Mac OS X Internals: The Book

[amit]

FYI: SMSRotateD is a demonstration application that triggers screen rotation based on the orientation data it retrieves from the Sudden Motion Sensor (SMS) built into newer Apple notebook models.

[jdv]

This is cool!

I think I'll start flipping my iBook when I need to read long texts online...

[Hasso]

Great stuff. Is there an app that rotates the screen without the need for a sudden motion sensor? I'd like to rotate the screen of my older powerbook from time to time - there was actually a hidden pref in 10.4.0 to do this, but now it's gone.

Or could you release a simpler version of the app just with the screen-rotation part, Amit?

Keep up the great work!

[cmg]

I wanted to check out SMSRotateD on my 1.67GHz PowerBook 15" (PowerBook5,, but it reports:

“Failed to Access Sudden Motion Sensor”
“Sudden Motion Sensor either does not exist, or is not enabled (try a warm reboot in the latter case). SMSRotateD must quit.”

I’ve rebooted. System Profiler reports, “Sudden Motion Sensor: State: Enabled” Is there something wrong with my machine, or a bug?


Following is more information from System Profiler.
Hardware Overview:
Machine Name: PowerBook G4 15"
Machine Model: PowerBook5,8
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.5)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.67 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.9.6f0
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

(By the way, I tried to send an email to bugs@osxbook.com, but got a DSN failure back - status 550, "The recipient cannot be verified".)

[jbot5000]

SMS is enabled.

Also, made sure that I have the correct settings in com.osxbook.motionsensor.plist...

defaults read com.osxbook.motionsensor
{classname = PMUMotionSensor; getorientationmethodid = 21; }

Lastly, found v0.31 of amstracker ---> this works on my PB while v0.32 errors out...

[amit]

Looks like I broke something in AMSTracker 0.32. All SMS applications available from osxbook.com use the same "engine", so if one is broken, they all should be broken

Version 0.32 was meant to be "better" in that it does not require any plist file -- so, the class/function ID settings are irrelevant on 0.32 (and the latest versions of other SMS programs).

I'll figure this out when I get a chance (and can experiment on somebody's SMS-equipped computer).

Amit

[amit]

[esmith]

Can you release a version that does not need the motion sensor to rotate the screen?

Where if one wanted a rotated screen, they would set the degree that the rotating occurs... 180... 90.... -90 etc...

[amit]

[Flenser]

Hi--

I'm trying to use AMS* on my MacBook Pro with no luck.

Launching AMS2HID causes it to briefly make space in the dock and immediately disappear. I don't see anything in the crash log, so I assume it's just quitting because it doesn't see whatever it wants to see.

amstracker always says that's it's simulating the SMS.

The GUI apps just spin based on the mouse position.

Am I missing something, or is there something I can do to help?

Thanks!

[amit]

[Flenser]

If you'd like me to run any debug builds, I'd be more than happy.

Thanks for doing cool stuff!

[Whipshock]

Hi I just came across this site and the SMS tools... they look really cool, however, as stated before the SMS apps do not seem to interface with MacBook Pro's motion hardware with the "failed to access" error message.

Not sure if the devs are still actively working on this however if it makes it easier, I just found source code that works on the MBP for the motion sensor from Paul Thayer. It's available here: http://pallit.lhi.is/palli/dashlevel/

The zip includes source and binary - the binary did not work for me out of the box, i get the same error about accessing the hardware, but deleting it and recompiling gave me valid SMS readings.

This may help osxbook devs in making the SMS apps compatible with MBP much quicker

[Anm]

Another feature request, in addition to allowing manual operation:

Is it possible to reorient the trackpad with the screen? For example, if I rotate the laptop 90 clockwise (keyboard to the left of the screen), the normal trackpad left is now up.

In any case, its a cool tech demo. Looking forward to the book. Thanks.


Anm

[benr]

(offtopic, but since this thread seems to have been hijacked for the SMS...)

I'd just like to add that I think the SMS change is not just on the new hardware, but relates to an OS X update.

I downloaded the AMStracker last march, and had lots of fun with it. Haven't done anything with it since then - just went to take another look today, and found that it now reports
"Simulating" AMS hardware in software

(and indeed goes into the simulation mode).

My hardware hasn't changed in the interim, but I have update the OS to 10.4.6 - I guess I would have been on some version of 10.3 last March. (Oh wait, it's not quite true that my hardware hasn't changed - though I doubt if that's the issue - I've just realised that a few months ago I fell foul of the known problem on my model where the lower memory slot stopped working:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303173 - and had my machine repaired. My understanding is that the repair consisted of replacing the memory slot rather than anything more substantial, though.

I've downloaded the new 0.34 version of AMSTracker today - and get the same result. Also possibly of interest, I can't find anything in System Profiler that mentions the SMS (I'm sure it used to be there): on the other hand, "pmset -g" reports "sms 1". I've just checked my colleague's MacBookPro, also running 10.4.6: SystemProfiler does report that the SMS is enabled on his machine (and AMSTracker 0.34 works).

I hope this is of interest/helpful. Is it possible that 10.4 has disabled the SMS hardware on my PowerBook for some reason?