Using the BeBox GeekPort

Be, Inc.
1

I have been very fortunate to come into possession of a 133 MHz PPC BeBox in the past year, along with the majority of the print books on BeOS from that era. Hardware has been very well preserved and has thus far proven to be fully functional. Been maxing out hardware since its procurement and interested in realizing its full I/O potential. (For a 1996 system I was especially amazed how seamless it was to augment the system with a video capture card and use the TV application, as having struggled through the clunkier aspects of other platforms’ plug and play implementations during the '90s.)

What I cannot seem to find is much information on how to use the GeekPort. Wondering if there is a standard means to use the port’s I/O capabilities either through the /dev/beboxhw/geekport device files or an API. (Presuming this likely would require programming in CodeWarrior by interacting with the DeviceKit…?) Not planning on doing anything too exotic at first—initial plans are just to hook up a breakout board to the DC-37 connector and seeing if the BeBox can handle the signals that are coming and going.

Bonus points if anyone has any insight on use of the infrared ports.

Does anyone here have any experience? Thanks in advance.

3 Likes
2

You are looking for the BDigitalPort, BA2D and BD2A docs, which were part of the Be Book R4, but not R5.

Direct link (thank’s to @PulkoMandy’s “BeOS Archive”): The Device Kit.

Also, a nice PDF with the GeekPort pinout.

Edit:

The old Be Newsletters might also hold some useful/historical info. Example google search for geekport.

Same, but for infrared ports.

For the latter, there’s this sample code.

Description for the above ir.tar.gz file:

     File: ir.tar.gz
   Author: Be Engineering (dbg@be.com)
  Release: 1.0

Compatibility: DR8
Location: contrib/code
Description: IR device header & code sample
Notes:

This is the header file and sample test program for using the IR
device. It’s very crude (command-line) but it does demonstrate
how to use the /dev/ir ports.

Dominic Giampaolo
dbg@be.com

6 Likes
3

Thanks so much for replying promptly with all of that! Exactly what I was hoping to find.

1 Like
4

If you can find this book it has a printed version of the docs.

image
image3024Ă—4032 2.59 MB

1 Like