Custom USB devices (Part 2)
For those trying to decide how to start off with custom USB devices, here's what I think of the main ways you can go.... 1 - CDC This is a serial port emulator. Its a simple way of attaching a USB device and making it look like a normal COM port Good: Simple for beginners to understand, you can ignore most of the USB part entirely and pretend you're still running an old style serial port. Bad: Great if you're making something that has an ASCII command terminal....otherwise its a bit of a bodge. USB is designed to do far more than COM ports were so your device might be inefficient, Also it will not appear nicely as "My Funky Device" in the device manager, it'll just come up as a new COM port. Personally I'd ditch this for most devices 2 - HID This is a standard was of talking to generic devices like keyboards and mice. It can be used to attach just about anything you like though and supports most of the USB transfer types such as 'bulk' and ...