7 Currently the ALPS touchpad driver supports four protocol versions in use by
8 ALPS touchpads, called versions 1, 2, 3, and 4. Information about the various
9 protocol versions is contained in the following sections.
14 All ALPS touchpads should respond to the "E6 report" command sequence:
15 E8-E6-E6-E6-E9. An ALPS touchpad should respond with either 00-00-0A or
16 00-00-64 if no buttons are pressed. The bits 0-2 of the first byte will be 1s
17 if some buttons are pressed.
19 If the E6 report is successful, the touchpad model is identified using the "E7
20 report" sequence: E8-E7-E7-E7-E9. The response is the model signature and is
21 matched against known models in the alps_model_data_array.
23 With protocol versions 3 and 4, the E7 report model signature is always
24 73-02-64. To differentiate between these versions, the response from the
25 "Enter Command Mode" sequence must be inspected as described below.
30 Protocol versions 3 and 4 have a command mode that is used to read and write
31 one-byte device registers in a 16-bit address space. The command sequence
32 EC-EC-EC-E9 places the device in command mode, and the device will respond
33 with 88-07 followed by a third byte. This third byte can be used to determine
34 whether the devices uses the version 3 or 4 protocol.
36 To exit command mode, PSMOUSE_CMD_SETSTREAM (EA) is sent to the touchpad.
38 While in command mode, register addresses can be set by first sending a
39 specific command, either EC for v3 devices or F5 for v4 devices. Then the
40 address is sent one nibble at a time, where each nibble is encoded as a
41 command with optional data. This enoding differs slightly between the v3 and
44 Once an address has been set, the addressed register can be read by sending
45 PSMOUSE_CMD_GETINFO (E9). The first two bytes of the response contains the
46 address of the register being read, and the third contains the value of the
47 register. Registers are written by writing the value one nibble at a time
48 using the same encoding used for addresses.
53 In the following tables, the following notation is used.
55 CAPITALS = stick, miniscules = touchpad
57 ?'s can have different meanings on different models, such as wheel rotation,
58 extra buttons, stick buttons on a dualpoint, etc.
63 byte 0: 0 0 YSGN XSGN 1 M R L
64 byte 1: X7 X6 X5 X4 X3 X2 X1 X0
65 byte 2: Y7 Y6 Y5 Y4 Y3 Y2 Y1 Y0
67 Note that the device never signals overflow condition.
69 ALPS Absolute Mode - Protocol Verion 1
70 --------------------------------------
72 byte 0: 1 0 0 0 1 x9 x8 x7
73 byte 1: 0 x6 x5 x4 x3 x2 x1 x0
74 byte 2: 0 ? ? l r ? fin ges
75 byte 3: 0 ? ? ? ? y9 y8 y7
76 byte 4: 0 y6 y5 y4 y3 y2 y1 y0
77 byte 5: 0 z6 z5 z4 z3 z2 z1 z0
79 ALPS Absolute Mode - Protocol Version 2
80 ---------------------------------------
82 byte 0: 1 ? ? ? 1 ? ? ?
83 byte 1: 0 x6 x5 x4 x3 x2 x1 x0
84 byte 2: 0 x10 x9 x8 x7 ? fin ges
85 byte 3: 0 y9 y8 y7 1 M R L
86 byte 4: 0 y6 y5 y4 y3 y2 y1 y0
87 byte 5: 0 z6 z5 z4 z3 z2 z1 z0
89 Dualpoint device -- interleaved packet format
90 ---------------------------------------------
92 byte 0: 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1
93 byte 1: 0 x6 x5 x4 x3 x2 x1 x0
94 byte 2: 0 x10 x9 x8 x7 0 fin ges
95 byte 3: 0 0 YSGN XSGN 1 1 1 1
96 byte 4: X7 X6 X5 X4 X3 X2 X1 X0
97 byte 5: Y7 Y6 Y5 Y4 Y3 Y2 Y1 Y0
98 byte 6: 0 y9 y8 y7 1 m r l
99 byte 7: 0 y6 y5 y4 y3 y2 y1 y0
100 byte 8: 0 z6 z5 z4 z3 z2 z1 z0
102 ALPS Absolute Mode - Protocol Version 3
103 ---------------------------------------
105 ALPS protocol version 3 has three different packet formats. The first two are
106 associated with touchpad events, and the third is associatd with trackstick
109 The first type is the touchpad position packet.
111 byte 0: 1 ? x1 x0 1 1 1 1
112 byte 1: 0 x10 x9 x8 x7 x6 x5 x4
113 byte 2: 0 y10 y9 y8 y7 y6 y5 y4
114 byte 3: 0 M R L 1 m r l
115 byte 4: 0 mt x3 x2 y3 y2 y1 y0
116 byte 5: 0 z6 z5 z4 z3 z2 z1 z0
118 Note that for some devices the trackstick buttons are reported in this packet,
119 and on others it is reported in the trackstick packets.
121 The second packet type contains bitmaps representing the x and y axes. In the
122 bitmaps a given bit is set if there is a finger covering that position on the
123 given axis. Thus the bitmap packet can be used for low-resolution multi-touch
124 data, although finger tracking is not possible. This packet also encodes the
125 number of contacts (f1 and f0 in the table below).
127 byte 0: 1 1 x1 x0 1 1 1 1
128 byte 1: 0 x8 x7 x6 x5 x4 x3 x2
129 byte 2: 0 y7 y6 y5 y4 y3 y2 y1
130 byte 3: 0 y10 y9 y8 1 1 1 1
131 byte 4: 0 x14 x13 x12 x11 x10 x9 y0
132 byte 5: 0 1 ? ? ? ? f1 f0
134 This packet only appears after a position packet with the mt bit set, and
135 ususally only appears when there are two or more contacts (although
136 ocassionally it's seen with only a single contact).
138 The final v3 packet type is the trackstick packet.
140 byte 0: 1 1 x7 y7 1 1 1 1
141 byte 1: 0 x6 x5 x4 x3 x2 x1 x0
142 byte 2: 0 y6 y5 y4 y3 y2 y1 y0
143 byte 3: 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0
144 byte 4: 0 z4 z3 z2 z1 z0 ? ?
145 byte 5: 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1
147 ALPS Absolute Mode - Protocol Version 4
148 ---------------------------------------
150 Protocol version 4 has an 8-byte packet format.
152 byte 0: 1 ? x1 x0 1 1 1 1
153 byte 1: 0 x10 x9 x8 x7 x6 x5 x4
154 byte 2: 0 y10 y9 y8 y7 y6 y5 y4
155 byte 3: 0 1 x3 x2 y3 y2 y1 y0
156 byte 4: 0 ? ? ? 1 ? r l
157 byte 5: 0 z6 z5 z4 z3 z2 z1 z0
158 byte 6: bitmap data (described below)
159 byte 7: bitmap data (described below)
161 The last two bytes represent a partial bitmap packet, with 3 full packets
162 required to construct a complete bitmap packet. Once assembled, the 6-byte
163 bitmap packet has the following format:
165 byte 0: 0 1 x7 x6 x5 x4 x3 x2
166 byte 1: 0 x1 x0 y4 y3 y2 y1 y0
167 byte 2: 0 0 ? x14 x13 x12 x11 x10
168 byte 3: 0 x9 x8 y9 y8 y7 y6 y5
169 byte 4: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
170 byte 5: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 y10
172 There are several things worth noting here.
174 1) In the bitmap data, bit 6 of byte 0 serves as a sync byte to
175 identify the first fragment of a bitmap packet.
177 2) The bitmaps represent the same data as in the v3 bitmap packets, although
178 the packet layout is different.
180 3) There doesn't seem to be a count of the contact points anywhere in the v4
181 protocol packets. Deriving a count of contact points must be done by
182 analyzing the bitmaps.
184 4) There is a 3 to 1 ratio of position packets to bitmap packets. Therefore
185 MT position can only be updated for every third ST position update, and
186 the count of contact points can only be updated every third packet as
189 So far no v4 devices with tracksticks have been encountered.