As I understood (https://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?...2&postcount=89), the flasher didn't succeed to connect to the device, so having a firmware to flash would not yet be enough.

I wonder how much of the flasher/bootloader is tied specifically to ARM ?

Here, we have an Intel x86 device, not an ARM based one like all previous Nokia (If I am not mistaken).
The flasher program is really low level - at least from what I remember when using it for Symbian, where we could flash a dead device through USB. That means, there is a bootloader of some sort in the device, separate form the OS. What I don't know is if this bootloader is part of the chip (like DfuSe in STM32 devices, which would then likely be different/incompatible when switching to x86), or if it is simply a part of firmware (like U-boot or Grub) which could then have been implemented in a compatible way in a x86 device ?

Is there any master who would knows more on this ?

Asking the real questions here. And yes, you're right about it not being seen by the flasher utility.

There are some quite fundamental things yet unclear with the prototypes presented here.

The deciding question is what is the hardware platform, is it intel or arm? That has not fully been cleared yet, as I think the SOC's are under a welded shielding cage as @dirkvl noted. Hence it would need a bit of meddling to actually eyeball the chips.

Something could be deduced from the boot display, as I think the devices (or one/some of them?) are in a mode that shows up the startup messages on screen. It scrolls probably too fast for human reading so it is advisable to make a video recording of the bootup messages.

However, the OS by itself doesn't necessarily tell anything about the intended HW platform since it is fairly common to run first development releases on an existing platforms when the "Real HW" is not yet made in sufficent quantities so that all involved R&D people would have their own development environment.
Hence, it is possible that the HW platform is arm but the OS in the device is Ilmatar.
(This is a very common R&D pattern in Nokia, and I believe also in other design houses.)

As for the flasher; I believe that the base protocol between the flasher and NOLO is most probably same whether the HW platform is arm or intel; it is designed to be fairly insensitive for the underlying architecture.
Flasher has two different modes; an inquiry/setting mode where device operation parameters can be read and tweaked and the actual flashing mode which is implemented by separate extension for each device model.

In the flashing mode the flasher utility reads a specific part from the image file called "APE Algorithm" which is a self-contained rescue-OS image which is sent to device and which therein performs the actual device-dependent actions of the flashing.
This way it doesn't make any difference what HW platform is under flashing.
The trick here is now to find a good image file to be flashed to the device. (pro tip; you won't find one )

Maybe there is some sw expert that can do these investigations better than me?

Hmm, no screws? Now I wonder if the case damage comes from it being prised open.

What about the I²C errors that are specific to the Moorestown/Medfield I²C chip (as shown in the patch in the mailing list linked to by Dirk)? There are the other pointers such as "medfield_wifi_power" in the local mode photo and "MEDFIELD" in Dirk's Windows device manager screenshot. Perhaps n950 could tell us what his photo of the Intel logo actually is (the battery icon makes me wonder if it is a boot screen). I'm not saying you're wrong, but so far I've seen no indication that the hardware platform might be ARM.

It's the startup LOGO when device is in charge just before local mode logs.

Yes, I have to admit I missed those. That evidence indeed suggests it is an Intel based device.

Hello everybody,

Dirk can't progress with the devices he is busy.
I wait he try to boot 2 others devices.

I would like two things:

- 3 batteries fitted inside and connected to the device.
- 3 3D printed rear covers for 3 deviced.

If anybody can do this work let me know here and Dirk can send to you the 3 devices.

I'm student of university of telecommmunications here in Russia. We have IoT labaratory founded by Intel and we were working w/ Medfield platform. We can take a look for some hardware and software, if it's needed.

Hi,
If you have my 3 devices what you will do?
Please activate your email or PM.