Monthly Archives: January 2023

Article note: Neat. Mostly pretty literate "Clascal" pre-standard Object Pascal, some 68k assembler. I'm a little peeved that the archive has clearly been re-encoded and has DSStore and MACOSX hidden files all over the place.

Article note: That's unfortunate. Smile was a clever little nudge to to help get around the "Shopping at Amazon is obviously unethical, but it's real convenient" problem.

Article note: This is the most on-brand thing imaginable.

Article note: Cars, much like TVs, are better when they _interface_ to gadgets but do not _contain_ gadgets. The incentives and competence for [auto|tv] makers mean they're going to be clunky crap abandoned as quickly as possible, and stuffed full of spyware. That said the "I read the symmetric encryption keys out of the updater package and used them to update it" part is hilarious.

Article note: Done. The update behavior is interesting. The tool is picky (in that "Flashback to ActiveX bullshit" kind of way) about the platform that does the update. Has to be a real computer (won't work from Android). Has to be running Chrome 108+ (My out-of-support Chromebook with 106 or whatever wouldn't work). Can't be a Linux box with Chromium or Chrome (always fails with "Close other tabs using the controller Couldn’t connect to your controller because it’s currently being used by another tab or program."). I eventually passed it through to a Windows 10 VM with google-brand Chrome and got it to work, and that exposed some extra details. Instructions and responses: Hold "..." during plug in press "..." + that other button with three dots right below it + A + Y all at once Re-enumerates as "NXP Semiconductors SP Blank RT family" [Server does something] Re-enumerates as "Freescale Semiconductor USB Composite Device" [Server does something] Re-enumerates as "Google LLC Stadia Controller rev. A" ... it looks like it's temporarily nudging the NXP (formerly Freescale) MIMXRT1061 processor into some kind of DFU-like firmware update mode via the button combos, loading a different bitstream so it can act as a USB composite device to expose the update mechanism of the BCM43458 (radio), flashing that, then rebooting the main CPU back into the USB HID controller mode. You do lose the headphone jack, which is a bit of a shame because having it work as a Bluetooth audio device would make it even more useful - but at least it's a Bluetooth controller.

Article note: The exotic of the exotic. DoD special-order portable PA-RISC workstations with "known example" counts in the single digits.

Article note: Wow. That's decent behavior, and the controller is actually pretty nice. ...I half wonder if they're just keeping the RE nerds away from their tech.

Article note: Fun. It's basically just standing in front of the hype cycles going "really?" but it's nice to see them compiled.

Article note: That is a very un-UNIX-like behavior Apple has imposed.

Article note: My brain was looking at it trying to fit "CDC"=Centers for Disease Control? Control Data Corporation? Cult of the Dead Cow? Composite Device Class? But no, this overload is "Content Defined Chunking," which smells sort of like a more sophisticated rsync style rolling hash with variable block size. I think the got project is a more general tool with the same basic model, but this is oddly proven code since it was tooling for the now-expensively-failed Stadia infrastructure. It's a neat direct application of a neat algorithm.