Trying to improve x49gp

[Claudio L.]

(11-19-2021 11:50 PM)3298 Wrote:  ...
The binaries removal has an issue though: the Makefile's install target wants to install the bootcode images, and accordingly the main program (specifically, the flash initialization code in flash.c) expects them to be installed too.

The installer should not do that. We need to remove that part. The Makefile will be used to create the package, and the package should not include any binaries either.

(11-19-2021 11:50 PM)3298 Wrote:  Also, I'm getting doubtful, can we risk packaging the bootcode as downloaded from hpcalc.org, or do we need to ask the user to point x49gp to it, like with the main firmware?

Bootcode cannot be packaged. The user doesn't really need to do anything as long as the script pulling the binaries is called at the end of the package installation, as a post-install script. Then the package is distributed clean, it downloads the binaries only for the final user installing the package.

(11-19-2021 11:50 PM)3298 Wrote:  The ultimate solution would of course be the source for an independently developed bootcode, because that would let us install it without license headaches. That's a tall order, though. At least between the two of us, a semblance of "clean-room reverse engineering" would be possible (one person decompiles and writes a specification, the other implements the specification into new code). I am aware that once the firmware starts, the bootcode is irrelevant, but it does contain code to update the firmware if it's not valid ("Kinposhcopyright" signature missing) or the user requested it with + and - pressed during boot; and I don't know what kind of hardware initialization it might perform.

While I've seen what the bootloader does, the code I have is unlikely to fit in 16 kbytes. To make a true bootloader you need a USB driver to flash the firmware, a FAT file system driver to read an SD card and flash the firmware. We have both working on newRPL, but if it doesn't fit in 16 kbytes or ROM and uses only 32 kbytes of RAM, it's game over. Of course, that is for a real bootloader on a real calc, x49gp doesn't need USB or SD card, there's no need to update the firmware so perhaps a simple "pass thru" bootloader able to launch the firmware without doing anything else would work fine.