If somebody makes a tool, another person will need to break it open and run their very own software program on it. When the unique producer is Apple that is by no means made simple, and as [Daniel Stenberg] reminds us within the case of one of many earlier iPod fashions it required an uncommon strategy.
Briefly, an HTML file was discovered which triggered a reboot, which means a buffer overrun had been discovered within the firmware. After a lot experimenting, the reminiscence location was discovered which might flash the backlight, and from there a bit of ARM code may very well be injected which might dump the firmware very slowly bitwise by flashing the sunshine. Sufficient code may very well be extracted to search out the handle of the USB serial port, permitting new code to be made which dumped the firmware by way of USB. We bear in mind the earliest fashions utilizing FireWire as an alternative of USB, so maybe we will zero in on the third or 4th era. From there sufficient may very well be deduced to run the Rockbox music participant firmware. We bear in mind seeing mates doing this again within the day, one thing which was for some time the peak of open-source coolness.
Quick ahead twenty years or so, and we’re nonetheless protecting folks chipping away at Apple’s defenses. We don’t know whether or not a first-generation iPod might run Doomhowever we all know Rockbox was able to it on different gamers.
