Fred wrote:
Hi,
I'm thinking about using a USB attached device for some data collection.
I can use other languages to "talk" with it, but I'd prefer a Java solution.
Does anybody have any experience with USB and Java and could point me to a
starting point? Thanks. (Already know Java and apologize if I'm
overlooking the obvious.)
You have two options:
0) jUSB --
http://jusb.sourceforge.net
jUSB works quite well -- at least on Linux, where it's reference
implementation is. There has recently been a port to Win32-based
platforms, however I can't comment on how well it works (as i avoid
Win32 platforms like the plague that they are :) ). It has the benifit
of being available under an Open Source license. It has the
disadvantage, however, of being fairly poorly supported by its
developers -- project development activity is rare, and getting
questions answered can be exceedingly slow (I once had a question
answered several months after e-mailing it to their developers :P).
One thing to note: if you're going to try it out on Linux, grab the
sources from their CVS repository directly. Their downloadable releases
have badly broken build processes which don't work for many users.
However, once built it does what it advertizes -- we support it with the
jSyncManager Project (
http://www.jsyncmanager.org) for talking to
USB-enabled PalmOS-based handhelds.
1) Javax-USB (JSR-080) --
http://javax-usb.org
This will probably eventually be the official USB solution for Java,
once it completes the Java Community Process (JCP). It officially has
been granted the package "javax.usb" .
This project is well maintained -- the developers run a mailing list
where they respond quickly to queries. As with jUSB, however, the
reference implementation is only for Linux, and AFAIK they don't have a
port to any other platform as of yet.
The jSyncManager project isn't setup to use this API just yet, but I've
assigned the task of writing a plug-in to use Javax-USB for connectivity
for our next release, as in the long term this appears to be the way to go.
I hope this helps!
Brad BARCLAY
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
From the OS/2 WARP v4.5 Desktop of Brad BARCLAY.
The jSyncManager Project:
http://www.jsyncmanager.org 
