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The USB stack Poseidon
What is Poseidon ?
Poseidon is a (if not "the") USB stack for Amiga and MorphOS.
The USB stack acts as a linking layer between the user and the applications on the
one side and the USB devices themselves on the other side. Everthing concerning administration
and data transport with regard to USB devices is handled by the USB stack.
Poseidon was not designed for a special interface hardware. A tailormade hardware
driver for each USB controller interacts between the stack itself and the lowlevel hardware.
The number of supported features (like ISO transfers) is determined by the hardware driver and
not the stack.
Poseidon was written by Chris Hodges.
The reference hardware used during development were SUBWAY and HIGHWAY modules.
After market introduction of the SUBWAY other hardware manufacturers dropped development
on own proprietary USB stacks (which were not really in an usable state) and switched to
Poseidon.
An USB stack can be compared with TCP/IP stacks: programs like IBrowse operate on the TCP/IP
stack (e.g. Miami, Genesis) which itself is communication with the networking hardware by
a special SANAII device (like "norway.device").
Which versions of Poseidon exist?
There a three basic versions of Poseidon available, which all can be used with USB
controller cards from E3B. The main difference is in licensing:
V2.x is enabled for all controllers from E3B with a full OEM license. You can use it
without any additional cost, as E3B paid for your license already.
V3.x is a "major update" and will cost a licence fee. This version can be used with
all our controllers in a restricted demo mode. For full functionality a personal registration
is needed. E3B will take over part of this registration fee as a service for our old customers.
Exception of the rule: all SUBWAY USB controllers with a serial number greater
than 700 have a full OEM license for V3.x. You can easily recognize these new controllers on
the German EAR recycling symbol on the bottom side of the module.
Please note that this license is only valid for these special SUBWAY modules;
any further USB controllers in your system will still need a registration for V3.x.
The serial number of your SUBWAY is a hand written three digit number on the bottom side
of the module:
V4.x is (presumingly) the last release version for M68k powered Amigas. This version
of Poseidon is licensed excusively to E3B USB controller and can not be used with
other vendors' hardware.
Changes can be made without further notification. All trademarks are property of
the corresponding companies.
Michael Böhmer, 13.04.2008, webmaster