Re: Why don't we try to write our own firmware??
 

Chipods have very limited resources, they have an in-built 8051 8 bits processor whereas iPods have a 32 bits ARM processors. However we must exploit the advantages of that processor (everything is inside like mp3 and mp4 decoder etc). What we want to do is to improve the performance of such devices, no one expects to develop something better than iPods (no with those limited hardware resources). Among other things, been us the owners of the code we may assist each other when problems arise and don't sit waiting that some chinese guy do the job. By the way we don't need to hire a chinese programmer for doing the things we want (we can see what they already do =( )

I haven't founded yet a C compiler for the 8051, however I'm still working in the software framework. I'm programming a backend for the GUI (the message handler) so if someone is writing a GUI we can talk =)

i could write a gui for the new firmwares but not for a program..

ok say we do "crack" the firmware on these players and write a new fiemware... would it be possible to then watch and view different file formats such as MP4, DivX, AVI and ROMS??????

You guys are exspecting way too much from these players

Rockbox
"PS: has anyone looked into embedded linux?"

Pfft , I think the firmwaare that is currently on the player makes excelent use of the 8 bit processor ,
And no it wont be possible to Play other video formats , The AMV is hardware decoded(I think) So unless you guys change all the processors you wont be able to Play other video.

Whoever originally coded the firmware did a brilliant Job of it. I think the main thing you guys are complaining about is the strange skins , Not the firmware. The firmware will not be much improvable and a decent skin editor for 9.50 should be made , Rather than new firmware.

"...and a decent skin editor for 9.50 should be made.."

NOOO!!! thats the thing MATE!! IVE been wating for nearly one whole f**king year! The extractor is "still" in progress... PFFTT!! my a**...

THIS SUCKS!! how long does it take to make a bloody extractor.. i know these ppl make these programs for free... but COMON!!

d12nv, I have no idea about coding\programming, z80 assembler\disassemblers and compilers and obviously you do not either otherwise you would have thrown together an app to solve the problem.

Based on the World Population clock there are approximatly 6,605,046,992 people in the world and to the best of my knowledge out of all of them only 2 (1 Chinese, 1 German) have ever written apps for firmware extraction from Action chipset players.

This tells me that either no one really gives a damn or it is a lot harder than most people think.

Both authors have managed to get their apps to work on firmware versions up to 9.0.43, but neither have been able to produce an update that will work on anything above, so I would assume there is a very real stumbling block in the way.

It is the same deal with the firmware, a group of people from different parts of the world have been working together on writing a new universal firmware for almost 2 years and so far they managed to execute a basic C+ "hello world" program and still do not have a complete understanding of the workings of the current firmware. Either they are not very clever or once again it is a very complex and slow process of trial, error and discovery.

I do not know when a new app will be released if ever, but I understand your frustration with wanting to mod your player not to mention all those poor sods with dead players that are slitting their wrists.

If you understood my frustration you wouldn't go about typing up this huge response. I don't believe that there are only 2 people who can write extraction applications for these players, but going back to what you said, i believe "no one really gives a damn"...

THINK ABOUT THIS:
"To the best of my knowledge" there are roughly 300 days in 10 months, so thats 7200 hours... with the exception of hours sleeping and going to work/school, holidays and Sundays, thats 1800 hours and 1, 080, 000 minutes... now are YOU telling me it REALLLLLY takes that long to develop an extractor for these players.... An full extractor and a NEW firmware was developed for the PSP in less this time by ONE person (Dark_aleX) AND HE dogged Sony who have many staff working on these things!!!!

Frankly, i believe that they are taking the PISS out of us, so we can donate to them... just take a look at the s1res tool which had a 60 second boot up! if you donated, that start up time would be removed!!!

NOW this may sound quite unfair, and i know that they are developing this for free... but does it seriously cost that much and take that long to make this program???!!!

Re: Why don't we try to write our own firmware??
 

I realize this thread seems to be a bit dead, but if anyone is still looking for free Z80 and/or 8051 c cross-compilers, here's a couple:

http://sdcc.sourceforge.net/
and
http://tack.sourceforge.net/

baudtender