So in my efforts to add support for the digisette AR-100 in linux, here
is a page where I describe what I know about tit . This page is not very
organized. You have been warned.
Form factor
The digisette has a standard compact cassette form factor. It looks and
mimics a tape. It also has a phone jack so you can plug in your
head phones right in to it. I wanted it because I a can easily take mp3s
to my car. I mostly use it to listen to radio shows. You can use stuff
from the linux show or www.audiobooksforfree.com
or of course your favorite mp3s.
So the Vendor is 05b4h and the product ID is 6001h. Yet once
initialized on windows the product ID changes to 6002h.
It also seems to report that it is compatible with USB 1.0.
As a side note, it seems that the irock! 520 mp3 player uses the same
chipset as the duo as it identifies it self the same way (Vendor=05b4
ProdID=6001 Rev= 0.01). Windows uses the "HMS30C6001" driver. I think
this is the Semiconductor Group of Hyundai Electronics Industries CO.,
LTD. The product and vendor ID for both of these mp3 players is the
default according to this
web page.
Protocol
I don't know much about the protocol yet. I've looked at a few USB bus
logs using snoopy pro on a windows system.
I know that the internal memory is following some kind of fat16 format
but it doesn't seem to have an MBR. Also the player OS is
stored on the flash in a few hidden files (MCUSN16.IMG, MP3SN16.IMG,
HWISN16.IMG and WMASN16.IMG ). Every time you do a low level format of
the internal flash these files get rewritten. They use about 600 KB of
memory from the internal 32 MB of memory.
The MMC that I have is a 64MB. It follows a standard disk
format with an MBR, a partition table and FAT (FAT16).
It seems that the long filename implementation is not 100% to spec. The
short version (8.3) of the long file names should never exist more than
once on a disk. It seems that the digisette implementation doesn't
follow that so for example if you have two file, hugefilename1.mp3 and
hugefilename2.mp3 then the short version of the name for both of these
files becomes HUGEFI~1.MP3. The correct way to do it would be
HUGEFI~1.MP3 and HUGEFI~2.MP3
Meanwhile
If you want to able to use the digisette with linux and you don't want
to wait around for me to get mousikos to support it here is a
workaround: Go get yourself a USB reader that supports the USB
mass storage protocol and an MMC card. Then write to MMC card with the
writer and pop it in the AR-100. I got myself a KTI 6-in-1 Internal
Flash Card Reader/Writer. I got this for two reasons. One, they
advertise that it works with Linux and two, it brings a USB port to the
front of my computer.
I hope this information is useful to someone. If you want to help with
AR-100 support, other digisette models or mousikos in general
please contact me:
