'serial monitor' code for MSII

[hvz]

I know that a blank chip needs the 'serial monitor' code loaded first before you can load firmware.
having replaced a ms2 chip with a new MC9S12C64MFA from digikey and buying a USBDM programmer; Any idea where i can find the latest serial monitor file and how may i download it to my new chip??

[jsmcortina]

The current monitor codes are unreleased.

James

[hvz]

The current monitor codes are unreleased.

James

what what about the older versions? any one can post it here?
i 've read almost all the related posts in the forum! i seems that a lot of people have it, but there is nothing published online!

[hvz]

i found the monitor code here:
http://www.megamanual.com/ms2/code.htm
there are 2 monitor files "Monitor_v2.920.abs.s19" and "Monitor_v3.830a.abs.s19"
the "Monitor_v2.920.abs.s19" is successfully programmed via bdm flash programmer to MC9S12C64MFA
but
the "Monitor_v3.830a.abs.s19" can not be downloaded to the chip. it says :"programming of the target flash failed! reason : program data not within target flash memory"


any idea?

by the way the bdm ver is USBDM 4.10.6.250

[jsmcortina]

That's just firmware, it doesn't include the serial monitor despite the misleading filename.

James

[hvz]

any recommendations? no way out!?

what about mega extra : www.msextra.com/downloads/
dont they provide the serial monitor either?

am i able to read the code from a working MS2 and writing it to a blank device? or it is secured or locked? (if so what software can do it?)

[Matt Cramer]

There are a few people authorized to load the new monitors. Post your location and we can help find who would be closest.

[slow_hemi6]

And by the way you can thank all the counterfeit and illegal rip off copies of megasquirt for the monitor being locked up. Once again the crooks ruin it for everyone, even legitimate users. I was probably one of the last people to reload my MS2 monitor as my daughter card was shipped blank. Lucky for me as I live in Australia and board came from DIY in the US. Sending it back and then having resent to me would have taken a month.

[piledriver]

So is MS2 mon.zip no longer redistributable, or just the "current" version?
Its been posted here on msextra for ages off and on by many people (including IIRC the developers), keeps getting deleted, but with no explanation.
I figured it was just the pruning robot deleting old uploads.

Now I see this...

Trying to bury it is only hurting legitimate users, pirates won't care, that file has been legally redistributed for ages, they have it already.

MS3 loaders has never been available, and I completely understand that, but for the ms2 monitor it's silly as the genie has been out of the bottle for many years..

[slow_hemi6]

You can't have a policy for something and not apply it to all products.
You can't have people saying " why can't we have MS3 monitor when you let us have MS2 monitor" that's not the way stuff works.
As I said the MS2mon.zip was taken off the boards not long after I had my problem. I went looking for it to help someone on here with a similar problem and it was gonski.

[piledriver]

You can't have a policy for something and not apply it to all products.

Sure you can.

Lots of companies set older code and even designs Free.
The artwork for the old boards themselves is still posted and AFAIK always has been, gerbers even, exactly what is required to make your own mainboards.
The probability of anyone being surprised when people did that should approach very close to ~zero.

A MS3 will plug into even a first group buy v1.01 board from 2001 and works just fine. .
That's not a bug, that's a feature.
Unloading the early mainboards of driver function and using an MS3X for I/O is the finest thing you can do with them.
The MS2XT adapter was created just for that purpose, and IIRC suggested and design assists from the devs themselves.
You can use every feature of MS2E with that with zero mainboard mods, any version mainboard.

How many ECU makers won't even support the last gen of equipment and software, forcing users into $$$ upgrades?
A lot of folks got into MS due to that almost insane backwards compatibility and long term support.
I did.

Closing the barn door after the horses all got out is ~always silly at best..

Again i note, this will only cause advanced users (who can replace their own blown cpus, not really all that hard) pain, money and downtime.

This wont slow the pirate board makers even a tiny bit, as the monitor has been floating around for many years.
They have it already.
They have the basic board designs, They are not that complex, might take a 12 year old in Korea an hour.
Give him an orbital sander and a bare mainboard and he'll have all 4 layers of the V3 mainboards artwork scanned in <an hour.
The ms2/mainboard schematics are not secret, nor complex.

Stuff that's released openly on the net, ever, or physically released has left the building.

Reverse engineering hardware is not illegal in the USA. Never has been.

I understand the sentiment of getting religion and suddenly trying to protect something after the fact.
...But its just sentiment, fails logic at every level.

I want to hear that it is no longer redistributable from the actual developers.

They have posted it previously by request, sans licence file even, and deletions in the past have always been automatic old file upload deletions.

[dontz125]

I think it's a little less melodramatic than that. The new MS2 monitor codes are device-specific - MS2 DC, uS-cased, uSM, PNP. They have a check function that prevents you from loading the wrong firmware. A frequent complaint among new users has been that "such and such function won't work", but upon examining their .msq it turns out they're trying to use IAC1B for an output on a cased MicroSquirt, or something equally impossible - they flashed the wrong firmware.

The older monitor code (obviously) allowed this, and the devs have equally obviously gone to a bit of effort to prevent these errors. Releasing the unrestricted monitor back into the wild voids this effort; releasing the various new monitors would probably make the confusion even worse.

Edit: Per directive from B&G, I will not be passing the older monitor file along. Sorry ...

[muythaibxr]

We will have to discuss the ms2 monitor with B&G. We (James and I) don't own that code so it's not up to us.

Ken

[jsmcortina]

We will have to discuss the ms2 monitor with B&G.

Bruce said "do not distribute".

James

[muythaibxr]

There you go!

[dontz125]

Acknowledged and understood. My post above edited to reflect this revised reality.

[piledriver]

Understood, and will honor B&Gs wishes.

[robs]

We will have to discuss the ms2 monitor with B&G.

Bruce said "do not distribute".

James

Bruce can certainly say "do not distribute", but I don't think he has the copyright. The original source for the monitor has the following copyright notice:

Code: Select all

* Title:  S12SerMonxrx.asm        Copyright (c) Motorola 2003
;*********************************************************************
;* Author: Jim Sibigtroth - Motorola TSPG - 8/16 Bit Division
;* Author: Jim Williams - Motorola TSPG - 8/16 Bit Division

The Motorola (or whatever they're called this week) code matches what my MS2 came with. There were a couple of things that could have been done better in the monitor -- getting the RAM size right and allowing reflashing the full 128K -- but it did the job. Perhaps they've fixed these problems with newer MS2s, or maybe they really have written their own.

Afraid I only look in here occasionally these days, but I did investigate this stuff back when I was a new user. I don't think there are any legal problems with sharing monitor images, but the forum owners are certainly entitled to run their forums their way.

Have fun,

Rob.

[slow_hemi6]

I don't think it was a full rewrite, more of a modified version of the motorola. The motorola one definitely does not work with MS2 now if it ever did in the beginning.

[piledriver]

So its a derivative of the freely distributable one Moto has available to support S12 development?
Nice.