Even more good news!

So, I've been banging my head against the wall for the last 24 hours trying my hardest to get a proper report descriptor set up. Nothing that I had tried worked very well at all, but I think I now hold the key. My goal ever since I began this project was to create a specialized PS2->PS3 adapter that will allow the XIM to talk to the PS3; in theory it should work with PS2 controllers as well, but the analog button data won't be translated. They'll be either on or off. Given that the XIM is a keyboard and mouse adapter, the only part of the data that gets reported to the PS3 that _needs_ to report analog data is that for the analog sticks. The rest are just going to be reported as digital buttons. By going about it this way, the end result will be far simpler to code and hopefully it will be generic enough that Sony won't see fit to add devices this generic to it's blocked list.

So, I took a chance and went to Best Buy earlier today to see what they had. The ONLY 3rd party controller that they had available is the Afterglow AP.1 which is made by Pelican, and it's actually a really nice controller. What's even better than the design is it's report descriptor! This controller's report descriptor is EXACTLY what I was trying to implement, so this tells me that it can be done! In fact, I'm going to copy the report descriptor verbatim and see what happens.

On a side note, if I ever decide to go back and try to work up a PS3 version of XIM2, this controller would be ideal. First of all, it's wired so there shouldn't be any lag once the buttons on the controller are activated. Secondly, it's got some very easily accessible solder points. Thirdly, the main board of the controller is quite small with two, smaller daughter cards soldered to it. These daughter cards could be removed quite easily leaving a very small interface card that would fit into some really small project enclosures.

Here's a link to the controller at Best Buy's website. This controller won't be used for the final design, so there's no need to purchase one. I just bought it so I could see the USB information. However, if you like the layout of the XBOX controller, you might give this one a try.