What is Next for the AL Priority?

[radargeek]

Perhaps we could have a sweepstake or something, I'll take "ARM Cortex-M4".

Some time ago someone posted pics of the CPU innards, and there were two PIC24-series processors in there.

As for what was changed in the version 2 CPU, something in the way the external LED is driven. It could be as simple as moving the LED to a set of CPU I/O pins that have hardware PWM capability. Or, maybe a transistor was added to the LED common pin to allow PWMing all three colors by using a single I/O.

There could be other changes to account for parts availability, etc. Often there are board revisions because a part becomes unavailable and something else has to be used instead, or a cheaper part replacing a costlier one, or the same part is only available or cheaper in a different package type, etc, but with no affect on the actual operation of the unit.

[orwellophile]

Some time ago someone posted pics of the CPU innards, and there were two PIC24-series processors in there.

As for what was changed in the version 2 CPU, something in the way the external LED is driven. It could be as simple as moving the LED to a set of CPU I/O pins that have hardware PWM capability. Or, maybe a transistor was added to the LED common pin to allow PWMing all three colors by using a single I/O.

There could be other changes to account for parts availability, etc. Often there are board revisions because a part becomes unavailable and something else has to be used instead, or a cheaper part replacing a costlier one, or the same part is only available or cheaper in a different package type, etc, but with no affect on the actual operation of the unit.

I would assume a GPIO line with PWM capability was routed to an added transistor... oh wait, you just said that.

I'd be interested to see that pic, the box says Dual 16/32bit 100mhz. It could have been a PIC24 (16 bit) and a PIC32. The PIC32MX has the flash to store the 460KB firmware update, but only 128KB of SRAM. But it can run code from SRAM, so it's possible that it could self-update, loading a minimal set of instructions into memory, just enough to read the USB stick, and write to it's own flash (and decode the cipher).

My unit arrived today, so after I make sure it actually does work, I'll see for myself whats in the box

[orwellophile]

Good god that LED is bright!

[orwellophile]

Some time ago someone posted pics of the CPU innards, and there were two PIC24-series processors in there.

Here's one of the HW REV. 2 then.