[chirp_users] Help needed, can't write to Yaesu FT-60

[chirp.cordless at xoxy.net]

Thought I'd follow up on this for the benefit of any Mac users who want to
use the RT Systems cables. Thanks for the hint about this being an FTDI chip
and working with the oem driver. Further research confirms it, and I now have it
working with the oem FTDI driver under OS X 10.8.2. I still appreciate
RT Systems providing a driver for those (like I was two days ago) that don't know
about this and just want it to work. Whatever their motivation, it helped in the short run.

But I'd rather know I have no further dependency on RT Systems for driver versions
for OSX 10.9 etc, and I'd prefer not to waste space on a second copy of the same
FTDI  driver I already had.

FTDI has a technical note TN_105
"Adding Support for New FTDI Devices to MAC Serial Driver"
available at http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Documents/TechnicalNotes.htm

Essentially the process involves adding a dozen or so lines of cut-and-paste
xml to the text file Info.plist within the driver package, to create another in the
list of "IOKitPersonalities", which already had 398 of them. Just add an
entry for this VID/PID.

It's now working just fine in Chirp with the RT Systems driver de-installed.

The shell command instructions in the note probably work if you copy
them exactly; I found them a bit clumsy and did it a little differently.
What's important is what goes in Info.plist.

Thanks again for the great support from this community,

-dan

On Sep 28, 2012, at 2:41 PM, Robert Terzi - rct at r-t.org <+chirp+cordless+a79d3bb79e.rct#r-t.org at spamgourmet.com> wrote:
> ...
> The RT Systems cables I've seen are made with FTDI chips.  However they
> install a custom USB Vendor ID and Product ID (VID & PID) on them, so they
> aren't recognized by the generic FTDI virtual com port drivers.
> 
> On windows this gives them the advantage that their software is reliably
> able to find their cable.The user doesn't have to figure out whatcom port
> got assigned.  The disadvantage for the user is that other software like CHIRP
> work with the cable because it doesn't create a COM port.
> 
> I believe the Mac driver you installed, is the same FTDI serial driverjust
> with the RT Systems VID and PID instead of the generic ones.
> 
> There is a utility provided by FTDI, at least for windows that will let you
> change the VID/PID on the chip.So you can set it back to the FTDI default
> and not worry about needing a special driver if you are ever so inclined.
> (The downside is you won't be able to use the RT software on windows since it
> will only work with their cable with the custom VID/PID (and the ftdi direct driver).
> This was discussed on this list 6 months to a year ago.)