RE: Talking to USB

From: Thomas Sedlaczek (ThomasSedlaczek_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 12/01/04 

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 06:05:04 -0800

Hi Don,

there is no way to talk direct to a USB device from VB6. You will allways
need a driver dll or a control (which hadels the driver access) between. What
you can use depends on that device you will use and what the device
manufacture offers. If there isnt such things offert for your device you will
have to write it your self in C++. Or look for a different device. FTDI-chip
(www.ftdichip.com) for e.g. offers direct driver dll for there UART and
parallel FIFO devices. They have also a VB sample program on there web page.
Braintechnology(www.braintechnology.de) has Active-x controlls for USB1.0 and
USB2.0 chips from Cypress.

Best regards,
Thomas

"Don" wrote:

> Environment: VB6 under W98
>
> I have a USB hardware device I wish to program directly. The original
> software installed a low level driver and the hardware is both
> registered and operational.
>
> Now then, I'd like to have access to this device directly. In other
> words, I'd like to enumerate all devices on the USB bus, pick the one
> I want, and then communicate with it (send commands, get data, etc).
>
> So, how does one go about talking to the USB? VB6/W98 combo doesn't
> seem to have any dedicated USB routines.
>
> What I need - I guess - is the USB equivalent of the MSComm control.
> Is there such a thing as a "USB Control"? What's the canonical way of
> talking to USB from VB?
>
> I did google around a bit but couldn't find anything applicable. Most
> sites and pages I came across seem to focus on actually writing a low
> level USB driver.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Don.
>

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