From bgvocals@yahoo.com Fri Nov 18 06:32:45 2005
Subject:Re: CX-3 version upgrade danger???

Hi Bruce,

You know, it seems a lot of software/firmware designers are also musicians. Good to know someone else understands what I (we) do for a living, it is kind of a lonely world sometimes. It would be an interesting off-topic poll to see what other interests and occupations the group members have.

When you mentioned that the CX-3 was not designed as a user-upgraded system, I agreed but started to cringe. I have been caught in several situations where I designed something to assist in development and, once it was "discovered", it was exploited for use by the customer. Maybe you have had similar unpleasant experiences. I bet you are right in this case. After all, you or I would never design a system that did not have at least some form of protection such that a FLASH part (or EEPROM or whatever they used) could be rendered useless until replaced.

I suppose they (Korg) took a calculated risk that the benefits would outweigh the problems, and I think they were right.

Lou

Bruce Wahler wrote:
I understand what you are saying. (I, too, write firmware for my living.) However: The CX-3 was NOT designed as a user-upgraded system. No promise was made in the CX-3 sales pitch about upgrade capability. I don't know whether the boot loader can't be separated on the ICs that Korg used, or the firmware wasn't written that way, but the bottom line is that once the Sub Processor starts erasing, the boot loader is gone.

There were a lot of improvements between the CX-3 (v1) and the BX-3/CX-3 v2, and Korg USA lobbied the parent company to be allowed to release the upgrade to CX-3 v1 owners. In retrospect, I'll bet that they wish they didn't -- no good deed goes unpunished, right? -- but clonewheel owners as a whole benefited from the release.

It's a situation where the process seemed to work flawlessly during testing, but after release some problems were seen. Because of the lack of a permanent boot loader, the risk was serious. The number of failed updates was very small, but if you were one of those unlucky few, I'm sure it was no comfort to know this. Check the archives from about three years back, and you can read all about the problems.

Regards,

-BW

--
Bruce Wahler
Design Consultant
Ashby Solutions™ http://consult.ashbysolutions.com
978.386.7389 voice/fax
bruce@ashbysolutions.com

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