The History of the JP1 Project

JP1 History: Main Document, Index

The History of the JP1 Project

There are several people who have made key contributions that have made what we can now do in the JP1 group possible and this page will attempt to give these folks some recognition and to give you an idea of the history of this project. This list will never be complete as many other folks have joined the group since this list was written and have made huge contributions.

Dan Nelsen

None of this would be possible without the efforts of Dan Nelsen. He's the who discovered how to communicate with the EEPROM chip in these remotes. He invented the first "Classic" interface and wrote the original software used to read and write to the EEPROM. Dan also made the source code to his software available (under a free distribution license), which meant that other developers could build on the work that he'd already done.

If the JP1 Project had a birthday, it would be 10/06/2000, that's the date of Dan's first post (under the name HWHackr) over at Remote Central giving some early details of what he had discovered. Here's the thread: 15-1994 JP1 details revealed

Rob Crowe

That's me. Once Dan got the first dump from his 15-1994, it was then my job to figure out what it all meant. I figured out how the upgrade section was put together, how the keymapping bytes work, etc. I put this info into an Excel spreadsheet which eventually materialized into the KM (keymap-master) spreadsheet, which has since been superseded by the RM (Remote Master) program. I also started the JP1 group at Yahoo Groups (which was called eGroups back then) and the hifi-remote.com website.

Mark Pauker

Mark took all of this info and built it into a fabulous Windows GUI program called IR.exe which opened up the JP1 group to the masses.

Kevin Timmerman

Kevin was the first one to identify the code used for protocols as assembler code. With this info we could start modifying protocols to better suit our purposes. Kevin also discovered the format used to store learned commands. Kevin wrote the IRScope program and invented the JP1 Apadter, which lets you control older JP1 remotes using a modern JP1.x FTDI type cable.

Nicola Salmoria

Words cannot describe the contributions that Nicola has made. Whatever shortcomings these remotes might have, Nicola has managed to cure most of them by writing some of his "special protocols" which allow you to do things like program device specific macros, add adjustable delays in macros and stack multiple setup codes onto a single device key. He even wrote one protocol modestly called the "Extender" which completely takes over the main control loop of the remote, thus allowing you to do almost anything, such as program functions to the device keys and the FAV/SCAN button, use the learning memory for upgrade codes, etc. (Nicola is the guy behind the popular MAME program).

Tommy Tyler

What Nicola is to software, Tommy is to hardware. When this project started the JP1 interface required good soldering skills and at least four hours of free time to put together, so Tommy decided to try and simplify it a bit. What he came up with was a design that called for 2 resistors and 1 diode and about 15 minutes of free time to build it. If Mark's IR.exe program made JP1 appealing to the masses, just imagine what Tommy's Simple Interface did for it.

And if that's not enough, Tommy has written up everything that he has done is documents that absolutely anybody can understand. He's also the author of the "JP1 For Beginners" document. Greg (gfb107) created the RM (Remote Master) and RMIR programs, which superseded the KM spreadsheet and IR.exe programs. Graham (mathdon) originally took over development of IR.exe from Mark, and IRScope from Kevin. Then he took over development of RM/RMIR from Greg and has taken it to new levels of excellence.

All of the JP1 members

These guys that I have just mentioned are not the only ones to have made contributions, many other JP1 group members have made contributions in many different ways, I can't possibly name everyone but some people who come to mind (in alphabetical order) include:

Jon Armstrong,

binky123,

Glenn Buskirk,

Robert Eden,

Nils Ekberg,

Mike England,

Nishan Fernando,

Vicky Getz,

Jim Henry,

Richard Hovis,

Bill Jackson,

Scott Johnson,

Dave Leggett,

Dave Levin,

Bengt Martensson,

Don Miller,

Bill Napier,

Chris Nappi,

Mark Pierson,

Dave Reed,

Alan Richey,

Dave Robinson,

Jerry Rubinow,

Stephen Szyszka,

Mineharu "Hal" Takahara,

Before JP1

Before Dan made the discovery that started the JP1 effort, there were several people who were already putting in alot of effort to figuring out remote controls.

Barry Gordon

Barry's area of expertise is the Philips Pronto, for which he has written many detailed documents explaining the concepts of infrared, he has also written many useful utilities for generating new signals and analyzing existing one. I learned everything I know about infrared from Barry's documents.

John Fine

John has been a One For All remote enthusiast for many years. He painstakingly went through all the codes in his Cinema 6 using an oscilloscope documenting what the signals looked like. He discovered how advanced codes relate to the original button codes (he came up with the terms EFC and OBC). Once introduced to Barry Gordon and the Philips Pronto files, John wrote the ccf2efc program whick converts Pronto files into text and attempts to figure out what protocol and codes where used. Mark Pauker used John's routines to add this feature to his IR.exe program.

John Wasser

Long before One For All had anythign useful on their web site, John created a web site telling people how to program their remotes using things like advanced codes, etc. It was in direct response to his web site that OFA set about improving their own site. John's site is http://www.John-Wasser.com/OFA.

Gerald Pinzone

I knew nothing about all of the hidden power of the 15-1994 remote, which I already owned, until I found Gerald Pinzone's Cinema 7 FAQ web site.

Zig Zichterman

Long before we started hacking the remotes with the 6-pin connectors, Zig was hacking the old remotes with the 3-pin connectors. He has long since stopped messing with remotes, but I have an archive of his work on my site at http://www.hifi-remote.com/ziggr. You can catch up with what the Zigster's up to now at http://www.ziggr.com

I apologize for anyone that I have left out, as you can see from the number of people that I have credited, this has been a group effort that just shows you what the true power of the internet really is.