Spent much of the day making no progress on the ToasterCo project on account of not being able to communicate with the flash chip (using a vintage Total Phase Aardvark) to load new firmware to see what's going on.
Midafternoon it suddenly started working. Or... well... the option for the correct chip suddenly appeared in the menu, after having been absent the past couple of days. I'd loaded the XML file for it yesterday, and today the entry suddenly decided to be there. Onward!
I can read the flash chip: definitely progress.
Can I program it? The process commences. I switch to a different virtual desktop to check mail. The UI freezes. My phone warbles: BLUE ALERT! Seems to be the same one from this morning, but my phone is reporting no network connection. Wut?
Switch to a different computer, ssh
to the workstation, reboot. Doesn't want to reboot. Kick the reset button. Then kick it again. Get a reboot.
Try programming the flash again, but this time stay on that virtual desktop to keep an eye on it. After a while, the Flash Center application crashes, and takes the system's UI with it. No response to keyboard nor mouse. Switch machines, log in remotely, see nothing obviously amiss, reboot, get only a partial shutdown, kick power button for a proper reboot.
Grrrrrr.
Mayhap I'd best switch the Aardvark to a different host machine. Also, I'm way overdue for migrating everything to the new workstation, which ought to be more stable, but that's yet another thing that requires a bunch of time & focus.
And, in among all this, I didn't get around to calling the HVAC company. Gotta do that Real Soon Now. (I think the mystery VOC that might have had something to do with Joy's illness last Thursday might have been the refrigerant from the east-end heat pump.)
Oh, well: the painters are making progress. They'll likely finish the house soon, and then start on the barn. Which means that sometime soon I need to move a bunch of clutter away from the barn. Funsies!
Update: Running the Total Phase software on the new workstation adds another layer of fun: the Flash Center application hasn't been updated in quite some time, is i386 only (no amd64 version), and depends on some outdated libraries, at least one of which hasn't been part of Ubuntu since 2019. Maybe on the laptop? Guess I can try that after dinner.
It looks like Flash Center is still the current app for the task, even if one has the shiny new Promira dongle instead of an Aardvark, so even plunking down the big bucks for a Promira wouldn't make everything current. Speaking of which... the Promira looks remarkably like a dingus I'd considered developing, but I thought I remembered the price having come down to the point where trying to compete with it would be pointless. When I look now? Base price is $900 for the hardware, and there are various options (firmware, I think) that can really stack up the bucks. Hmmmm. Were these normal times, and had I copious amount of product-development time, that'd be something to get busy on: maybe a $250 hardware product with open-source firmware and supporting library. But there's so much to keep up with! (Like, right now, making a start on cooking dinner. Or maybe helping round up the chickens.)
Update 2: Well, I put Flash Center on a mildly down-rev Debian VM, installed all the necessary i386 libraries to make it run, routed the Aardvark dongle to the VM, selected the correct model... same error message. Oh, wait: the target board isn't powered up! Remedy that, and I can read the chip.
Or, rather, I can initiate a read. First try gets to 9% and then hangs, but at least it doesn't take the UI with it. Second try chugs along, getting to 15% or thereabouts before I cancel and try programming. Programming... gets a segfault. Foo faddle!
This used to work, albeit for different devices. Smaller ones, in fact. I think the biggest one I'd dealt with was 16 Mbit; this is 64 Mbit.
I may have to try Windows, or at least a Windows VM.
Update 3: Windows VM sounds like a good idea... it looks like it's working... but then the Linux UI hangs. Actually, I don't think it's a UI hang; I think the USB subsystem is becoming wedged, leaving the keyboard and mouse with no way to communicate with the system. I don't know if this is a hardware problem or a software problem.
Guess I'll have to dig out a physical Windows machine tomorrow. Ugh. Now, it's already past my bedtime.
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