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Claude writing a macOS driver for my obscure HP printer built only for Windows

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Re: Claude writing a macOS driver for my obscure HP printer built only for Windows

#191

Post by mmetzger »

yakz wrote: post #100
nevi-me wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And with the Linux Kernel being friendly to both LLM usage and a modern language, for some of us who don't know C, a huge barrier is lifted from being able to write device drivers. Not a successful anecdote, but I have a Windows Hello compatible Kengsington fingerprint reader, and for some time I wanted to write drivers for Linux. Even without using C, it would have been a huge undertaking only to fail in the end; be…

Back in the day when dial-up modems were a "significant" market, the concept of "WinModems" came around. Minimum hardware, maximum software. If the sensor is good enough to actually work though, it probably won't be long before an agent can implement the driver, if it can't already.

Ugh - thanks for that memory. Worked tech support for Microsoft at that time - we’d try but often the recommendation was to buy a real modem (“But it’s so much more expensive!” - “Yes, but it works….”)

Re: Claude writing a macOS driver for my obscure HP printer built only for Windows

#192

Post by josephg »

blensor wrote: post #170
josephg wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last week I had Claude add support for aac audio to davinci resolve on Linux, just by patching the binary. It did almost exclusively with gdb and objdump, patching about 5 functions over an hour or two. I only got it to the proof of concept stage. The patch adds aac but breaks flac support in the process. And it only works for aac in mp4 container files. But I’m sure with a bit of time we could make a patch which wor…

Are you planning to develop this in the open somewhere. I would be more than interested to have that davinci capability as well

Not sure yet. Maybe! I put those notes online so someone else could continue Claude’s work. Or get another agent to plug away at it.

Re: Claude writing a macOS driver for my obscure HP printer built only for Windows

#193

Post by moffkalast »

oneplane wrote: post #108

Wouldn't it have made more sense for Claude to suggest using the existing Linux-Airprint-VM project/product that already does this exact thing? There's even a zero-install method via https://printervention.app where it runs that Linux VM isolated inside a WebUSB-capable browser. That website itself was posted right here on HN not too long ago. I get that the LLM code assistant software prefers writing stuff, but cons…

Are you sure that approach would work? Usually I find these sort of projects end up not working just for the specific device I happen to have, which is always unsupported lol.

Re: Claude writing a macOS driver for my obscure HP printer built only for Windows

#194

Post by RunSet »

column wrote: post #165
Tiberium wrote: post #73

Unfortunately this is a very misleading article and headline. I don't doubt the end result - it's useful that it works, but it's not "natively" and, unlike what some people assume, Claude didn't write a driver. It basically used HP's existing proprietary driver in a Linux VM on macOS, and just bridged that to macOS. It also requires a root launcher that runs code from the user ~/.hp1008 dir, so security is weakened.

I do not want to call anyone names but the level of pedantry and gatekeeping in this comment and the replies is outstanding. I can hear Chuck McGill screaming "You're not a real driver!".

"What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure."

Re: Claude writing a macOS driver for my obscure HP printer built only for Windows

#196

Post by 192381238 »

kuberwastaken wrote: post #159
Tiberium wrote: post #73

Unfortunately this is a very misleading article and headline. I don't doubt the end result - it's useful that it works, but it's not "natively" and, unlike what some people assume, Claude didn't write a driver. It basically used HP's existing proprietary driver in a Linux VM on macOS, and just bridged that to macOS. It also requires a root launcher that runs code from the user ~/.hp1008 dir, so security is weakened.

UPDATE: Noted, shifted to a 100% native MacOS version now :D https://github.com/Kuberwastaken/hp-laser-1008a-macos Previous context I shared on X: "Also some clarification on the "he's just using the linux driver in the VM" - not quite This is one of the weirdest batch of printers HP made because it's a rebranded Samsung - it "comes" under HP's unified drivers system but specifically has Samsung's printer language so…

"hpl1008-usbd: native macOS USB bridge for the HP Laser 1003-1008."

By contrast, the README is still lying about this being a printer driver.

You need a lot of clarifications, since the presentation is chaotic, the repo is chaotic and this is a marketing stunt with exaggerated language and promises.

Re: Claude writing a macOS driver for my obscure HP printer built only for Windows

#197

Post by 102912ah »

column wrote: post #165
Tiberium wrote: post #73

Unfortunately this is a very misleading article and headline. I don't doubt the end result - it's useful that it works, but it's not "natively" and, unlike what some people assume, Claude didn't write a driver. It basically used HP's existing proprietary driver in a Linux VM on macOS, and just bridged that to macOS. It also requires a root launcher that runs code from the user ~/.hp1008 dir, so security is weakened.

I do not want to call anyone names but the level of pedantry and gatekeeping in this comment and the replies is outstanding. I can hear Chuck McGill screaming "You're not a real driver!".

[flagged]

Re: Claude writing a macOS driver for my obscure HP printer built only for Windows

#198

Post by johnboiles »

I've been having great success with the robots reverse engineering things too. https://github.com/johnboiles/ble-label-printers https://github.com/eastbaymakersclub/pixcut-s1 I've been using Codex in the ChatGPT app for this and it's been really neat to watch it download the vendor's app, decompile it, and make the hardware work.

Re: Claude writing a macOS driver for my obscure HP printer built only for Windows

#200

Post by mikeocool »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #136
mmh0000 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs are good at producing what they/the public know. In this case: LLMs know the USB Spec very well. LLMs know how to read raw packet dumps. LLMs know how to convert a packet dump to USB spec LLMs know how to write code to generate USB packets from the spec. LLMs are also VERY good at transliteration, i.e., converting known-good Python to Rust. Basically, If you have a well-documented problem, the LLM is a shortcut…

Don't sell in-context learning short. Right now I'm waiting on Claude to wrap up the latest of a half-dozen extensive changes to XML files for a fairly-obscure (and obsolete) closed-source electronics CAD program. I am pretty sure it doesn't know anything about these files besides what's in the XML .DTD file (which I also gave it.) This is a very novel, reasonably-poorly-documented problem, and so far it has batted 1…

Kinda sounds like you are finally realizing the dream of XML and DTD envisioned 25 years ago.
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