Live data from Hacker News

I like the RP2040

dgroshev.com

1–10 of 413 posts

Re: I like the RP2040

#4
> The RP2040 is impossible to brick. It comes with a read-only bootloader that can either mount as a USB mass storage device (firmware updates can just be copypasted to the "storage device"), or use its own simple USB protocol.

Can anyone explain what this means? How is it both read-only and updateable? If the latter, how is it unbrickable?

Re: I like the RP2040

#8
post #4

> The RP2040 is impossible to brick. It comes with a read-only bootloader that can either mount as a USB mass storage device (firmware updates can just be copypasted to the "storage device"), or use its own simple USB protocol. Can anyone explain what this means? How is it both read-only and updateable? If the latter, how is it unbrickable?

The bootloader is read-only. What the bootloader loads isn't. If the thing you're trying to boot into is faulty, it doesn't matter because you can just replace the thing the bootloader is trying to load.

If the bootloader itself was faulty, the device would be bricked.

Re: I like the RP2040

#9
post #4

> The RP2040 is impossible to brick. It comes with a read-only bootloader that can either mount as a USB mass storage device (firmware updates can just be copypasted to the "storage device"), or use its own simple USB protocol. Can anyone explain what this means? How is it both read-only and updateable? If the latter, how is it unbrickable?

He's saying that the bootloader is in ROM so it's unbrickable, but the application code that the bootloader jumps into can be updated over USB. Most mid-range and higher microcontrollers have a similar feature, but they almost always have a custom protocol that requires a specialized flashing program rather than showing up as a mass storage device.

Re: I like the RP2040

#10
post #3

The lack of security features really limits where this can be used in commercial designs.

Can you explain how? Genuinely curious. The author only refers to "security theater" which seems to be when a product or system around a product makes people feel like they're safer, when actually it's not making anything more safer or more secure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater

Post reply on HN