[POLL] Radio Images

[Steve]

So ever since i put my old dev Radios up for sale 2 things have happened..
a) No one seems to really want to buy them (yet??)
b) a LOT of people are still curious about the custom images..

So I figured I put together a poll to see what everyone thinks..

It didn't fit the standard poll format so pick one from each category e.g 'A0' or B1 or D3 etc in your response



A) Don't Care / Don't want it
B) I'll rip out my radio and send it to you
C) I'll rip out my radio, take it apart and then send you just the board you need
D) I'll rip out my radio but would prefer to program it myself if you can provide an interface & tool
E) I want to know every little bit & byte to change and then figure out how to program it all myself
F) I Hate ripping out my radio. Can't I just program it over the OBDII port instead with a device I purchase from you?
G) I Hate ripping out my radio. Can't I just program it over the OBDII port instead with a device I rent from you for an additional security deposit?




Cost:
0) I said don't care, i'm a cheap bastard, or I'd like to take credit your work so I can get imaginary internet points, so i'm paying nothing!
1) I'd gladly pay up to $50 for my choice
2) I'd gladly pay up to $100 for my choice
3) I'd gladly pay more than $100 for my choice

(5/7/2018 added)
Changes:
How often would you see yourself changing your graphics? Once? Several times ? Whenever the mood strikes?



No promises though... I'm old & tired but the wife says I need get back into some old hobbies and have some fun

[STL_G8GT]

G2

What are the image options?

[Steve]

G2

What are the image options?

Literally anything you can think of. Just needs to fit the format/ resolution & # of anim. Frames

For instance all these were me just taking an existing logo and coming up with something in photoshop etc

http://g8nation.com/showthread.php?t...l=1#post524951
http://g8nation.com/showthread.php?t...l=1#post525351
http://g8nation.com/showthread.php?t...l=1#post531126

[Greg@PacePerformance]

F01
LOL
But both of my G8's are fitted with IQ radios, but my dad's still has the series 1 radio.

-Greg

[JAFO]

G2 too.

[Steve]

well technically we got to the point where we can do those too...
http://g8gt.blogspot.com/2013/10/iq-...animation.html

dammit, maybe I need to keep these radios lol

F01
LOL
But both of my G8's are fitted with IQ radios, but my dad's still has the series 1 radio.

-Greg

[yutzybrian]

I mean if we're being honest E0 lol. I have the eeprom tools already and have been trying to get a read off a S2 to do VIN programming. Stuck on getting all 0xFFs from the chip...

But obviously I wouldn't expect you to just give your secrets away. I'd say $50 is fair for ripping it out and sending it in and $100 for an obd2 solution.

[J Wikoff]

I'm of the G1 mindset.

[Steve]

I mean if we're being honest E0 lol. I have the eeprom tools already and have been trying to get a read off a S2 to do VIN programming. Stuck on getting all 0xFFs from the chip...

But obviously I wouldn't expect you to just give your secrets away. I'd say $50 is fair for ripping it out and sending it in and $100 for an obd2 solution.

Hey props for being honest Not meant sarcastic either - I really need to see if it'd be worth my time & effort to go down this path of building out something. Or if I don't - Would it be worth the questions I were to get if I were to provide 'info' & step by step instructions only. But I feel you , I too like digging around in these things myself instead of just buying something, it's what got me down this road to begin with so I'm diggin' the DIY attitude *thumbs up*. Let me run this by you (and anyone wanting to possibly 'do' this themselves, or 'figure it out' themselves) ..


It's not so much the 'secret' (it was for a while, but that's been what.. 5 years since I first did this?), but more the amount of work that went into figuring it out and the amount of work & tools it takes to actually make it work. It's not the typical: grab a standard EEPROM programmer of Ebay, 'write 0xFF @ addres 0x12345' and now you picked the next image from the list. As you've seen there's TONS of people who can do those or have even figured those out themselves. But yes - definitely 'irksome' is when people copy others, take it somewhere else and post it 'hey look what I found out!' without even mentioning someone else doing all the heavy lifting or that it's a blatant copy/paste job..

I want to say i'm really surprised no one else has come forth and done the full blown custom thing based on the info I put out 5 years ago, but i'm not really.. and the fact that no one has, really shows me this is beyond most people's DIY comfort/skill level.



To recap a post from 5 years ago (see these comments specifically):
http://g8nation.com/showthread.php?t...l=1#post531571
http://g8nation.com/showthread.php?t...l=1#post532121

I kinda left it real vague and high level but it captured the flow pretty well:

a) Have a G8/Commodore Radio
Check & Done! You got this already!

b) Figure out where the Radio Graphics are stored.
Obviously not the 2kb EEprom where everyone is doing VIM, VIN, Colors etc.. Answer: It's in the the video board - sandwiched in a small metal case.
Where on the video board? If you open it up, look for a Spansion S29AL016D70TFI02 ( datasheet: http://www.cypress.com/file/217501/download ) (see attachment for close up) Of course Spansion got bought out by Fujitsu got bought out by Cypress so who knows what the actual chip is in your particular radio depending on when it was made. Hint/Suggestion: But you don't even need to crack open the video board to reprogram it.. (think OBDII etc). Moving on..


Now we're getting to the point most people will already check out because it's not a standard EEPROM Solution.

c) Figure out how to read/write that chip.
Multiple ways about this, but if you have your radio apart you're already limiting yourself down to 1 or 2 options. not the hardest part, but it might involve finding and/or building a proper interface and finding and/or writing a piece of software that does the reading/writing for you. Multiple Choices of varying degrees of difficulty and usability.


At this point i reckon , even people who were somewhat crafty and figured out 'c' to the point of actually extracting the data are hitting a solid concrete wall and abandon all hope because next up:

d) Once you managed to read that chip data, you have to decypher/reverse engineer the binary data format for the images so you can extract them and see what they are made of.
e) Probably want to write some software to do step 'd'

This is where the real fun start - OK, so now you have a binary data file with a bunch of data in it. I probably could even post that exactly file since a lot of people have it already too but again they can't figure out the next steps: Now you have to figure out WHERE in that file the actual images are stored. Not only 'where', but you'll also need to know HOW, and to do that , you should probably a) know about image file formats in detail since (hint) they are not just a standard PC GIF,JPG,PNG or BMP format) you should probably learn how those work first to decypher these ones, so e.g. you'd need to understand everything this page mentions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMP_file_format ).
Unless you do 'e' you won't even know what the heck you're looking at so you kind of need to be at least a hobbyist level of Software Developer on top of this.


f) Make some new boot logos based on the specification found in step 'd' in your favorite graphics program
Now most people are 'somewhat' handy in Photoshop etc, so based on what you know are the size limitations that you found in 'd' (hint: posted back in 4/22/2012 on my blog: 6 frames of 362x145 for each anim , 6 anims total /hint) you could already draw up something and even throw into a gifmaker program so you can get a sense of what it will look like.


g) Encode your newly made boot logos into the expected binary format
Now obviously you can't just shove Photoshop BMPs/PNGs or Animated GIF's into the chip or file so based on what you determined in 'd' you need to now take whatever 'source' format (BMP/PNG/GIF/JPG etc) and now convert it to what the radio actually expects.. (hence my comment under d/e about needing to know the standard formats as well). Again, you'll really want to write a piece of software to do this since it's not a standard format. Also you may or may not need to figure out security code algorithms and/or CRCs depending on your chosen method of madness.


Still with me? Ok NOW it's time for the last step:
h) Put the new logos back on the radio and hope you didn't screw anything up or end up with a brick that doesn't start up
If you do fuck it up, you can hopefully try to put the original file back on to get it to work (assuming your interface from 'c' is working properly and you don't need to limp to the dealership / a friend with TIS/Tech2 etc and plead with them to reflash your radio for you). Radio that doesn't do anything is no fun (been there done that)


Me and some guys from Australia spent a LOT of time going through steps d-h and failing, tweaking, doing it over and over trying different things etc until some 'Euraka!' moments finally happened. Most people want the 'easy fix' though because they don't want be software engineers if they aren't already by trade or spend months staring at hex dumps.


So with all that said, IS there an easy way that's still 'somewhat' DIY? Possibly.. but I 'm not sure how it'd pan out.

a) Now that you know WHERE to look for the images, is that enough for people to figure out? Doubtful - that info technically has been known since ~2012 and no one has ran with it.
b) I could provide exact offsets where to look in that chip, but people wouldn't know what they're looking at.
c) I could provide exact offsets and write up a technical specification of the actual embedded format (e.g. 4 bytes of this, 8 bytes of that, jump here , 10 bytes of that etc etc) but unless you're an experienced software engineer who can write files format conversions that will mean nothing to you.. it'd be pretty crazy (i.e. impossible) to try to 'draw' an image by using a hex editor and rewriting over 200kb of data by hand..so this a HUGE hurdle for 99.999999999% of people.

So that leads to the 'not so DIY' solutions that MIGHT work for most people:

d) I can program the boards for people by having you rip out your radio (I hate this myself...)
e) I can design and develop an OBDII programmer (but that is going to take more time & effort but it'll be a fun project for me).
f) I could provide the software I wrote (provided I can find it after 5 years) and tell people how to use it, or maybe host it as a webservice: Upload your animation you made and it will verify it will work, and spit out the data in a format you need. I kind of like this idea actually. *hmm* Though you'd still need a hardware interface... But if you were to own the interface, and have access to the service you could change your graphics whenever the mood strikes.. Impress your GF? Have her name show up.. Going to the Game? Sports Logo etc etc.. Food for thought for sure.


What i'm NOT looking to do is be everyone's Graphics Artist and have a long drawn out back& forth 'oh no less green, more lens flare' and make 20 different versions before someone is happy.... (this is where options 'f' comes in handy..) I know enough Photoshop to have made all the videos you've seen out there, but I would expect people to at least make their own logo's, unless it's REALLY simple (e.g. a simple fade of a static logo). Then again you only have 6 frames so it's not like you can make it super complex..

So that's kind of where things stand right now and THE big question:
if I want to share this information or provide people the opportunity to have custom Boot Logos.. what's the best/easiest/most convenient way to do this? Combo E/F is probably most user friendly imho..

[yutzybrian]

I would definitely agree with Combo E/F. I hate programming/software engineering. I'm more of a hardware and basic to mid level scripting kind of guy.