Will Cerberus support USB Host some time in the future?

I’m all new to ◦.NET Micro Framework, even through I’ve had years of normal .NET C# and C firmware development programming experience. And while surfing the web I just accidentally stumbled on the GHI website. Wow! It was like a whole new world of possibilities suddenly opened. Amazing job with this you guys. (I’m just annoyed that I did not know about this a long time ago!)

So I immediately ordered some boards and accessories to get going. Can’t wait until my goodies arrive. My choice for main board was the Cerberus because of its price and because it offered everything I need to start using it as part of a product… Everything except USB host. But I noticed on its description page the words “(not supported at this time)”. This is quite encouraging and seems to indicate that it may be supported some time in the future.

Do someone on this forum maybe have some insider info they can share about whether USB host is still on the card for a future release?

Welcome!

I would say USB host is still a distant maybe, unless the community develops it.

Thanks for the quick answer Mike. Darn! I was sort of hoping the 2.43 core due out soon would also include that. Anyway, still an amazingly useful device.

@ wernert - If what you need is to connect a USB mouse/joystick then probably in near future. We had this working months back but we have been busy wit more important features.

The community just started building their own firmware too so all kind of possibilities come in place.

Of course we can’t promise anything, and I recommend a premium device if you need USB host or have serious USB Host needs.

Welcome to the community.

Thanks for your response, Gus. What I’m after is to use a USB memory stick instead of a SD card for writing text log files… But I presume that does not fall under the “simple” functionality right?

For that, you defiantly need a “premium” hardware http://ghielectronics.com/catalog/netmf-offer-types

I’m heading up the efforts to build a “Community Edition” port, and USB Host support is definitely on my list of things to add, but it’s probably only going to initially support HID communication, so I’m not sure when (if?) filesystem access will be available.

GHI has years of experience with filesystem/USB access; you’re not going to find a better solution than their premium hardware for doing what you’re trying to do (on any platform – NETMF or otherwise). I highly recommend you go that route.

While I don’t disagree on the GHI premium comment, you could still use SD card yeah? :wink:

Thanks everyone for the replies. I think for now I will stick with the Cerberus and just use SD card instead, which is still a great feature. The reason why I like the Cerberus is because of its smaller brother the Cerb40 that can easily be incorporated into a small boxed product.