Plugging my Arduboy into a Macbook Pro results in the Mac thinking that I’ve plugged in a new keyboard and my trackpad turning off. I have to use my bluetooth mouse while this device is connected to my USB
Ive seen the keyboard dialog with other devices (can’t remember if the Arduboy has done that - i don’t think so), but no idea why it would stop your trackpad from working.
Do you think you can provide us with the model of the Macbook?
Also, you might try turning off the ‘Ignore built-in trackpad when mouse or wireless trackpad is present’ feature. More info: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH18396?locale=en_US.
What about trying (in a Terminal):
system_profiler SPUSBDataType
# or
ioreg -p IOUSB
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I assume that polls something?
from the man page of ioreg,
-p Traverse the registry over the specified plane. The default plane value is ``IOService''. The
other planes, such as ``IODeviceTree'', can be found under the ``IORegistryPlanes'' property of
the root object (ioreg -d 1 -k IORegistryPlanes).
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man8/ioreg.8.html
It’s usb debugging info.
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@owendismuke I think the issue is that without the Arduino software installed, the Arduboy is being recognised as a usb keyboard.
This is actually good to know, because I think we can prevent the other units we ship from having this issue by disabling the keyboard interface in software.
After installing arduino software (and potentially restarting? I don’t know how macs work that well) it should show up correctly.
Please let us know if it doesnt!
You don’t need to restart. When the keyboard dialog popped up for me I just dismissed it - it never caused any harm or interfered with anything.
Ah, I think the issue is it might override an existing keyboard that is on potentially? Or the built in one. Shouldn’t… but I think one user reported this? Ok good to know. I’ll be sure to include this in some quick start videos I want to do for each platform.
No you can use multiple keyboards without any issue on a Mac… I think the reporting problem was with a trackpad… no idea though I haven’t seen this.
Just got my Arduboys and had this issue hooking one up to my iMac. I’ve already got the Arduino software installed on my Mac (and other Arduino models don’t trigger it) but when I powered on my Arduboy to install the Hello World app, it triggered the unknown keyboard alert.
I’ve got bluetooth mouse and keyboard on my iMac (no trackpad), so appears to be a general issue of it appearing as a USB keyboard. Dismissing the dialog appears to work ok otherwise. Just confusing as initially I thought my bluetooth keyboard had lost connection (it hadn’t).
The alert only seems to come up the first time it’s plugged in and powered up, so OSX is probably permanently ignoring it as a keyboard once you dismiss the alert. I did a quick check in the system info panel and Arduboy is listed on the connected USB devices with the following info:
Arduboy:
Product ID: 0x8036
Vendor ID: 0x2341
Version: 1.00
Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Arduino LLC
Location ID: 0x14310000 / 19
Current Available (mA): 1000
Current Required (mA): 500
Extra Operating Current (mA): 0
So other than the initial odd alert (does the Arduboy’s USB spec have it flagged as being a keyboard?) it seems fine.
The Arduboy uses the Arduino Leonardo bootloader, so it looks exactly like a Leonardo when attached via USB. The Leonardo can be made to emulate a USB keyboard and/or mouse.
I don’t think it should appear as a mouse or keyboard, though, unless the sketch it’s running is programmed to do so.
Ah right, that’ll be worth investigating.
Out of interest, does that mean the Arduboy actually still has that feature available? (thinking it could be interesting if an Arduboy game can output data to an attached Mac/PC as keyboard/mouse data 
)
Upon further investigation, this appears to be normal. See the Installing Drivers for the Leonardo and Micro - OSX section of Getting Started with the Arduino Leonardo and Micro.
Yes.
ah cool, at least it’s just an initial setup thing.
mwahahahaha etc. 
(sound of game developer finding a new feature to abuse 
)
Unless you actually want to emulate a keyboard (such as to enter a password or other text in a field on the computer) or a mouse (such as using the D-pad to control the computer’s mouse pointer and the A and B buttons for mouse buttons), it would probably be better just to send serial data for the computer to handle. Serial works both ways, so the computer can also send data to the Arduboy.
There’s been a discussion on using serial communications as a means to allow two or more Arduboys to communicate.
Hi ,
Ive just connected my arduboy for the 1st time to my mac air and get the same issue. Unfortunately, I didnt cancel, but I believe my mac thinks i have connected a keyboard. I can’t get the mac to recognise that I have connected the arduboy -despite it being on and then plugged into my USB.
Can anyone help?
Cheers
It would be better to start a new topic for that.