first impressions of the Lego smart brick, before I do any actual tearing down: wow, I forgot how good they are at working with plastic.

[ldcd@social.treehouse.systems]

@artemist @whitequark ️IP

[artemist@social.mildlyfunctional.gay]

@ldcd @whitequark ️️

[drwho@masto.hackers.town]

@whitequark What are you using to dump the chips?

[mlp@defcon.social]

@azonenberg @whitequark @gsuberland @ldcd @ftg
When Microchip first produced a PIC32 it was built around MIPS (I was at HI-TECH Software at the time - we had a compiler targeting it). Later they acquired Atmel and renamed the (ARM-based) SAM series "PIC32..."

[azonenberg@ioc.exchange]

@mlp @whitequark @gsuberland @ldcd @ftg yes I'm talking about their embedded controllers for laptops etc not general purposes MCUs.

Real PIC32 is mips, not the rebranded SAMs sold under the pic32 brand

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@drwho https://glasgow-embedded.org/

[drwho@masto.hackers.town]

@whitequark Cool! Thank you.

[mutesplash@uncontrollablegas.com]

@whitequark

[triplef@bildung.social]

@whitequark but the most important question remains unanswered: Can you make it play actual star wars sounds instead of the unintelligible gibberish now?

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

not my best work but it should do the trick

feat. comically big q-tip

[dev@discuss.systems]

@whitequark oh lol I thought it was a cat’s paw

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@dev that would be a really small cat

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

unfortunately, i could not access JTAG. i think i ran out of time i have for playing with this board, good luck @ everyone else

shout out to:
https://github.com/nanash1/smart_brick
https://codeberg.org/shelfofsheelfs/SMART-Brick
for doing good work!

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

after reading the datasheet a bit more carefully, i know why i couldn't: the JTAG port is simply not exposed unless the firmware configures the pin mux that way. i'd have to dump the firmware in some other way

[cinebox@masto.hackers.town]

@whitequark oh how fun, but makes sense for such a pin-constrained device. Is there any other way to access it or is the chip just impossible to reprogram it if it doesnt expose JTAG?

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@cinebox it has a bootloader which I assume is how it's programmed by LEGO; I think I know how to trigger that but I just wanted to connect JTAG because it was more challenging to solder these tiny wires and I'm bad at doing it

[ldcd@social.treehouse.systems]

@whitequark could it have booted in cJTAG mode?

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@ldcd the datasheet explicitly says the JTAG pins are GPIO'd

[lenary@types.pl]

@whitequark are the pips on top buttons too?

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@lenary no, just normal lego brick shape