Description

Basic Setup

• Plug in all peripherals and computers with power fully off for both WOOTSwitch and the computers. Failure to do so may damage WOOTSwitch, your computers or your peripherals. (ADB does not have hot-plug protection).
• Power the WOOTSwitch from a USB-C power supply. Wait 3 seconds.
• Turn on your computers, and enjoy!

Usage

Once all your systems are up and running, you can switch between which computer receives peripheral input by simply pressing the WOOT button.

• Press the button. Hear the beep. See the ID LED change. There you go!

Basic ADB keyboards and mice are supported. Switching between computers works via the button on the front or Control / Option / ⌘ / Shift in sequence, followed by 1 – 4 to choose a port.

Known Issues

The firmware is still under active development by saybur and many bugs remain. Known issues include:

• Mouse input can be a bit “floaty” especially during extreme movements.
• No other ADB devices besides keyboards/mice are supported yet.
• No features based on the Pico W wireless chip have been implemented.
• Control+Option+Power sequence to force an immediate restart does not always pass through to the computer.

Notes on Power

We have added some fairly robust USB power protection to WOOTSwitch. It’s impossible to cover all bases, however, so follow these basic tips.

• WOOTSwitch prefers to be powered by USB-C. You can connect it to both USB-C and the Pico unit’s MicroUSB port at the same time, as long as USB-C is connected first.
• WOOTSwitch can be powered from the MicroUSB port alone, but it’s more stable using USB-C.
• If you’re using both USB-C and MicroUSB, and you unplug only USB-C, WOOTSwitch gets grumpy. Don’t do that.

Attribution

WOOTSwitch is a hardware fork of hootswitch by saybur. WOOTSwitch allows peripherals (including keyboards and mice) to be shared across up to four retro computers.

WOOTSwitch hardware is licensed under CERN-OHL-S-2.0. You may download all hardware specifications and design files for this project at https://github.com/Joes-Computer-Museum/WOOTSwitch