"parallel port interface cable"

[Mike Wesley]

I think
> that some of us who have posted up copies of chip maker's bins for
> discussion is a questionable/acceptable area and is just part of the fact
> that this small group enjoys the challenge to discuss, debate and improve or
> maybe sell their efforts to a few friends, and this is not enough to compete
> with the national advertisement aftermarket chip tuners have and the
> exposesure it brings them.

This brings up a good point. It is illegal to distribute copies of chips
(.bin or .hex) that contain a program from an GM ECU. It's illegal to
sell them also.
Is GM going to do anything about it? Probably not..they would have done
so by now. When I 1st started selling Ford chips, Ford took me to
federal court. Not fun but both Ford and I learned a few things. Oh,
they lost BTW. They still from time to time poke thier head in and tell
me I better watch what I'm doing. Scary stuff.


> This is truly a gray area at times and we
> should all just bare with it the best we can.  By the way, I own a legal
> copy of Diacom Plus and have paid for upgrades along the way and do enjoy
> this fine product (though they have made little improvements to it other
> than to access more cars each year), how bout someone bust the software and
> sell upgrades and improvements/corrections for it that is has needed for
> years, I know I have found flaws that were not resolved by Rinda? (now I
> started something ;-}.  Enjoy your ride.
> 

I also have a Diacom setup and don't really care for it (better to grab
data right from the bus). I could legally reverse engineer the software
and the cable and there's not much Rinda could do about it. Even if
Rinda had 'secret codes' in the code that were only used by the Diacom
software and were the key to getting the whole thing to work, you could
put those into a 'hack' version and Rinda still couldn't do anything
about it (Sega v. Accolade).
I looked at the communication between the Diacom and a ECU...nothing
special. Somebody with some time (which I don't have) should be able to
make a 'hack' version.


I hate/love copyright violation laws. On one side, I write software and
make hardware to calibrate ECU's in realtime. It pisses me off to no end
when somebody hacks my stuff to make something else. But on the other
hand, I make my living by reverse engineering other people's stuff (OEM
ECU's) which is protected by law. Damn double edged sword.

Mike....