Fail Blog

I threw in the towel today.  I've spent the last couple of weekends trying to get my Bus Pirate to interface to the IM-ME.  I got no further this week than I did last week.  After a reset, the first command to Get Chip ID always works.  After that, nothing works until I reset it again.  I know that the lock bits are erased, or Get Chip ID wouldn't work in the first place.  I've used my scope to stare at the data going back and forth.  I've rewritten the code three times to send and receive the data in different ways.  I've driven the IM-ME via a resistor divider network and Vcc instead of the Bus Pirate's Vpu.  I've scoured the GoodFET source code (more about this in a second) to try and find something I'm doing differently.  And the result is always the same.  Unfortunately I am not the first to have problems with this combination, and I doubt I'll be the last.  But if anyone ever does get this working, I'd love to hear about it.  Drop me a comment if you want the code I've worked up so far.  It is written in Python and uses PyBusPirateLite and PySerial.

There must be a way.  And indeed there is.  It seems all the folks into IM-ME hacking have got themselves a GoodFET.

IM-ME Hacking Done Right

This thing is like a hacker Swiss Army knife.  Lots of capabilities and under active development.  And Travis Goodspeed, the neighborly fellow who designed this thing, sells a bare PCB for a song.  So I'm going to put the IM-ME hacking on hold for a bit while I gather up the parts to build one of these things.  In the meantime, I can always try to sniff the comms between the processor in the Davis console and the radio chip, or finish reverse engineering the Davis Talk protocol.  I just hope my wife's patience continues to hold.

When people ask me on Mondays what I did all weekend, I just say "I took it pretty easy." It is less complicated that way.