"Crowdfunding", anybody?

[cereal_killer]

Yor intentions may be good, but I don't think it is a good idea to annoy forum members. The poll may show how many people are interested, but it won't help to achieve anything. As __builtin said, it needs is a developer who is interested and enjoys working on this.

[GreyBeast]

PS: Is there a way to send a PM to EVERYBODY registered on these forums?

Do not do this.

OK, I won't.

[Frankenpod]

I don't think throwing money at it serves any purpose.

And I think the chances of the problem getting fixed are quite slim.  It seems like there aren't nearly as many devs or users as there once were, thanks to smartphones (damn them!)

Ideally the magic coding pixies will scatter pixie dust of skill on the rest of us giving us instant technical expertise (crucially, without the need for gruelling effort, that bit's important!) so we can contribute with actual useful work (which is how open source is supposed to work, no?).  Maybe more realistic hope might be Tarkan comes up with a suggestion out of commercial self-interest.

It's a pity because it does seem that there are a _lot_ of ipods still out there, and they appear more durable than most other DAPs so will probably make up an increasing proportion of what rockboxable devices there are.  And modded ipods in effect_require_ rockbox to make full use of the storage, if only because of the OF database size limit.

It seems to me the ipod classic was very over-powered for its intended purpose and original firmware.  Seems a waste _not_ to rockbox them.

[GreyBeast]

I agree, Frankenpod. Except for the part about smart phones replacing iPods, since they don't have nearly as much storage capacity, even if you stick with the "small" Classics of 80 and 120GB.

It would be a shame to stop developing, and - you're right - it would be advantageous for Tarkan to pitch in.

Rockbox is awesome, I'd love to have it running on my iPod Classic. But I don't want to do without larger storage capacity and less wear of the battery by using iFlash cards.

I wish I had the slightest inkling of what the problem could be, so that I could look around to see if I can come up with something.

The most frustrating thing is that it sounds like no big deal to fiddle with a driver, they're never larger than single-digit-kB files, after all. (Yes, I know that a text file with a lot of characters is not much bigger).

[__builtin]

You best chance is to try and do it yourself at this point.

[GreyBeast]

You best chance is to try and do it yourself at this point.

Dude, I'm sure that entails using hex-editors (not that I know what they do, but I can imagine), and soldering stuff onto the flash card (perhaps), or at least connecting sensing equipment to the logic board, taking the iPod apart, etc. etc.

I don't even know where to start, to be honest. The only thing I've grasped, so far, is that as with all other programs/hardware, the iPod requires drivers to control i/o. It's a small file that tells one side of a process how to "work" with the other side. The driver inserted into the Rockbox bootloader isn't doing that job properly, for whatever reason, and would require being "updated" to do so.

The one thing keeping me from flat-out saying "No, I won't do it" is the fact that driver files are usually tiny, so not much "raw material" to have to consider, although something tells me any developer reading this is quietly laughing at what I just wrote.

Are there any tutorials anywhere on ATA drivers and their innards? I recall having/using a hex-editor millions of years ago to program (or at least "look into") small Windows programs.

Does Rockbox interact with the ATA driver in more ways than "OK, regarding the transferring of files, you (the ATA driver) are on your own"? What I'm asking is, could it just boil down to replacing ATA driver X in the Rockbox firmware with another ATA driver Y (that might have been created more recently, therefore more "compatible")? Or does doing that entail also re-working the rest of the content in the firmware, because it DOESN'T just say "hey you, ATA driver, it's time to transfer files. Do whatever it is you do, but don't ask me if you run into trouble"?

[saratoga]

I think the point was that since you have no chance figuring this out, you should just buy a device that already works or check back in a few years and see if anyone else worked it out. 

[GreyBeast]

I don't think these questions have been answered yet:

-     Is the Rockbox ATA driver "outdated" because it was coded BEFORE the advent of flash cards? Surely there must be other ATA drivers that work with flash cards.

-     Is the "driver" a file that can be replaced by another one that would work correctly? If so, could it be a matter of asking 3rd-party ATA driver coders if they have a compatible driver?

[saratoga]

-     Is the Rockbox ATA driver "outdated" because it was coded BEFORE the advent of flash cards?

No.

-     Is the "driver" a file that can be replaced by another one that would work correctly?

Rockbox consists of files in our source code that can be edited or replaced. 

If so, could it be a matter of asking 3rd-party ATA driver coders if they have a compatible driver?

No.

[GreyBeast]

Rockbox consists of files in our source code that can be edited or replaced. 

Could I have a look at the ATA driver files, just so I know what it is we're talking about?

[__builtin]

Yes, you can, though I must say this with no hate, anger, or malice whatsoever: given what you've said in this thread, you have virtually zero chance of understanding it:

https://git.rockbox.org/?p=rockbox.git;a=blob;f=firmware/target/arm/s5l8702/ipod6g/storage_ata-6g.c;hb=HEAD

[GreyBeast]

LOL! You're very kind, thanks. No harm taken.

OK, to my novice eyes it looks like different instructions for different errors and/or different device states.

You're right, there's not a chance ***I*** could come up with a solution.

I Know I'm on the verge of being annoying, but is the native (Apple's) firmware so "hardcoded" or "hidden" that you can't use ITS ATA drivers? Or at least look at them to see what the differences are that could be causing Rockbox's ATA drivers to fail?

Just filling in the blanks here.
 

[saratoga]

You cannot use drivers written for one operating system with another. Apple does not provide source code for their firmware, they are not an open source project like rockbox.

These are general questions about how computers and software work. If you're interested, there are a lot of resources out there better suited to learning about computers and programming.

[__builtin]

The idea you have of comparing OF ATA driver behavior to Rockbox is correct, but in practice it is much more complicated and requires great reverse-engineering skill to accomplish.

[GreyBeast]

Thanks, __builtin!