I2C is a very common protocol for microcontrollers and sensors, but it also exists in PCs and laptops (I think PCIe uses I2C and so does HDMI??). So I was thinking to myself about if it was possible to tap into this bus and do something cool!
After a quick search, I believe someone on this forum mentioned there were testpads for the trackpad that exposed the I2C bus (I’ll link to the post tomorrow when I’m on my laptop). If that’s correct, then that’s my way in.
Next step is to find something to attach. There are lots of sensors like temp, humidity, gas, light, gyros, and accelerometers that uses I2C that could be fun to attach. You could even attach some I2C eeprom to store passwords secretly where common hackers and viruses won’t look. But I think I am going to try to add a GPS module because I think that would be pretty cool and also useful.
I haven’t received my FW yet (7840u 2.8k batch 2), but when I do I will look to see if there is a space or corner to jam a gps module into. Then I just have to find a 3.3v power source and wire up the I2C.
After that, I have to probably write a linux driver which shouldn’t be too difficult (never done it before but I wrote a realtime preemptive scheduler for arm microcontrollers once so how hard could a linux I2C driver be??? Famous last words, lol).
I just thought I would share this idea. Maybe someone has done it before, or has some ideas, advise, or insight that could be helpful. Or maybe some people will just be interested in hearing about the project. I’ll post more updates as I do more research and eventually receive my FW laptop.
Thanks for reading!