[eazycnc] How many of you have got PICKIt2?
- From: Kustaa Nyholm <feedback2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: eazycnc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 13:21:48 +0200
Hi EazyCNC list members,
looking further down the line in the development of EazyCNC I'm
asking how many of you have got PICKit 2?
I'm especially asking about *2* not PICKit 3.
And how many of you have soldered the CPU chip already directly onto the
board without a socket?
I'm asking this because I'm considering the possibility of offering
a 'pro' (as in professional) version of EazyCNC at some price.
I will keep a basic version of EazyCNC available and free but
I could offer some advanced features at a price to enable the
continuous development and support of EazyCNC.
To do that the EazyCNC should somehow be copy-protected.
One way to do that would be by storing a secret key into
the PIC device on the TOAD4 board. I find this option rather
attractive as this would allow the EazyCNC software to remain
free but the advanced features would be unlocked only when
used with a PIC18F4550 supplied by me.
To remain loyal to and to show my appreciation for all the pilot
users I would like to extend the pilot program to include
the advanced features for all the participants who have
purchased the kits from me.
However this would require swapping the PIC18F4550 chip on the board.
Obviously this is hard to do if the chip is soldered in place.
One way around this problem would be for me to provide
a time limited key-burner program that could be used to
program a PIC18F4550 with the secret key. This involves
some work from my part and risks the security of the secret
key scheme plus would require a PICKit2 to program the chip,
PICKit3 could not be used.
It is do-able but I would rather not. Much easier for me
would be to supply all who want to participate in the
'pro' version pilot with the chips at cost which I anticipate
to be about 4 EUR for the chip and 3 EUR for postage in
letter envelope.
The existing Open and Free TOAD4 firmware will still
be maintained and supported regardless weather I go
further with this scheme or not.
As a bonus the PIC18F4550 with the secret key would
also support USB firmware update and would be based
on HID class. What this means in practice is that
absolutely no driver installation required (not
even on Windows) and firmware updates without any
PICKit programmer. The later is especially nice
as you don't need to open the enclosure to connect
the PICKit nor do you need to own one (especially
nice for future users who have not invested in
a programmer yet).
Let me know your views please.
br Kusti
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