Bootloader for 3.6

[droidguy]

Hi,

Got my 3.6 yesterday and was looking at https://github.com/PaulStoffregen but could not find bootloader source for the board. Can someone point me in the right direction ?

Cheers

 

[MichaelMeissner]

The bootloader source is not open source. It is pre-flashed on to the accessory chip MKL02 or MKL04 that runs before the main processor. If you wanted to make your own Teensy from raw chips, you can order the MKL02/MKL04 from PJRC: http://www.pjrc.com/store/ic_mkl02.html.

The MKL04 and MKL02 chips are functionally identical. The only difference is size. MKL02 is a tiny 3x3 mm QFN with 0.5 mm pitch pins, useful for designing the smallest possible board. MKL04 is a larger 7x7 mm TQFP part with 0.8 mm pitch pins, useful for prototyping with manual or hot plate soldering.

 

[droidguy]

The bootloader source is not open source. It is pre-flashed on to the accessory chip MKL02 or MKL04 that runs before the main processor. If you wanted to make your own Teensy from raw chips, you can order the MKL02/MKL04 from PJRC: http://www.pjrc.com/store/ic_mkl02.html.

Is this proprietary to Freescale or pjrc ? can't remember on top of my head but I believe this was not specified in the Kickstarter page ?

 

[Frank B]

Is this proprietary to Freescale or pjrc ? can't remember on top of my head but I believe this was not specified in the Kickstarter page ?

Why do you need it ? What do you want to do ?

 

[JBeale]

There are some hardware projects on Kickstarter which are entirely open-source. Some people may assume that's true for any Arduino-alike (?) The Teensy series of boards have been around for quite a few years now, but AFAIK none of the Teensy booloaders have ever been open-source. The user code and libraries are, as you can see on github, and IMHO Paul is one of the most productive contributors to the open Arduino ecosystem, as well as having an excellent series of non-open boards which make up the Teensy family.

 

[droidguy]

but AFAIK none of the Teensy booloaders have ever been open-source.

Thanks for the info didn't know about this. Would be good if this was inform in the first place as not everyone is aware of this. Having more information about the board in complete will be good to general public especially for someone new in Teensy world.

Paul is one of the most productive contributors to the open Arduino ecosystem, as well as having an excellent series of non-open boards which make up the Teensy family.

Good to know about that. But the question is not about Paul it's about the board and the software so let's keep the discussion on that topic and not move to a different direction.

 

[Frank B]

can't remember on top of my head but I believe this was not specified in the Kickstarter page ?

Exactly, it was not specified. So why did you expect it to be open source ?

You did not tell us why do you need the sourcecode ?
This discussion makes no sense without knowing this..

Maybe there is a way to help you?

 

[Pazi]

Thanks for the info didn't know about this. Would be good if this was inform in the first place as not everyone is aware of this. Having more information about the board in complete will be good to general public especially for someone new in Teensy world.

There was no claim anywhere in that Kickstarter page, that this would be an open source project. "Arduino" is mentioned, but there is no law that everything related to Arduino should be completely open source.

AFAIK, the bootloader and the physical board design aren't open source, but everything else is. So for a typical Arduino like board user, it shoudn't matter.

 

[GremlinWrangler]

I guess this goes back to what you were looking for the source for?

If you were trying to get information on how it works and finding it somewhat scattered and disorganised then welcome to the church of 'Teensy needs a wiki'

If you were trying to work out how to use your new board, then no you don't need the bootloader since it's already there on the separate CPU and Teensy shouldn't be able to brick itself like a classic Arduino can that starts writing to it's own flash and needs a new bootloader to fix it.

If you were pulling down all the parts needed to build teensyduino yourself then again you don't need the bootloader, so your github clone has all the parts you need to use the boards you have for as long as you can maintain a build environment for them.

If you were looking at a Teensy based product and wanted to avoid risk if PJRC disappears then yes there is theoritical potential for this to happen and looking elsewhere may be the right choice if this will hurt enough, though there is an established path from Teensy prototype to stand alone boards that are your 100% your own.

If you wanted to be able to get your own code onto a Teensy board by other means (OTA) by hacking the booatloader there are a number of ways to that end, none of them wonderful because they have to defeat the brick proofing on the Teensy first and again it's legitimate to look at other options for reaching where you want to be.

If it's more about the ethics of open source and Teensy then there have been lots of threads on the topic and this can become another one.