About this driver
=================

This driver allows you to upload / download and delete pictures from
appotech ax203 and ax206 based picture frames. This are small, cheap
picture frames with a 1.1, 1.5, 1.8, 2.4 or 3.5 inch display and an USB id of:
1908:0102
1908:1315
1908:1320
1908:3335

ax203 based frames present themselves as a usb mass storage cdrom, which
contains the windows software. Communication with the device happens by
issuing special (custom) scsi commands. This driver uses the special
"usbscsi" port driver, which allows sending the custom scsi commands.

Note that if your ax203 frame has a usb-id of 1908:1315, you need to tell
Linux not to touch the HID device this version also presents in its USB
descriptor, otherwise the frame gets confused and resets.
Here is a kernel patch for this:
http://marc.info/?l=linux-usb&m=126985692106903

Alternative one could add the following on the linux kernel cmdline:
usbhid.quirks=0x1908:0x1315:0x4
But that does not help as it triggers this bug:
http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-input/msg07870.html

Also if you have a 1908:1315 or 1908:1320 frame, these will work better
(faster, no reset errors in dmesg), if you do the following as root, before
plugging them in:
modprobe usb-storage
echo 1908:1315:b,1908:1320:b > /sys/module/usb_storage/parameters/quirks

A patch for this is on its way upstream (7th april 2010).


About the ax203 access protocol
===============================

The scsi commands for these devices was reverse engineered by several people,
the ax203 camlib builds on top of their work, see:
http://picframe.spritesserver.nl/wiki/index.php/Talk:HK_Unbranded_with_AppoTech_chipset

The protocol consists of directly sending SPI commands to and from the SPI
flash inside these devices, giving very raw access to the flash chip
For example you need to do separate erase and program commands, and
as an erase block is larger then what you program in a single program command
you must make sure to always reprogram the entire range the single erase
command cleared (and read the entire range before clearing, so you can write
it back).

In order to be sure we are sending the right commands the ax203 driver starts
by reading the SPI flash's ID string, and if this is unknown it refuses to
work. In this case please do "gphoto2 -L --debug 2> log" and mail me
the log file.


About the ax203 image compression
==================================

The ax203 family of picframe controllers actually comes with 4 different
flavors of compression, see README.ax203-compression.


Random ax203 notes
==================

Firmware versions 3.3.x and 3.4.x frames have a 2nd Parameter block at
ABFS start + 0x1000, about which the following is known:
bytes 4-5: 16 bit rgb 5-6-5 color value for menu background, big endian
bytes 6-7: 16 bit rgb 5-6-5 color value for menu text, big endian
byte 0xffe: 0x55  this byte and the next one are a magic marker to
byte 0xfff: 0xaa  indicate the parameter block is valid

ax3003 based frames contain 2 blocks with images, 1 with the images to be shown
and one with images used inside the menus. The memory map for my ax3003 frame
looks like this:
 407cc		Menu images file table, 2 bytes per file 16 bit big endian
		start address / 256.
 70000		bootsplash
 79000		No pictures picture
 7f400		Pinguin picture, use unknown
 86900		Sync with PC picture
 8d200		?? Not JPEG data
 99200		Clock hands
 a4600		Font + strings + clock hands for calendar display (English)
 b0400		Font for digital clock
 b7000		Font + strings + clock hands for calendar display (German)
 c5000		Font + strings + clock hands for calendar display (French)
 d2f00		Setup screen (English)
 db300		Setup screen scrolled (English)
 e3500		Setup screen (French)
 eda00		Setup screen scrolled (French)
 f5f00		Setup screen (German)
 ff200		Setup screen scrolled (German)
107a00		Setup screen bars
10cb00		Calendar screen (English)
114100		Clock screen
11b800		Calendar screen (French)
124900		Calendar screen (German)
12d500		Wav file
12e400		Wav file
12ed00		Wav file
136f00		Wav file
14e700		ISO start
180000		ABFS
181000		Picture start
1f0000		Picture end, boot loader ?
1f8020		Something
1f9000		Unused
As you can see the jpeg data for the menu screens is rather large this is
because it contains a ton of JPEG metadata from photoshop, if this were
to be removed, a lot more of the memory could be used to actually store
pictures.


Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
3 May 2010
