[Thumbgps-devel] The mystery "PL2303" - first Plain Jane plan is kaput

[esr@thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond)]

I looked into the adapter on the $23 dongle that Patrick wants to
blue-wire. That's the CVGI-B07; dissection at 

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=80&topicid=60005

In the image the chip is an 8-pin SIO marked PL2303 G9301D FTI195.
The notes on the dissection claim it can use PL2303 drivers, but
the packaging doesn't match Prolific's PL203 datasheet, which shows a
28-pin device.

Curiously, searching for "8-pin PL2303" turns up several positive hits
at http://www.datasheetarchive.com/ but they all turn out actually 
to point to Prolific's datasheet for the 28-pin device. Searches 
for G9301D and FTI195 don't turn up anything. 

Patrick's take that this is an unauthorized PL2303 knockoff is
almost certainly correct.  Just based on the number of pins I'm 
guessing it's not taking 1PPS on the input side.

But in any case, since we can't identify this part we can't clone
a design from this device.  Plain Jane iteration one is kaput.  Next
I'll see if I can turn up any functionally similar dongles with PL2303s
in them.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character,
give him power.
	-- Abraham Lincoln