[s1mp3-dev] The utility of ICE (Was: Different cores)

[Legolas]

seventh guardian ha scritto:

>On 6/14/06, Legolas <legolas558 at email.it> wrote:
>  
>
>>seventh guardian ha scritto:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>>An ICE interface will allow us to "reflash" [wrong word] dead players.
>>>>
>>>'m still not sure about this. Actions claims that they sell the mcu
>>>already programmed, and they don't give away the ICE specs so that the
>>>companies who buy the hardware _AND_ software (with the bought
>>>options) can't reflash the player. On the other hand, they say that
>>>the manufacturer is suposed to repair dead players, so the
>>>manufacturer should know how to reflash _without_ having access to
>>>ICE.
>>>
>>No, they also sell a developer board to their customers.
>>
>>    
>>
>
>humm.. Then what is this all about? :S
>  
>
>(from the "actions document" mail)
>>third is a little bit ridiculous but hope you could understand 'cause
>>a company has to prohibit all possible risk - we give distributors
>>some different codes in order to protect them from having
>>individualized solution, so if you guys are being employed or simply
>>used by any of those distributors, because you know the basic codes,
>>you can crack other distributors' codes and thus infringement, and no
>>differentiation any more.
>  
>

None of their distributor is going to (insanely) reprogram the base 
firmware they supply, but will probably create new applications using 
their SDK and possibly ask for new features in official core firmware 
updates. It is also possible that they obtain customized versions of the 
firmware in this way. In the above quote, I think they were defending 
against a /simple/ possible hacking (having the knowledge of the 
hardware internals) and, furthermore, against a complete firmware 
rewrital (our mission).

I think that none of their distributors use ICE for nothing more than 
testing the custom .APs or repairing the devices, and we need only a 
subset of these functions (re-flashing) to test our own firmware. The 
developer board and software they have (we indirectly know about this 
from chinese translations) looks like doesnt allow an explicit reflash, 
and they do not supply documents that explain how ICE works at low 
level, obviously. So it is enough safe for them to sell such products, 
and I think they have taken the due precautions. But, since it is ICE, 
we know 100% that it has the feature we need.

--
  Legolas