JP1 Remotes

I have heard a little about JP1.1 and how it is different from JP1 and therefore this community doesnt really address it yet.

why have the manufacturers gone to this? and does this community intend to try to support JP1.1? what does JP1.1 offer the manufacturers over JP1? what does JP1.1 offer the consumer?

Rob will probably jump in with a more complete response, but my understanding is that some of UEI's new remotes are using some sort of flash memory instead of an EEPROM. I don't know what any other differences might be.

I too am interested in this. Unfortunately, there is not real way to search for this topic using the forum search engine (I guess 1.1 is not a valid search item).

The regular remotes that we play with in the JP1 group, use two chips. The first is the MCU (which is a Samsung S3C8) and the second is an EEPROM. The MCU contains the remote's firmware and all the built in setup codes, the EEPROM is used to store anything that the user can change, such as macros, keymoves, learned signals, etc along with upgrades of course.

The new "JP1.1" remotes (usually Comcast remotes) use a single "flash" chip which contains the normal ROM contents but it also has a section which can be written to by the processor (thus eliminating the need for an EEPROM).

Back at UEI headquarters, they had to develop a completely new black box to program these remotes, so it should come as no surprise that our existing JP1 cables won't work with these remotes.

If and when we ever do figure them out, we will need completely new cables and new software to work with them.

To date, we've only really had one true hardware expert, that being Mr. Tommy Tyler, and he has stated that this is too much work for him to try taking on. So, unless someone else wants to be the hardware pioneer on this one, or UEI springs a leek and we get the info that way, these remotes will just have to be treated as non-JP1 remotes.

Not an expert, but I am curious; is there a list of the remotes that use the jp1.1?

Not yet.

is it likely that they will abandon JP1 for JP1.1 anytime soon?

they say not, but who knows. If that day comes, it will undoubtedly be enough motivation for someone to figure out a solution.

hope we get sufficient warning that we can load up on the remainder of the JP1 remotes in stock!

And you can always buy them from me!!!

thats a deal!

To save you possible struggling with the connection on an electrical signal/bit banging level, as you apparently needlessly did for the JP1 hacking, I will put this out for you:

I don't know the exact specifics of things, but many microcontrollers that use a Flash chip to store their code have what is called a JTAG connection, which brings about 6 lines out that you can connect to the parallel port of a PC to, amongst other things, read and write the attached flashrom chip (the board designer should have at least brought those connections to pads a pogo pin adaptor can mate to, ideally to a 14 pin .1 pin connector.

Lately direct parallel programmable flash roms have been available, called LPC, which use a 6-11 line connection one can use to directly read/write such a flash chip.