Retro Tablet Preloader and Recovery Console -- 2
Budget: $250 – $750 USD
****** A number of people have signed on to attempt this project, with a complete and total lack of success.
This project requires specialized knowledge and tools that the average programmer doesn't have. This is not a project you can just attack using AI tools and expect to complete. If you don't know how to do this, please don't waste both of our time.
I'm already well aware of what a project like this is worth, if your bid is reasonable and you're 100% sure you can complete the project, then this will be an easy job, but I'm not going to entertain unreasonable bids at all, and placeholder bids where you try to jack the price up later will not work either. *******
I am looking to hire someone to solve some software issues for me. I thought I could do it myself, but ultimately this project has proved to be much more difficult than I anticipated. The reasons for this primarily are that I didn't know as much regarding low level Android stuff as I thought I did. I have had several talented people work on this job already, and they have failed at it, as it has proven to be a specialty niche of knowledge. Basically if you could not write a MediaTek preloader from scratch, you probably cannot perform this job and hit the milestones.
This mostly (though not totally) has to do with some specific MediaTek issues for secure boot and the preloader. My not being able to find the source code or information for this, combined with my lack of experience this early in the boot sequence of MediaTek devices has me held up. Ultimately if I had that, I could probably work through it eventually, but as it is I would really just rather hire somebody to take care of it so it is done right.
The root origin of this project is because I really like retro devices, kind of like taking an old Atari 2600 and put a raspberry Pi compute module 5 in it and playing retro games on it. So my most recent project is along that line.
This tablet originally had 2 GB of PCDDR3 RAM and 32 GB of eMMC storage, which is running at 32 bits. This is a pretty underwhelming tablet, but it's got a nice screen and unless you're trying to do a whole lot on it actually runs pretty well.
I'm mostly a hardware guy so the first thing I did was promptly upgrade the eMMC to 256 GB, and increase the RAM from 2 GB to 4 GB (the extra 2gb of RAM not being recognized because the initialization is hard coded in the device, although it still runs fine recognizing 2gb of the 4gb of RAM). I also replaced the stock SoC (which had several blown e-fuses related to secure boot) with a faster version of the same SoC, which is bone stock with no blown fuses.
What I didn't know was that the software that comes with this device is a bastardized version of Android 8.1 and it just sucks. For me, rooting the tablet wasn't all that difficult, so it works just not as well as it could, but fixing the boot loaders and such has proven to be beyond my ability. The possibility of using bootloaders or a preloader from another device seems remote since this device uses DDR3L (PCDDR3) rather than the more common LPDDR3 most devices of this class use, so substitute preloaders simply fail at the RAM initialization process. (Although there are several devices that have virtually identical hardware on the market with firmware available).
This is a nice little tablet I just want it to have better performance. I decrypted the user partition and saw a huge increase in performance. Overall I would like to take all of the encryption, secure boot, anything like that off of this version of Android, and if possible create a TWRP style recovery. Not only does it not need to be secure, I don't want it secure, I wanted as open and easy to operate as possible with lots of flash and recovery options.
So, what I would like are two things.
1.) Preloader, bootloader's, and LK, LK2 for the Android 8.1 software I have. (These must allow the tablet to boot properly, and recognize all 4 gigabytes of RAM that are installed, and have the secure Boot and encryption removed from the boot process.)
2.) New recovery console (TWRP or Orange Fox style if possible) that has more options than the reboot and power off that is in the current recovery console.
I don't have any problem paying someone for their time, provided they can succeed at the task, and their price is reasonable.
I just want it done right, and doing it right has proven to be beyond my own abilities. The hardware is right, I just need the software done. I can flash any software you provided and give you TTL boot logs provided it gets far enough in the boot sequence for the UART to provide anything useful. I can also provide hardware profiles and copies of the present working (secure boot) software images. I could also provide you with an actual device but that seems unnecessary since I can flash and test rather quickly.
Please message me and let me know if you'd like to attempt this project.
(Please take note that after this is done it's my intention to hire a developer to develop a 64-bit version of Android 9 or higher for this specific tablet. It's not included in this job because it will take longer, but it is a job that I intend to hire somebody to do after this job is finished.)
This project requires specialized knowledge and tools that the average programmer doesn't have. This is not a project you can just attack using AI tools and expect to complete. If you don't know how to do this, please don't waste both of our time.
I'm already well aware of what a project like this is worth, if your bid is reasonable and you're 100% sure you can complete the project, then this will be an easy job, but I'm not going to entertain unreasonable bids at all, and placeholder bids where you try to jack the price up later will not work either. *******
I am looking to hire someone to solve some software issues for me. I thought I could do it myself, but ultimately this project has proved to be much more difficult than I anticipated. The reasons for this primarily are that I didn't know as much regarding low level Android stuff as I thought I did. I have had several talented people work on this job already, and they have failed at it, as it has proven to be a specialty niche of knowledge. Basically if you could not write a MediaTek preloader from scratch, you probably cannot perform this job and hit the milestones.
This mostly (though not totally) has to do with some specific MediaTek issues for secure boot and the preloader. My not being able to find the source code or information for this, combined with my lack of experience this early in the boot sequence of MediaTek devices has me held up. Ultimately if I had that, I could probably work through it eventually, but as it is I would really just rather hire somebody to take care of it so it is done right.
The root origin of this project is because I really like retro devices, kind of like taking an old Atari 2600 and put a raspberry Pi compute module 5 in it and playing retro games on it. So my most recent project is along that line.
This tablet originally had 2 GB of PCDDR3 RAM and 32 GB of eMMC storage, which is running at 32 bits. This is a pretty underwhelming tablet, but it's got a nice screen and unless you're trying to do a whole lot on it actually runs pretty well.
I'm mostly a hardware guy so the first thing I did was promptly upgrade the eMMC to 256 GB, and increase the RAM from 2 GB to 4 GB (the extra 2gb of RAM not being recognized because the initialization is hard coded in the device, although it still runs fine recognizing 2gb of the 4gb of RAM). I also replaced the stock SoC (which had several blown e-fuses related to secure boot) with a faster version of the same SoC, which is bone stock with no blown fuses.
What I didn't know was that the software that comes with this device is a bastardized version of Android 8.1 and it just sucks. For me, rooting the tablet wasn't all that difficult, so it works just not as well as it could, but fixing the boot loaders and such has proven to be beyond my ability. The possibility of using bootloaders or a preloader from another device seems remote since this device uses DDR3L (PCDDR3) rather than the more common LPDDR3 most devices of this class use, so substitute preloaders simply fail at the RAM initialization process. (Although there are several devices that have virtually identical hardware on the market with firmware available).
This is a nice little tablet I just want it to have better performance. I decrypted the user partition and saw a huge increase in performance. Overall I would like to take all of the encryption, secure boot, anything like that off of this version of Android, and if possible create a TWRP style recovery. Not only does it not need to be secure, I don't want it secure, I wanted as open and easy to operate as possible with lots of flash and recovery options.
So, what I would like are two things.
1.) Preloader, bootloader's, and LK, LK2 for the Android 8.1 software I have. (These must allow the tablet to boot properly, and recognize all 4 gigabytes of RAM that are installed, and have the secure Boot and encryption removed from the boot process.)
2.) New recovery console (TWRP or Orange Fox style if possible) that has more options than the reboot and power off that is in the current recovery console.
I don't have any problem paying someone for their time, provided they can succeed at the task, and their price is reasonable.
I just want it done right, and doing it right has proven to be beyond my own abilities. The hardware is right, I just need the software done. I can flash any software you provided and give you TTL boot logs provided it gets far enough in the boot sequence for the UART to provide anything useful. I can also provide hardware profiles and copies of the present working (secure boot) software images. I could also provide you with an actual device but that seems unnecessary since I can flash and test rather quickly.
Please message me and let me know if you'd like to attempt this project.
(Please take note that after this is done it's my intention to hire a developer to develop a 64-bit version of Android 9 or higher for this specific tablet. It's not included in this job because it will take longer, but it is a job that I intend to hire somebody to do after this job is finished.)