iButton Software

iButtons

iButtons are coin sized metal cans containing memories and/or processors. They have a wide range of applications. An iButton is accessed over a 1-wire bus from a (personal) computer.

Application Notes, Data Sheets and details of software development tools are available on the Dallas Semiconductor and iButton web sites.

iButton Software from Dallas Semiconductor

Dallas Semiconductor provide software (under DOS, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95) for IBM compatible PCs to read from and write to the various types of iButton. There are also device drivers (and dll's) which handle the lower level protocols so that applications can more easily be written to access the iButtons.

Dallas Semiconductor sell a number of introductory hardware kits, and there is a free iButton Viewer for IBM compatible PCs. They also provide the TMEX Software Development Kit for IBM compatible PCs.

In the last few months, Dallas Semiconductor have also released, into the 'public domain', source code for a slightly simplified version of the TMEX software. The initial release was of a C version. They have recently released a Java version.

You can download the current 'public domain' C code.

There is also the same public domain code with a Win32 implementation of a 1-Wire Weather station.

iButton Software from the University of Newcastle

In the School of Computing Science at the University of Newcastle we have used iButtons in a number of student programming projects.

We have written Macintosh serial interface code (in C) which is distributed with the Dallas Semiconductor 'public domain' C code. There is also serial interface code for Linux (also in C). Both of these require use of the DS9097U serial to 1-wire bus adapter.

We have also produced a Pascal version of the 'public domain' code, with serial interface code for the Macintosh. You can download the 'public domain' Pascal code.

We have also written HyperCard XCMDs and XFCNs to drive the 1-wire bus on the Macintosh, and we also have HyperCard and REALbasic versions of a simplified TMEX Viewer. This includes code to read the temperature iButton DS1920.

A student is currently writing an iButton component for the Linux file system. This involves investigation of ways of integrating iButton access more closely into the host operating system. [ For example, being able to treat iButton memory as a (mountable) device/volume on Linux/Macintosh, so that any program can access it in the normal way. ]

The School has no financial or commercial involvement with Dallas Semiconductor other than as a customer of its products. Any use of the University's Software is entirely at your own risk.

Last modified: Saturday, October 4, 2003.