Paperweight has a 4bit framebuffer

[bhaak]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

Besides the other regressive features on the new kindles, there is also this:No legitimate way to remove Special Offers on all new kindles! They are certainly encouraging a hack if they do not change that policy.

That FAQ seems to be partly wrong. I checked yesterday (after it was a headline over here on a big German IT news site) and for the e-ink Kindles, you can order them with and without SO:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008UB7DU6/ref=fs_clw

Right under the price, you see two rectangles "With Special Offers" and "Without Special Offers". As already known from the KT, the difference is 20$ and of course the default it set to SO because it will show the lower price.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by bhaak

That FAQ seems to be partly wrong. I checked yesterday (after it was a headline over here on a big German IT news site) and for the e-ink Kindles, you can order them with and without SO:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008UB7DU6/ref=fs_clw

Right under the price, you see two rectangles "With Special Offers" and "Without Special Offers". As already known from the KT, the difference is 20$ and of course the default it set to SO because it will show the lower price.

That "only SO" text is still in the FAQ if you click the link in jswinden's quote. His and your linked web pages are in disagreement. I see on your linked page that clicking the "no SO" button adds $20USD to the purchase price. Perhaps they changed their policy and the FAQ has not been updated yet. Because the various new Fire models appear to be SO-only, perhaps the "Paper white" model needs to be removed from that quoted paragraph of the FAQ.

[knc1]

Hmm...
Strange, from my US, IP address I have always seen a page with two selection boxes ($119, $139). Even during the presentation.
Could it be (or have been) just slow page update propagation in the Amazon Cloud?

Can I say anything positive about the new K9 model?

The two layers (capacitive touch screen and light pipe) on top of the display screen might give the rather fragile screen some physical protection.

Or, it might just add two more fragile layers to break.

- - - -

No hints found (yet) about if this one is: "glued closed".

No hints found (yet) if this one uses hardware similar to the K4&K5 (which, according to the Amazon accessory page, supports an OTG-host adapter).

If it does (support the accessory USB, OTG-host adapter), then it may be possible to get keyboard, mouse, and audio over a USB connection.
(Unless it is "glued closed").

- - - -

The above is only speculation at this point but if true, then I might have to back off to calling it a K8 model (almost a dog).

[geekmaster]

twit.tv has an episode entited "The Kindle Paperweight?":
http://twit.tv/show/tech-news-today/577

It is the FAQ page linked in jswinden's quote that still says the Paper White model is SO-only. The purchase page shows a non-SO option for an extra $20USD, as I mentioned previously.

If they do use the same firmware as a K5, it will need to support a different resolution and no Home button in addition to the K5 hardware. Or they may get goofy and have different flavors of the same major version numbers, for different hardware. Or they could go with higher version numbers. We will know when somebody gets a Paper White kindle and reports what version of firmware it is using.

There was version number confusion when the K4 and K5 were released, leading to messed up names like K4NT and K4Touch in speculative posts between product announcement and physical possession by members.

[knc1]

The confusion seems to continue in the re-sale market (perhaps intentionally) - -

Used / Refurbished items described as: "Kindle keyboard with wifi and Free 3G" that are also listed as having serial numbers: B003...

Did the K2 ever ship with 3G?
At $79, that isn't a bad price - the 3G card is a $50 ... $60 item itself.
But for a refurbished K2 - that price is about $60 too high.

- - - -

While on the subject - -
In response to ixtab (in another thread?) -
The AData card shipped prior to these recent models is both 2G/3G, not 2G only. If only seeing 2G service, it is the service provider in that area, not the card.

No mention (yet) of a 4G card, those are still a bit more than +$1 even in large wholesale lots.
The Cell phone industry is sucking up all the chips that Qualcom (and others) can grow on silicon and if your not ordering in multiples of 100,000 unit lots, your S.O.L.

[NiLuJe]

@knc1: Yep, B003 is the Kindle 2 'International', and it had a keyboard (with the row of numbers), and a 3G card.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@knc1: Yep, B003 is the Kindle 2 'International', and it had a keyboard (with the row of numbers), and a 3G card.

Thanks.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by twobob

Gets my vote. I will happily post new content to make the site look fresh

*COUGH*(or you could just touch all the post dates )*COUGH*

GL!

The "Upgrade Death March" is over with.
It isn't hardly any more broke than it was before the upgrade.

The good: The file gallery works once again.

The bad: The forum indexer still thinks sites should not have more than one page worth of forums.
I can live with that, will just delete forums until the indexer can list them all.

The ugly: The administrator has to go through handsprings to log on. Ah, c..., well I didn't want to administrate that turkey anyway.

Will do a little bit of clean-up (when, if ever, I get "admin" logged in again), add an e-book reader section - then see if Amazon will send the site (me) a pre-release, evaluation unit.

What will they do? Ignore me? Tell me no? Increase the price of anything I order in the future?

[twobob]

hehehe. who knows. only one way to find out

[geekmaster]

So, now that my paperwhite is on order, which of the "no keys" is the magic key? How do we debrick that sucker? Could it use the orientation sensor as a magic key? I remember trying all orientations on a DXG while searching for a magic key. I did not try headphone insertion though -- perhaps the headphone jack could be the magic key on a DXG. But the paperwhite does not even have that. So perhaps the orientation is the only option in the hunt for its "magic" key (for debricking). I suspect that my PW will need debricking soon after I receive it.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

So, now that my paperwhite is on order, which of the "no keys" is the magic key? How do we debrick that sucker? Could it use the orientation sensor as a magic key? I remember trying all orientations on a DXG while searching for a magic key. I did not try headphone insertion though -- perhaps the headphone jack could be the magic key on a DXG. But the paperwhite does not even have that. So perhaps the orientation is the only option in the hunt for its "magic" key (for debricking). I suspect that my PW will need debricking soon after I receive it.

Perhaps as much as a month in which to do speculation.
This thread may become more entertaining than a game show.

What do we have to go on?
Two things for sure:

Amazon is a for-profit corporation (annual reports not withstanding);

Brand new machines are expensive, when introducing a new model, it is cost advantageous to use as much "tech" that you already have paid the price for as possible.

So far, photographs and limited descriptive materials that show a machine that looks like it could almost be made out of "in stock" parts.

Speculation #1:
Amazon sticks with Freescale for the Kpw (pronounced as Kpew, codename: K9) -
It might even stay with the i.MX508 - its graphic co-processor can handle higher resolution screens than the "improved" one of the Kpw, but maybe not.

Known:
Freescale has burned into the SoC rom a very low level loader (the iROM code) of all of their i.MX products.
This code runs before any off-SoC hardware is initialized.
I.E: Requires a hardware "trigger" (or gpio / register sensed input). The "magic key" we post about.

The machine has two hardware interfaces to the outside world accessible from the outside -
The power switch ;
The USB socket.

It is also possible that it has a "reset" button that can be reached via a pin hole in the case.
We haven't seen the back of the case, nor really good enough photographs to rule out a pin hole (yet).

It may only have a "reset" button (or jumper pads) that can be reached after the case is opened.
IF the case can be opened.

The "next stop" in the boot process is the software program loader (to date - U-Boot).
U-Boot is a fairly large glop of code - it could initialize any or all of the on-chip and off-chip hardware.
Now maybe the accelerometer comes into play - - -
Shake violantly at just the right stage of U-Boot loading and wallah, some sort of mid-level monitor / loader is triggered.
(OR, you just shake the bath water off of it.)

The "next stop" is to load the Linux kernel (presuming they haven't jump ship for WinCE) - -
At this point, the door is wide open for anything at all.

How about a 2x2 pixel area, co-ordinates determined by serial number, date of manufacture and price of tea in china as the "boot interruption" trigger?

A "Morse code" tap sequence?

Or, just about any kind of external event.

Which includes changes in the file system (U-Boot can be enabled to read **simple** file systems, but rarely is).

The models so far have been fairly consistent about recognizing "ENABLE_DIAGS" on the user storage partition.
Why toss out working code?

Plus - a "wild card" entry in my speculation list:
I have not read much about people investigating what that single port "hole" in the firewall is used for.

Is that a "trigger packet" port (sort of like a "wake on lan" type of trigger)?

I will now turn this thread over to other guesstimates.

[twobob]

Well. you touched on most of the things that had occurred to me...
TS / "Morse code" tap sequence (gesture?) / amount of contacts
(it's a two point screen) - These are all the ones I had when I saw zero buttonage

internal jumper / pin /switch - These are the ones that were still lingering from the "But how do magic my dx"

Hadn't considered the port - which was a nice thought.
although determining protocols is out of my price range doesn't prevent a snuffling about with 'standard' toolsets.

IF the case can be opened

I never met glue yet that could smack down a razor blade in a one on one... Assuming they haven't filled the back with it... Which would be daft and not very conducive to good heat operation.
so I would guess pressure screw fittings al la compaq and a dab of glue at the worst.

Given the nature of actually having hundreds of thousands (or millions) of devices to "service" (this device is supposed to be an "active service" unit after all) honestly would be surprised to see a completely inaccessible unit. (but I'm wrong a lot)

I look at the DX here and would sorely love to have a play but it's usage is so high. maybe one day when it is a bit more unloved it could be consigned to the poke and play pile. Big screen E-ink rules!

So. Um, I should really come up with an entry of my own... For the "Pool"

Let. me. think...

It's unlikely to be simply "maintain contact in one location" - it would happen too often by accident.

It might be "maintain contact in two obscure locations" - this kind of thing has provenance and more to the point would be less likely to happen as often by accident but still isn't infallible so still I think a "No" (with some reservations)

Also highly doubt the Morse code thing, multitap and gestures (now I think about it.)

That would require a far more "definite" knowledge of EXACTLY when the burned in code was going to make a test... (unless it was designed to be paired with the serial interface and one could monitor the boot messages, still, a crap system).

Not only is it generally not-fit-for-purpose, it would also require far swankier code than a simple test for a button.

Some of this reasoning is why I don't believe the DX (and thus the pw) uses ports etc.. the DX was one of the earlier devices. IF they had some incredibly obfuscated wake via lan method in that device? Why bin it in favour of much simpler tests?

Hmm... *goes away and has more of a think* Don't wan't to waste my guess

RECAP:

Still seems like to me: making Amazon engineers crack a glued case and hook up internal connectors to merely invoke a boot state? Total madness.

So to that end... TBC...

[knc1]

Which model was it that was so difficult to open with its glue and double sided tape?
The K4?

In none of the teardowns I read did the person try a heat gun (hair drier).
Some adhesives have a very low (compared to plastic melt) release temp.
Wave a little hot air at it, it might just fall open.

And at $0.76/hour - they could waste a few extra minutes on the re-work bench.
http://www.bgr.com/2012/09/06/iphone...conn-students/

[knc1]

Originally Posted by twobob

internal jumper / pin /switch - These are the ones that were still lingering from the "But how do magic my dx"

- - - -

RECAP:

Still seems like to me: making Amazon engineers crack a glued case and hook up internal connectors to merely invoke a boot state? Total madness.

So to that end... TBC...

I agree with your point that "things tend towards simplicity".

But in contrast (a fancier than current known ways):
I would sense a locally, strong, magnetic field.
Hold a little ceramic magnet against one spot of the case back == Downloader Mode.

And a Hall Effect device would be hard to spot on visual inspection among all the other SMT devices on the board.

[twobob]

Oooh. Field effect. never considered that one what with my background in spinning rust it seemed counter intuitive but now you say it... hmm..