> > On Thursday, June 20, 2002, at 03:34 AM, David Brown wrote: > > > I understood that the jtag interface specification was available, but > > only > > under an NDA. Is that correct? Or if not, have you any idea about > > when you > > might be expecting to get the information? Would it help to do some > > lobbying (our ti distributers here in Norway are very good at passing > > complaints and requests up through the chain of command)? > > Lobbying may not be necessary - they're going to release the programming > side of the JTAG interface, and an appnote is already in the works for > this. I'm not sure about the debug side though. There is some doco for > this but it's not very good. NDA isn't the problem; it's that the > documents don't exist in a publically digestible form. I've got some of > the internal docs and they're pretty tough to follow, and downright > wrong in some places, and since I'm not in Freising and I don't work > with the MSP guys, I don't have ready access to the authors. It's the > job of the guys in Dallas to talk to them and make good documentation > for this stuff, and they _are_ working on it. > > Dallas has indicated that their main concern is support. They don't > really have time (unfortunately) to answer a bunch of questions from > people who are trying to use the programming / debug interface and can't > get it to work, but they don't want to turn people away either - but I > think they will release the stuff anyway, it just takes time to write > decent, accurate documentation. I should know, I'm an apps engineer > myself :) >
Yes, I understand the problem - which is why manufacturers often require an NDA. It's not so much that they don't want to give out the information, but that they don't want the questions. Another issue is that once you've given out all the information, it makes it very difficult to change things later. In a way, it is probably better that the docs are tough to follow, but they do have to be accurate. Then those few determined people can work through them as necessary, while detering the more casual readers. That way TI only get questions from a few people, all of whom know what they are talking about. mvh. David
