The Yaesu G-5500DC rotator is a nice piece of hardware, but it has an analog (0-5 V) control interface and requires a separate GS-232B box for computer serial control (which will run you a nice $600 for a new unit). Someone used to sell an adapter board for the Labjack U12 (which basically consists of a DIN-8 jack, a darlington transistor array, and a few resistors + LEDs), which provides precise computer control of the G-5500DC at a much lower cost.
However, the Labjack U12 is just basic 12-bit data acquisition device that is not specifically made for controlling a rotator, so common satellite tracking software (e.g. hamlib) does not support it as a Yaesu rotator interface.
Fortunately, labjack provides an open-source libusb-based driver for the Labjack U12, which makes it eminently possible to expose this hardware stack as controllable through the hamlib protocol (or, more precisely, a simulacrum thereof).
### Implementation
I mostly just want this to run on Linux, as a static executable. The zig build system is good.
This compiles for, and runs on, Windows. However, in order for it to work out of the box, it has to link against the (proprietary) Windows LabJack U12 driver instead of the open source libUSB driver. This has two main limitations: the Windows driver is only available for the `x86` and `x86-64` architectures, and it is exclusively distributed as a dynamic library, meaning that `yaes.exe` must be distributed alongside `ljackuw.dll`. When building for Windows targets, the appropriate library file will be copied to the binary installation directory (`zig-out/bin` by default).
This works on macOS, though it has to be run with `sudo`, as access to the USB hardware at user privilege level is gated by entitlements. Using entitlements is in turn gated by signature with an Apple Developer Certificate and Notarization, which may only be acquired with a paid Apple Developer Program subscription. If you have those, great. The provided `yaes.entitlements` is almost certainly not the correct set of entitlements, since I can't test it. Just run it with `sudo` whilst praising Tim Apple for the Most Advanced Operating System on the Planet.
#### Linux
You probably need to install the included udev rules file in order for the USB device to be accessible as a user. This is buried in the source tree as `deps/labjack/exodriver/90-labjack.rules`. These should probably go in `/etc/udev/rules.d` if you are installing them manually and I have properly understood the various Linux folder conventions.
