What car is this? I've never heard of OBD-II allowing people to change ECU parameters, besides clearing any existing trouble codes. Besides that, I haven't heard of OBD-II software that includes a feature for setting ECU values.
There's no way to reprogram the ECU via the standard ODBII command set, but it can be done on some vehicles usings manufacturer-specfic commands.
The physical supercharger is the same as any others, but the problem is that no one has been able to crack the Hitachi (I think) computer so the programming knows about a supercharger and doesn't compensate for it negatively.
RS-232 is a nice, simple, low-speed interconnect that has been around for 20+ years. There are about a bazillion RS-232 devices on this planet, so don't expect it to drop off the face of the earth any time soon.
If your vehicle is a 1996 newer it will be stored even if the battery is disconnected. These codes will then show up when you take your car in for emissions testing (if that applies in your state).
What information is being withheld that makes non-dealer repair impossible?
The issue is that ODBII is a pathetic subset of the real information avaible. In some cases it's useless (diagnosing climate controls, etc), in other cases it just a LOT less information than the dealer-specfic compter would provide.
Obviously not having it doesn't make non-dealer repair impossible, but it does make it a lot harder. If you knew nothing about cars you could just replace parts until you find the right thing but it this the right way to do it?
The point here is that independent shops are being put at a severe disadvantage by being provided only a minimal subset of the availible data.
It is not an invention, it is precise settings which have to be worked out over hours and hours of testing.
But it's not.
This is about ERROR CODES not ignition and fuel maps. This about being able to plug something into my car and have it tell me that there's a problem with XXXXX.
That doesn't say shit about the design of that part. They just want access to the same diagnostic codes as the dealer. Right now manufactuers are only required to make a tiny subset of these codes availible.
The automakers are just whining about their "intellectual property" because they think they can get away with it since the vast majority of the public doesn't know the difference between a diagnostic code, and the actual program code itself.
As someone who's part-way through the 100+ hour task of reverse engineering the computer in his '86 Mazda RX-7, I can say this truely is a great thing.
The are all kind of problems that are extremly difficult or impossible to diagnose and solve without the ability to REALLY talk to a car's computer.
I think most people don't realize just how much is coming under control of the car's computer these days. It used to be the computer just controlled the injectors, then it was spark. Now the computer might also control your ABS, traction control, regulator-less fuel system, electric power steering. In many modern cars (A 2000 Corvette would be an example) there isn't even a direct link between the throttle body and the gas pedal anymore. The gas pedal has a sensor and the TB has an actuator.
The government needs to junk ODBII and come up with a totally new approach. They allowed too many manufacturer-specfic exceptions, and made it require too much special hardware.
ODBII deliberately uses a nonstandard baud rate, to make it difficult to interface with a PC. The result of this is that an application (with cable) to read codes with your laptop will cost you $100+ instead of the $40 it should.
It's damn frustrating to have to buy a $160 computer to tell you that you car needs a $5 set of spark plugs. (It would have cost $70 just to get a shop to tell me the same thing).
A new interface should be designed that is a standard serial port, and allows for VERY few "undocumented" codes.
What's strange about this particular story, is the snopes.com article on it.
A number of reputable sources, who have obviously researched Steinmetz, seem to confirm this story as true, yet snopes does not. Perhaps snopes is wrong for once?
Were the purges in Russian fair? Depends what side you were on.
What a bunch of bullshit. OF COURSE THEY WEREN'T FAIR!
The problem here is that you're engaged in typical circle-jerk moral relativism arguments.
The problem with that is it relies on the ridiculous notion that the are no "absolutes", and thus we cannot judge anyone.
I'm an atheist/agnostic and even I'll tell you that's total B.S. The holocaust was wrong, genocide is wrong, murder is wrong, etc. Why?
People's basic human rights were violated.
Sure, there's no idiot-proof definition of "fair" but that doesn't mean the concepts of "fair and "unfair" are worthless. It just means you need to use your head a little bit.
Here's a question:
Is it fair for me to stab you in the leg?
Obviously no.
Now here's the really neat part....
THAT'S WHY IT'S ILLEGAL!
There's just something fundamentally wrong about me stabbing you in the leg for no reason.
You're going to get pissed off (assuming you have a functional nervous system) and we're going to have trouble getting along after that. You're going to think that I SHOULDN'T have done that, and if I have a decent conscience, so will I.
It's for the good of all society that we don't go around stabbing each other in the leg, this is why it's both morally wrong and illegal.
Cover Your Ass.
It strikes me that it's all he is really trying to accomplish. For himself, and his customers.
Except he's actually made the situation worse.
Even if one had no concern for the positive PR and the pile of cash this gives SCO, (And its resulting effect on the rest of linux users) one needs to consider the legal ramifications of what the have just done.
The have established a contract with SCO. One which gives SCO a basis to sue them later. (The IBM case is about contract, not copyright.)
They have (basically) accepted a license for Linux other than the GPL. This opens them up to lawsuits from Linux kernel developers.
The agreement with SCO (supposedly) has all sorts of nasty clauses which could leave them worse off than before.
They have established a precedent of caving under threats of frivolous lawsuits.
I find the last item to be extremely important because these are the people who would be (possibly) hosting your website. This means that it's quite likely I could threaten these guys with a baseless lawsuit about your webpage, and the would rip the sucker right down. What good is reliable hardware, when the people behind it cave under the slightest threat?
Ok, we'll go over it again boys and girls. It's the market, the Mini isn't there to compete with the iPod. The Mini is there to compete against your $200-300 1gig flash player.
Actually, it competes with devices like the Rio Nitrus and the Creative Muvo2. You should at least try to be correct when you're going to be condescending. You didn't think Apple was the only company with access to mini hard drives, did you?
You probably think Firewire is useless too.
It is. (In the context of an ipod.)
USB2.0 is much more ubiquitous, and can already support more speed than the drive in an ipod can handle. Plus, any computer with firewire typically has a USB port. Something like a microphone or an audio input would be much more useful. Nobody else includes firewire for a reason. Apple includes it because it's their pet technology and "firewire" just sounds so l33t.
Technologically it's like hooking up and AGP card to a 386.... it just doesn't make sense.
As far as general knowedge, I'd reccommend these two books:
Motorbooks Workshop: How to tune and modify engine management systems
and
How to understand service and modify bosch fuel injection and engine management
Send me a private message on the rx7club forums, if you have any more questions (I'm theloudroom there as well).
Remember The Days When... all you needed to start hacking was curiosity and desire?
It's funny how even the art of hacking has been commoditized these days.
My own advice, just do it.
What, before books?
You must be REALLY old. Hands down the oldest person on the planet.
Even "oldschool" hardware hackers read books. "Circuit Cellar", Forest Mims books from Radioshack, etc. I'm sure there are guys here who started out on even older stuff than that. They probably still have a box of vacuum tubes somewhere:)
they aren't cheap, but a MoTeC ECU will let you play with your injection maps to your little hearts content, along with pretty much everything else that you can electronically control in your engine (uhh...injection mapping, ignition...what else is there?). truly a hacker's dream toy.
Sure but then it's not hacking.
I'm in the process or reverse engineering the ECU on my 1986 Mazda RX-7 right now. I've recieved about a million responses like yours, about buying an off the shelf EMS. There are at several companies that make aftermarket ECU's for my car, but I'd rather hack the factory unit to do what I want.
I'll learn more this way, it will cost less money, and once the work is done once, it will be easy to duplicate 100 times for all those other RX-7 owners out there. People won't need to spend the blue book value of their car just to be able to properly adjust their car for their mods. I won't have to mess with the factory wiring or sensors, and I will retain 100% of the functionality of the stock system.
Is it that hard for GPL fanatics to understand that some people don't WANT protection against people using their code in proprierty projects?
The GPL does not stop you from using code in a proprietary project. It just states that if your are going to do so, you must make the GPL-derived portion of that project availible.
Is that so hard to understand?
BSD style license give freedom, but no security. GPL gives limited freedom, but great security. Wasn't it one of the founding fathers of the US who said "those who are willing to give up a liberty for security deserve neither"?
The GPL is about protecting freedom. It prevents companies like Microsoft from taking your code, making it incompatible, and cramming it back down your throat in closed-source form. (Read a little bit on the history of the web browser to see why this is a good idea.) The BSD liscense doesn't give a crap about "freedom" it says "here's this code, have fun".
Really, if you ask me, GPL is the problem here, since it wants all other licenses in the world to be GPL.
No, it doesn't which is why we have this story in the first place. There are plenty of other liscense out there that are "GPL compatible." The BSD license (modified version) would be an example of this. HERE is a list of them.
Sorry, but you didn't make clear at all why you wouldn't use desktops, one at work and one at home. You can always keep your work on an external FW/USB2 HD and take that to work. Unless you're working somewhere different all the time, or during your travelling, there seems to be little reason to carry your heavy laptop to and fro like you're doing.
That means I would need two whole computers! How in heck is that better than having 1 computer that's a little more expensive?
My company would also need to buy liscences for two machines instead of one. Two PCs would need to be maintained instead of one, etc, etc.
Re:Seriously... what's the point?
on
Dell's Gaming Monster
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I'd love one.
I'm an electrical engineer, and need to do some pretty resource intensive simulatons. I also work with 11x17 sized drawings.
Currently I have a laptop, but the performance is somewhat lacking. Even so, there's no way I'd give it up and switch to a desktop.
At the end of the day, I hit a button, pull a lever and take all my work home. This morning, I spent the first four hours working at home via the company's VPN.
With my laptop and a VPN connection, putting in a 60 hour week on a critical project no longer means that I have to spend 60 away from home.
I couldn't give a rats ass about the weight or battery life of my laptop. I use it on my desk at home and my desk at work.
If someone was willing to double the width and weight of my laptop in excange for twice the sceen area and processing power, I'd go for it in a heartbeat.
And as for price, it's not that big of a deal when you consider the cost of my time waiting for a simulation to finish or the price of the software that I actually run on the laptop.
When my laptop is obsolete, they can pass it on to someone in finance, shipping, or wherever.
Right now, I'm looking at an HP ZD7000 series "notebook." Sure they're huge, but that mean they actually have a decent sized keyboard, and a nice big display. As long as I can carry it with one hand, it's portable enough for me.
I see going from hydrogen to alcohol as being much more useful in the future than the reverse.
Here's my grand vision of the future:
Almost all power is produced a fusion power plants (we're already around 50% efficiency with these things, if only we'd seriously support the research.)
This energy is then used in two ways:
Electrical energy a la standard nuclear power plants.
Chemical energy via the electrical seperation of hydrogen and oxygen from water.
Applications which require high energy densisties (like vehicles) are more suited to using to chemical energy storage.
The trouble is transporting all that hydrogen to the vehicles. It's very had to do, because hydrogen atoms are so small.
Converting this hydrogen to alcohol would allow it to be transported much easier, and burnt directly in vehicles. (It might even be possible to retrofit old vehicles to do so.)
Both really poor and really poorly designed.
The GOOD low-res FPS games always did something to work around their poor graphics.
Ever play Wolfenstein?
Remember how BIG the guns and clips were?
Goldeneye on the other hand make your typical handgun quite small. Split the TV up into 4 sections for multiplayer mode, start running around trying not to get shot and you're not going to find that gun unless you already know where it is.
P.S. I know my above post was a generalization. There are other reasons why a person might not register, but the exists a group of slashdotters who belive that registartion should not be required to view the content.
While some might not register out of laziness, they will always be this group of "reg free" link posters whould believe that the system should be circumvented.
Slashdot Mirror
What car is this? I've never heard of OBD-II allowing people to change ECU parameters, besides clearing any existing trouble codes. Besides that, I haven't heard of OBD-II software that includes a feature for setting ECU values.
There's no way to reprogram the ECU via the standard ODBII command set, but it can be done on some vehicles usings manufacturer-specfic commands.
The physical supercharger is the same as any others, but the problem is that no one has been able to crack the Hitachi (I think) computer so the programming knows about a supercharger and doesn't compensate for it negatively.
For what car?
RS-232? USB? How long until USB is obsolete?
RS-232 is obviously what I was referring to.
RS-232 is a nice, simple, low-speed interconnect that has been around for 20+ years. There are about a bazillion RS-232 devices on this planet, so don't expect it to drop off the face of the earth any time soon.
If your vehicle is a 1996 newer it will be stored even if the battery is disconnected. These codes will then show up when you take your car in for emissions testing (if that applies in your state).
What information is being withheld that makes non-dealer repair impossible?
The issue is that ODBII is a pathetic subset of the real information avaible. In some cases it's useless (diagnosing climate controls, etc), in other cases it just a LOT less information than the dealer-specfic compter would provide.
Obviously not having it doesn't make non-dealer repair impossible, but it does make it a lot harder. If you knew nothing about cars you could just replace parts until you find the right thing but it this the right way to do it?
The point here is that independent shops are being put at a severe disadvantage by being provided only a minimal subset of the availible data.
Or you can just disconnect the battery for minute, but you lose your radio station presets.
This does not work on modern vehicles. Error codes are stored in memory until cleared by someone hooking up the right computer.
It is not an invention, it is precise settings which have to be worked out over hours and hours of testing.
But it's not.
This is about ERROR CODES not ignition and fuel maps. This about being able to plug something into my car and have it tell me that there's a problem with XXXXX.
That doesn't say shit about the design of that part. They just want access to the same diagnostic codes as the dealer. Right now manufactuers are only required to make a tiny subset of these codes availible.
The automakers are just whining about their "intellectual property" because they think they can get away with it since the vast majority of the public doesn't know the difference between a diagnostic code, and the actual program code itself.
As someone who's part-way through the 100+ hour task of reverse engineering the computer in his '86 Mazda RX-7, I can say this truely is a great thing.
The are all kind of problems that are extremly difficult or impossible to diagnose and solve without the ability to REALLY talk to a car's computer.
I think most people don't realize just how much is coming under control of the car's computer these days. It used to be the computer just controlled the injectors, then it was spark. Now the computer might also control your ABS, traction control, regulator-less fuel system, electric power steering. In many modern cars (A 2000 Corvette would be an example) there isn't even a direct link between the throttle body and the gas pedal anymore. The gas pedal has a sensor and the TB has an actuator.
The government needs to junk ODBII and come up with a totally new approach. They allowed too many manufacturer-specfic exceptions, and made it require too much special hardware.
ODBII deliberately uses a nonstandard baud rate, to make it difficult to interface with a PC. The result of this is that an application (with cable) to read codes with your laptop will cost you $100+ instead of the $40 it should.
It's damn frustrating to have to buy a $160 computer to tell you that you car needs a $5 set of spark plugs. (It would have cost $70 just to get a shop to tell me the same thing).
A new interface should be designed that is a standard serial port, and allows for VERY few "undocumented" codes.
Here's a better link.
What's strange about this particular story, is the snopes.com article on it.
A number of reputable sources, who have obviously researched Steinmetz, seem to confirm this story as true, yet snopes does not. Perhaps snopes is wrong for once?
That story is actually true, and is about an electrical generator (I think). It was a sidenote in one of my textbooks in college.
Ah! Here it is: This is a true story about Charles P. Steinmetz, an EE who worked at General Electric.
Were the purges in Russian fair? Depends what side you were on.
What a bunch of bullshit. OF COURSE THEY WEREN'T FAIR!
The problem here is that you're engaged in typical circle-jerk moral relativism arguments.
The problem with that is it relies on the ridiculous notion that the are no "absolutes", and thus we cannot judge anyone.
I'm an atheist/agnostic and even I'll tell you that's total B.S. The holocaust was wrong, genocide is wrong, murder is wrong, etc. Why?
People's basic human rights were violated.
Sure, there's no idiot-proof definition of "fair" but that doesn't mean the concepts of "fair and "unfair" are worthless. It just means you need to use your head a little bit.
Here's a question:
Is it fair for me to stab you in the leg?
Obviously no.
Now here's the really neat part....
THAT'S WHY IT'S ILLEGAL!
There's just something fundamentally wrong about me stabbing you in the leg for no reason.
You're going to get pissed off (assuming you have a functional nervous system) and we're going to have trouble getting along after that. You're going to think that I SHOULDN'T have done that, and if I have a decent conscience, so will I.
It's for the good of all society that we don't go around stabbing each other in the leg, this is why it's both morally wrong and illegal.
Is it allowed to call itself a "computer"?
Yes.
One can even build a "computer" out of tinker toys if so inclined. It wouldn't have the specs you're used to, but it's still a computer.
Except he's actually made the situation worse.
Even if one had no concern for the positive PR and the pile of cash this gives SCO, (And its resulting effect on the rest of linux users) one needs to consider the legal ramifications of what the have just done.
I find the last item to be extremely important because these are the people who would be (possibly) hosting your website. This means that it's quite likely I could threaten these guys with a baseless lawsuit about your webpage, and the would rip the sucker right down. What good is reliable hardware, when the people behind it cave under the slightest threat?
Ok, we'll go over it again boys and girls. It's the market, the Mini isn't there to compete with the iPod. The Mini is there to compete against your $200-300 1gig flash player.
Actually, it competes with devices like the Rio Nitrus and the Creative Muvo2. You should at least try to be correct when you're going to be condescending. You didn't think Apple was the only company with access to mini hard drives, did you?
You probably think Firewire is useless too.
It is. (In the context of an ipod.)
USB2.0 is much more ubiquitous, and can already support more speed than the drive in an ipod can handle. Plus, any computer with firewire typically has a USB port. Something like a microphone or an audio input would be much more useful. Nobody else includes firewire for a reason. Apple includes it because it's their pet technology and "firewire" just sounds so l33t.
Technologically it's like hooking up and AGP card to a 386.... it just doesn't make sense.
Do you have a webpage for your project?
There have been some pretty cool things done with DSM ECUs.
A good place to get started for FD's would be to ask around on the rx7club.com and nopistons.com forums.
I know of an FD ECU project that someone started, but they haven't posted any progress in a while.
Here's a link to it.
(You'll probably have to register on the forums to be able to view the link.)
Here's another link
As far as general knowedge, I'd reccommend these two books:
Motorbooks Workshop: How to tune and modify engine management systems
and
How to understand service and modify bosch fuel injection and engine management
Send me a private message on the rx7club forums, if you have any more questions (I'm theloudroom there as well).
Remember The Days When... all you needed to start hacking was curiosity and desire? It's funny how even the art of hacking has been commoditized these days. My own advice, just do it.
:)
What, before books?
You must be REALLY old. Hands down the oldest person on the planet.
Even "oldschool" hardware hackers read books. "Circuit Cellar", Forest Mims books from Radioshack, etc. I'm sure there are guys here who started out on even older stuff than that. They probably still have a box of vacuum tubes somewhere
they aren't cheap, but a MoTeC ECU will let you play with your injection maps to your little hearts content, along with pretty much everything else that you can electronically control in your engine (uhh...injection mapping, ignition...what else is there?). truly a hacker's dream toy.
Sure but then it's not hacking.
I'm in the process or reverse engineering the ECU on my 1986 Mazda RX-7 right now. I've recieved about a million responses like yours, about buying an off the shelf EMS. There are at several companies that make aftermarket ECU's for my car, but I'd rather hack the factory unit to do what I want.
I'll learn more this way, it will cost less money, and once the work is done once, it will be easy to duplicate 100 times for all those other RX-7 owners out there. People won't need to spend the blue book value of their car just to be able to properly adjust their car for their mods. I won't have to mess with the factory wiring or sensors, and I will retain 100% of the functionality of the stock system.
Here's a link for anyone interested.
Is it that hard for GPL fanatics to understand that some people don't WANT protection against people using their code in proprierty projects?
The GPL does not stop you from using code in a proprietary project. It just states that if your are going to do so, you must make the GPL-derived portion of that project availible.
Is that so hard to understand?
BSD style license give freedom, but no security. GPL gives limited freedom, but great security. Wasn't it one of the founding fathers of the US who said "those who are willing to give up a liberty for security deserve neither"?
The GPL is about protecting freedom. It prevents companies like Microsoft from taking your code, making it incompatible, and cramming it back down your throat in closed-source form. (Read a little bit on the history of the web browser to see why this is a good idea.) The BSD liscense doesn't give a crap about "freedom" it says "here's this code, have fun".
Really, if you ask me, GPL is the problem here, since it wants all other licenses in the world to be GPL.
No, it doesn't which is why we have this story in the first place. There are plenty of other liscense out there that are "GPL compatible." The BSD license (modified version) would be an example of this. HERE is a list of them.
You could get two whole computers with better specs than your notebook, for less money than your notebook.
Not when you consider the cost of two licenses for software.
Sorry, but you didn't make clear at all why you wouldn't use desktops, one at work and one at home. You can always keep your work on an external FW/USB2 HD and take that to work. Unless you're working somewhere different all the time, or during your travelling, there seems to be little reason to carry your heavy laptop to and fro like you're doing.
That means I would need two whole computers! How in heck is that better than having 1 computer that's a little more expensive?
My company would also need to buy liscences for two machines instead of one. Two PCs would need to be maintained instead of one, etc, etc.
I'd love one.
I'm an electrical engineer, and need to do some pretty resource intensive simulatons. I also work with 11x17 sized drawings.
Currently I have a laptop, but the performance is somewhat lacking. Even so, there's no way I'd give it up and switch to a desktop.
At the end of the day, I hit a button, pull a lever and take all my work home. This morning, I spent the first four hours working at home via the company's VPN.
With my laptop and a VPN connection, putting in a 60 hour week on a critical project no longer means that I have to spend 60 away from home.
I couldn't give a rats ass about the weight or battery life of my laptop. I use it on my desk at home and my desk at work.
If someone was willing to double the width and weight of my laptop in excange for twice the sceen area and processing power, I'd go for it in a heartbeat.
And as for price, it's not that big of a deal when you consider the cost of my time waiting for a simulation to finish or the price of the software that I actually run on the laptop.
When my laptop is obsolete, they can pass it on to someone in finance, shipping, or wherever.
Right now, I'm looking at an HP ZD7000 series "notebook." Sure they're huge, but that mean they actually have a decent sized keyboard, and a nice big display. As long as I can carry it with one hand, it's portable enough for me.
I see going from hydrogen to alcohol as being much more useful in the future than the reverse.
Here's my grand vision of the future:
Granted, the graphics are poor by PC standards.
Both really poor and really poorly designed.
The GOOD low-res FPS games always did something to work around their poor graphics.
Ever play Wolfenstein?
Remember how BIG the guns and clips were?
Goldeneye on the other hand make your typical handgun quite small. Split the TV up into 4 sections for multiplayer mode, start running around trying not to get shot and you're not going to find that gun unless you already know where it is.
IMO, Goldeneye was poorly done.
P.S. I know my above post was a generalization. There are other reasons why a person might not register, but the exists a group of slashdotters who belive that registartion should not be required to view the content.
While some might not register out of laziness, they will always be this group of "reg free" link posters whould believe that the system should be circumvented.