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USB On-The-Go

(computer.rip)
208 points jnord | 1 comments | 03 Jan 25 12:42 UTC | HN request time: 0.203s | source
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lxgr ◴[07 Jan 25 20:41 UTC] No.42627191[source]▶
Back in the day when cameras still took better photos than phones, I've always wanted to backup vacation photos without bringing a computer.

I still remember getting so close with the Google Nexus 4 to being able to connect an SD card reader. It supported OTG, but did not have the required charge pump to supply 5V of VBUS. (Supposedly you could hack together something using a 9V battery, some resistors, and a kernel patch, but that was a bit more than I was willing to risk for the convenience.)

Finally, the Nexus 7 and Nexus 5 supported it out of the box, and while Android didn't offer a FAT32 implementation back then, there was (is?) a USB host API which let apps supply that instead, and I think somebody actually ended up implementing FAT32 in userspace to make it all work!

replies(4): >>42628584 #>>42629199 #>>42631060 #>>42641599 #
1. Gigachad ◴[07 Jan 25 23:55 UTC] No.42629199[source]▶
I had a nexus 7 as a kid, much before I had a personal laptop or even a phone. Used to utilize almost all of these features that most people seem to consider pointless. Had one of the little OTG cables so I could plug in flash storage and keyboards. I remember unzipping APKs, finding assets and trying to change them and rezipping. Only to find out they wouldn't install. Presumably failing a signature check.

Was super cool reading the OP article and finally learning how the thing actually worked with the 5th pin.