[RANT] EX-PARROT (Was:False Beeprog. AGAIN.

Fred Cisin cisin at xenosoft.com
Tue Jun 23 15:01:03 CDT 2015


>>  It could be due to an unforseen situation not considered by the designers.
>> Several years ago a friend of mine bricked at CAR (BMW I believe---it was a
>> high end German car in any case).  He was updating the firmware on the car
>> when the power cut out, leaving the firmware in an inconsistent state.  The
>> fix required an engineer from Germany to fly to the US ...

It surprises me that the firmware was not in a removable module that could 
be sent to Germany.  It would seem that it would be in some sort of metal 
cased, but replaceble ECU, etc.

'course such things can alse get further complicated if they include 
security features.  Hardly any new lock system has NEVER locked out a 
legitimate user.

>>  -spc (Some things you just don't think about … )

ABSOLUTELY!


On Tue, 23 Jun 2015, Paul Koning wrote:
> True.  But any designer who implements firmware update without 
> considering the possibility of power failure is not qualified for the 
> job.

Well, everybody makes misteaks.  I would have thought that that particular 
one had become common knowledge, but . . .


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