Max Falcon-8 Programmable Macropad Kit Discussions | Drop

Free Standard Shipping in the US on orders over $99

Showing 1 of 183 conversations about:

Max Falcon-8 Programmable Macropad Kit

Mech Keys

FULL DISCUSSION

SpiroC

Dec 23, 2016

Max Falcon-8 Programming Software on Mac - programming works for me but running the Falcon-8 does not (go figure)
Some comments in this forum express disappointment that you can't get the programming software running on a Mac. Firstly, I seem to be having the opposite problem to everyone else. I got the programming software working but not the keyboard itself in run mode (at least not yet). I notice it's showing up as a 250 mA USB device so that may be the reason (except it's also not working through a powered USB hub so maybe not), or it's the age of my MacBook, or my Falcon-8 config itself which I have set to F13-F20 keys (see comments below on how to set that up), or my Falcon-8 firmware version. I bought it at the last Falcon-8 Massdrop. Anyway, here at least is how you get the programming software working using Crossover 16.
1. Macbook tested on:

2. Output from OSX command showing a USB mounted device: ioreg -p IOUSB -l -w 0

3. Output from OSX command showing the mounted Falcon-8 in programming mode

4. Setting up Crossover. Crossover is Codeweavers version of wine. Wine/Crossover are tools for running windows exe's on OSX. They are kind of hit and miss but the probability of success greatly increases as the windows exe gets smaller. Each year they're getting better at the bigger apps etc. Crossover adds (at the very least) a simpler gui to wine but still uses wine underneath. I'm not a wine expert so I bought Crossover one day on special in case it helps at all to get things done a bit faster. I'm sure the wine experts would eat this in seconds. I started with using the Crossover gui (selected Win 7 64 as the environment for the new bottle) to run Max's programming util. It didn't it didn't work. After turning on on logging, I received this error message:

Google brought me here: https://www.codeweavers.com/support/forums/general/?t=27;forumcurPos=1700;msg=66056. I did this twice. Once for msvbvm60.dll and then for comdlg32.ocx. I got them off a Windows machine and as per the instructions from the above link, copied them to (in my case): ~/Library/Application Support/CrossOver/Bottles/MAX Falcon-8 V2.1 Programmer.exe/drive_c/windows$ Then it just worked. See here:

Dec 23, 2016

nikonf5

167

Dec 26, 2016

SpiroCTry it after changing the key layout to the default by copying over the default firmware file that comes with the programming app on the mfr website.

Dec 26, 2016

Vote

SpiroC

Dec 28, 2016

nikonf5Thanks for the reply. I did try but no luck. I also tried on both a 2012 Macbook pro and a 2016 Macbook Pro but still nothing. It's not showing up at all on the USB bus (command: ioreg -p IOUSB) which to me hints at a driver issue. Plugging it back into a Windows machine and using MS USB View to compare Vendor ID's when it's running the bootloader (which does work under OSX) vs firmware mode (which does not work), it looks like this:

Google suggests Vendor ID C251 is Keil Software, one of the big embedded compiler vendors. Maybe that's the default Vendor ID in the USB code of the compiler environment used to write the firmware. Probably time to email Max. I'd like to know if anyone has these running on any Mac, and which specs (hardware/software), thanks, Spiro
---------- Edit. Here is the Keil page for this processor: http://www.keil.com/dd2/nxp/lpc1343fbd48/ no driver listed there though.
Also I just tried the Falcon-8 on Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS and it's working great. lsusb -v says:

So for me at least it works fine for Windows and Linux, but not OSX. Search continues...
------------------- 2016-12-30. God I'm an idiot. Max tech support fixed this with a one line email .... REBOOT THE MAC. Works like a bought one. That's it I'm retiring. S

Dec 28, 2016

View Full Discussion