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Note: This instructable will only work for the Motorola Droid.
The Motorola Droid is part of the new generation of smartphones that can frankly do anything. Think of something you want to do, and bam! there's a way to do that.
I'm the kind of person that likes to get the most out of things (to give you a quick idea, I've gone so far as to using the Droid and a Mini-Itx computer that I built and run in my room in conjunction to write Apps for the Droid on the Droid!). Then one day, I'm reading my RSS Feeds, and along comes this article in which some people were able to get a full sized keyboard and mouse working on the Phone! A couple of days later, I created a cable that worked as both a normal cable in addition to a peripheral cable.
This instructable is going to recreate those steps so that all Droid owners can enjoy the keyboard-y goodness!
The Motorola Droid is part of the new generation of smartphones that can frankly do anything. Think of something you want to do, and bam! there's a way to do that.
I'm the kind of person that likes to get the most out of things (to give you a quick idea, I've gone so far as to using the Droid and a Mini-Itx computer that I built and run in my room in conjunction to write Apps for the Droid on the Droid!). Then one day, I'm reading my RSS Feeds, and along comes this article in which some people were able to get a full sized keyboard and mouse working on the Phone! A couple of days later, I created a cable that worked as both a normal cable in addition to a peripheral cable.
This instructable is going to recreate those steps so that all Droid owners can enjoy the keyboard-y goodness!
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Signing UpStep 1A brief overview: What is USB OTG, and why is it important?
To those of you who are Moto Droid owners, you may not just how awesome your phone is. Inside of the Droid is a chip that contains USB OnTheGo.
For those of you that may not know, USB OnTheGo (OTG) is a specification that supplements USB 2.0. This specification is meant to simplify the interaction between a device and its controller through the use of two modes: Host and Slave. The Host is in charge for initiating any and all requests for data, while the Slave can only respond to requests. The Host is also in charge of supplying power to the device.
So now that you know what it is, why should you care? Well, in the intro you found out that the Droid has the capability of being put into Host Mode. If you continued with this thought, you'd soon realize that if the Droid can be put into Host, it can act as a controller for USB devices!
What kinds? Currently, there are only drivers (the software link that communicates with the USB devices) for mice and keyboards, but frankly that was a surprise in and of itself, seeing as this is somewhat of a hack.
Enough talk. Let's build us the cable that will allow us to use a full sized keyboard on a phone!
For those of you that may not know, USB OnTheGo (OTG) is a specification that supplements USB 2.0. This specification is meant to simplify the interaction between a device and its controller through the use of two modes: Host and Slave. The Host is in charge for initiating any and all requests for data, while the Slave can only respond to requests. The Host is also in charge of supplying power to the device.
So now that you know what it is, why should you care? Well, in the intro you found out that the Droid has the capability of being put into Host Mode. If you continued with this thought, you'd soon realize that if the Droid can be put into Host, it can act as a controller for USB devices!
What kinds? Currently, there are only drivers (the software link that communicates with the USB devices) for mice and keyboards, but frankly that was a surprise in and of itself, seeing as this is somewhat of a hack.
Enough talk. Let's build us the cable that will allow us to use a full sized keyboard on a phone!
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I haven't tried making the adapter again w/o the button, but it would be interesting to see if it would work just the same.
The usb cable that come w/ the phone is not meant to act as a host cable.
What it comes down to is that there's no guarantee that the cable will have five wires to mess with. I didn't want to risk ruining a perfectly fine cable back when I did this.