyzer, I don't think it would be stealing anything from other software developers to peek at the command structure. That had to originated from GRE, and had to be supplied to the other programmers in order for them to write their code. Odds are it's just an ASCII stream, not binary.

The PRO-96 info came from the GRE development team and can be found at http://www.strongsignals.net/access/clubs/pro-96/index.cgi. I'm sure they had Radio Shack's approval before releasing the information.

The PRO-92 had at least five programs, four of which were not official. There isn't a protocol as such since programming is accomplished by fully rewriting the memory. This file contains a map of the PRO-92 memory http://members.cox.net/kplotkin/92WARE.ZIP.

Radio Shack was unhappy with the appearance of the various freeware programs for the PRO-92 and began encrypting the data beginning with the PRO-93. Without the key, serial port analyzer output will be of no use. To obtain a memory map of present models it would be necessary to purchase a license from Radio Shack and sign a non-disclosure agreement. You will find no information in the public domain.