Resources for writing Scanner-related programs

[ddb]

I am a software developer by trade, and I am interested in writing programs that control and/or program my scanners.

Currently I am using a Pro-97, and while there are several programs I could use, I'd always wanted to write one myself, just to try out new ways of thinking about scanner programming.

Additionally, my platform of choice is Max OSX, and there are no choices out there that currently run on OSX without using something like Parallels or VMWare. I do that now, and I'd rather not.

Where do I find information about the protocol used to interact with the scanner? Is this information available to interested parties, or is this one of those "you have to pay a fee and sign an NDA" bits of information?

Eventually I would also like to be able to control a Pro-106, and maybe the Uniden BCD396T. I have found some older Uniden documentation on the net, but nothing about the GRE or GRE-derived (like my Pro-97) scanners.

If this is not the right place to ask this question, I'm certainly open to being directed to the proper forum.

 

[dougjgray]

Well the pro-97 data is encrypted (I believe a very simple algorythym) so that will probably not be feasible, the pro-106 if it is like my pro-197 is not encrypted but might still be hard to hack. So the answer on the newer RS/GRE scanners is it is prbably not feasible unless gre/rs will give you the format of the commands and file format and there maybe a fee. I believe the commands for the uniden 396/996 are availble for download from uniden and/or maybe other places look in the RR wiki

 

[iMONITOR]

Contact GRE directly and inquire with them. There are three other people developing software in Windows, so it's not impossible.