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How to install P-ROC / P3-ROC drivers on Mac OS

Installing the P-ROC drivers (libpinproc and pypinproc) on the Mac is a manual process that requires a few prerequisites and some supporting software. We chose to use the homebrew package manager to help us with the install, which is similar to the apt-get package manager in Linux. The following instructions will help you get homebrew installed, along with everything else.

These instructions assume you have already installed MPF.app. If you haven't, you will need to go back and do that first, since it has to be installed before you can build the P-ROC drivers.

1. Install Brew

Open a Terminal and paste in the following commands (and then press after each one):

cd /usr/local
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

If you're prompted to install Xcode, click Install, followed by Agree.

After Xcode installs (or right away if you already had it), press Return to continue and then enter your password.

You'll see a bunch of stuff scroll by as things are downloaded and installed.

2. Create a folder in your user folder called "proc"

From the same terminal window, run:

mkdir ~/proc

3. Download osx-proc-support

Change to that new folder:

cd ~/proc

And run the following command which will clone (download) the files you need to make the P-ROC run on the Mac. (Even though this is called "osx-proc-support", it also works with MacOS Sierra.)

git clone https://github.com/missionpinball/osx-proc-support

4. Install prerequisites via Brew

Now run:

brew install libftdi libusb-compat cmake

5. Install yaml-cpp

The P-ROC/P3-ROC requires a library called yaml-cpp. While there is a yaml-cpp package in brew, it's too new to use here. Adding to the fuss is that the version we need is no longer available, so we included it on the osx-proc-support package that you downloaded earlier.

Run the following commands to compile it from scratch:

cd ~/proc/osx-proc-support
tar -xzf yaml-cpp-0.2.5.tar.gz
cd yaml-cpp-0.2.5
mkdir bin
cd bin
cmake ..
make
sudo make install

6. Download & install libpinproc

Libpinproc is the P-ROC/P3-ROC library that lets the host computer talk to the P-ROC/P3-ROC hardware. Run the following commands:

cd ~/proc
git clone --branch=dev https://github.com/missionpinball/libpinproc

Copy the Mac version of CMakeLists.txt to the libpinproc folder:

cp -r ~/proc/osx-proc-support/CMakeLists.txt ~/proc/libpinproc

That avoids having to edit the file manually. It should work for nearly all situations, but if libpinproc won't compile in the next steps, you should make sure the paths in include_dirs within CMakeLists.txt are correct.

cd libpinproc
mkdir bin
cd bin
cmake -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON ..
make
sudo make install

7. Download & install pypinproc 2.1

Pypinproc is a wrapper library that allows Python apps (like MPF) to talk to the libpinproc that you installed in the previous step. Unfortunately the version that is available from the multimorphic.com website only works with Python 2.x, and MPF uses Python 3.x, so you have to download a version that we modified to work with Python 3:

cd ~/proc
git clone https://github.com/missionpinball/pypinproc
cd pypinproc
python3 setup.py build
sudo python3 setup.py install

(If you prefer to install pypinproc in a virtualenv, make sure it's activated before this step, and omit sudo from the last line.)

8. Install D2xxHelper

D2xxHelper is provided by FTDI Chips, the maker of the chip which acts as the USB interface on the P-ROC/P3-ROC boards. Mac OS comes with its own FTDI driver that's loaded by default and prevents other FTDI drivers from running. D2xxHelper adjusts the priorities of FTDI driver loading so that the FTDI driver we need loads first, preventing the Apple FTDI driver from loading. This is Apple Support's recommended method of solving the problem, so you're safe. You'll be prompted by Gatekeeper to enter your password to accept installation of the package- this is normal. You'll also be warned that this package may be incompatible with future versions of macOS.

cd ~/proc/osx-proc-support
sudo installer -pkg D2xxHelper_v2.0.0.pkg -target /

9. Reboot

You have to reboot in order to have the changes D2xxHelper made take effect. After that, you should be all set and can continue on with the How to configure MPF for the P-ROC/P3-ROC platform documentation to finish your MPF configuration for the P-ROC/P3-ROC.

What if it did not work?

MPF is erroring out on start-up? Cannot connect to your P/P3-Roc? Have a look at the troubleshooting guide for P/P3-Roc.

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