How to read data from a usb peripheral?

Question

I picked up a wii drumset that was about to get thrown away. It has a USB port and I want to connect it to my macbook for a project. My goal is basically to be able to detect when a certain drum has been tapped on the device. Based on what I've gathered so far, I need to do the following steps:

1. Connect the device and Identify which tty port it is on
2. use the "screen" command to print out the data that comes from the drums
3. output data from the screen command into some code that generates useful output for my project

I think I understand how to do 2 and 3, but am getting hung up on step 1.

If I run "ioreg -Src IOUSBDevice" in terminal, I can identify that the device is connected, but I don't know which tty port it is on. (see below for output)

Additionally, in general, is it possible to print out data as a stream of bytes from any usb peripheral connected to a usb port?

EDIT: I should add that if I run "ls /dev/tty.* ", I don't see any tty.usb items, only tty.bluetooth stuff.

+-o Harmonix Drum Controller for Nintendo Wii@14200000  <class IOUSBDevice, id $
  | {
  |   "sessionID" = 2111009401078
  |   "iManufacturer" = 1
  |   "bNumConfigurations" = 1
  |   "idProduct" = 5
  |   "bcdDevice" = 4096
  |   "Bus Power Available" = 250
  |   "bMaxPacketSize0" = 64
  |   "USB Product Name" = "Harmonix Drum Controller for Nintendo Wii"
  |   "iProduct" = 2
  |   "iSerialNumber" = 0
  |   "USB Address" = 4
  |   "bDeviceClass" = 0
  |   "locationID" = 337641472
  |   "bDeviceSubClass" = 0
  |   "IOUserClientClass" = "IOUSBDeviceUserClientV2"
  |   "PortNum" = 2
  |   "IOCFPlugInTypes" = {"9dc7b780-9ec0-11d4-a54f-000a27052861"="IOUSBFamily.$
  |   "bDeviceProtocol" = 0
  |   "USB Vendor Name" = "Licensed by Nintendo of America "
  |   "Device Speed" = 1
  |   "idVendor" = 7085
  |   "Requested Power" = 50
  |   "IOGeneralInterest" = "IOCommand is not serializable"
  |   "Low Power Displayed" = No
  | }
  | 
  +-o IOUSBCompositeDriver  <class IOUSBCompositeDriver, id 0x100000ebe, !regis$
  +-o IOUSBInterface@0  <class IOUSBInterface, id 0x100000ebf, registered, matc$
+-o IOUSBHIDDriver  <class IOUSBHIDDriver, id 0x100000ec2, registered, matc$
  +-o IOHIDInterface  <class IOHIDInterface, id 0x100000ec4, registered, ma$
  +-o IOHIDLibUserClient  <class IOHIDLibUserClient, id 0x100000ec5, !regis$
  +-o IOHIDLibUserClient  <class IOHIDLibUserClient, id 0x100000ec7, !regis$

So far,

Answer 1

I do not have the exact answer that you are looking for, but I ran with a similar problem trying to read data from a GPS device connected to my MacBook Pro. In my case, after issuing the command:

ioreg -w0 -l -p IOUSB 

I've got (clipping not relevant parts):

  +-o u-blox 7 - GPS/GNSS Receiver@14110000  <class IOUSBDevice, id 0x1000026b0, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (60 ms), retain 12>
  |   {
  |     "sessionID" = 17488341785377
  |     "idProduct" = 423
  |     "bNumConfigurations" = 1
  |     "iManufacturer" = 1
  |     "bcdDevice" = 256
  |     "Bus Power Available" = 250
  |     "bMaxPacketSize0" = 64
  |     "USB Product Name" = "u-blox 7 - GPS/GNSS Receiver"
  |     "iProduct" = 2
  |     "iSerialNumber" = 0
  |     "USB Address" = 12
  |     "IOUserClientClass" = "IOUSBDeviceUserClientV2"
  |     "bDeviceSubClass" = 0
  |     "bDeviceClass" = 2
  |     "bcdUSB" = 272
  |     "locationID" = 336658432
  |     "PortNum" = 1
  |     "IOCFPlugInTypes" = {"9dc7b780-9ec0-11d4-a54f-000a27052861"="IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBLib.bundle"}
  |     "bDeviceProtocol" = 0
  |     "USB Vendor Name" = "u-blox AG - www.u-blox.com"
  |     "Device Speed" = 1
  |     "idVendor" = 5446
  |     "Requested Power" = 50
  |     "IOGeneralInterest" = "IOCommand is not serializable"
  |     "Low Power Displayed" = No
  |   }
  |   

This does not tell much on which tty.* the device is allocated so what I did is an ls /dev/tty.* before and after unplugging the device. By doing so, I realized that the terminal /dev/tty.usbmodem14111 disappeared. Maybe you will not have tty.usbmodem* in your case, but note the 14111 part, which partially coincides with the first part of the ioreg line for my device (u-blox 7 - GPS/GNSS Receiver@14110000). Maybe you can use this hint in your case to see if you discover the tty device.

If you find a more "generic" way to discover the tty, please share it! Good luck!