This is a patch for the Mindstorms RIS software that allows it to run on a Macintosh under Virtual PC. This is not an official patch from LEGO.
The patch was written by Dave Hylands. Please direct any questions about the patch to him.
Here is Dave's description of the patch itself:
The files contained in the zip file are: 2192 SPHack.cpp - Source code for utility which modifies Spirit.ocx 3396 SPHack.dsp - Visual C++ 5.0 Project file 37376 SPHack.exe - Executable for utility which modifies Spirit.ocx 3989 SPHack.mak - NMAKE makefile generated by VC++ 8148 SPKrnl32.cpp - Source code for DLL which spoofs the CTS line 33209 SPKrnl32.def - DEF file used to build SPKrnl32.dll 81920 SpKrnl32.dll - DLL to be placed in the same directory as Spirit.ocx 3725 SpKrnl32.dsp - Visual C++ 5.0 Project file 726 SpKrnl32.dsw - Visual C++ 5.0 Workspace which includes the above projects 4754 SpKrnl32.mak - NMAKE makefile generated by VC++ To install: - Make a backup of your Spirit.ocx file (typically found in c:\Program Files\LEGO MINDSTORMS\system) - Copy SPKrnl32.dll and SPHack.exe into the same directory as Spirt.ocx - From the command line, cd into the directory containing Spirit.ocx - From the command line run 'SPHack Spirit.ocx' How it works: - Spirit.ocx uses the Comm functions located in Kernel32.dll to perform serial communications - SPHack modifies Spirit.ocx to look for SPKRNL32.dll rather than KERNEL32.dll - The def file for SPKrnl32.dll forwards most of the Kernel32 functions to Kernel32 itself, and redirects CreateFileA, EscapeCommFunction, GetCommModemStatus, and CloseHandle to routines in SPKrnl32.dll with the same name but with an SP_ prefixed to the function name (that way SP_CreateFileA can call CreateFileA without running into recursion problems). - SP_CreateFileA looks for attempts to open a COM port, and if the request is successful, it remembers the file handle that was returned. - SP_CloseHandle looks for close requests on the file handle that was used for the serial port. - SP_EscapeCommFunction looks for requests to Set/Clear the RTS and remembers what the current state of RTS is. - SP_GetCommModemStatus overwrites the result of CTS to match the last value that RTS was set to (effectively emulating the CTS to RTS connection which occurs inside the IR Tower). - There are four functions which are redirected to SP_Dummy. These are routines which are in the NT ServicePack3 version of Kernel32, but aren't used by Spirit.ocx. If I remove them from the .def file I'm pretty sure that I can remove SP_Dummy from SPKrnl32.cpp. I used 'dumpbin /exports KERNEL32.DLL' to get a list of the entry points which are exported (I actually compiled/tested this under NT 4 SP3, as well as testing under Windows 95 running under Virtual PC on my Mac laptop). Because I modified Spirit.ocx and not Kernel32.dll, this modification will have no effect on any other applications (except those that use Spirit.ocx). Because I'm modifying Spirit.ocx it should allow anybody else's program which uses Spirit.ocx to work under Virtual PC (like RCX Control or rcxcc). I added some hooks to allow information to be logged into a debug file, but the way I've given the files to you it's conditionally compiled out. With a few more mods, it would also be possible to intercept the serial stream going to/from Spirit.ocx and the IR Tower.