Hello Lynne and the list,
"Mrs. Lynnette Annabel Smith" writes:
>Our Sky Digital box also has a lot of
> connectivity options which are, we think, disabled currently. For
> instance, there are 2 type A USB connectors which we are lead to believe
> are intended to allow the use of an external hard drive; but when we
> tried one it wasn't seen. There is also a SATA connector in the same
> state, along with an RJ45 Ethernet connector.
>
> Amstrad won't provide any information on these extra connectors, neither
> will Sky. So it looks as though those are either there to future-proof
> the hardware or else they are used by different digital satellite
> providers with their own firmware.
That sounds quite plausible. The hardware platform for that box is
probably sold all over the world to lots of different providers
running many different versions of firmware that use some or all
of what is present in the hardware. If they don't have drivers
for the USB ports, for instance, the only thing you might
possibly get out of them is 5 volts to charge your iPhones or
whatever you want to charge. The data lines aren't read or
written to by the processor as there is no code that is even
aware there is a USB port.
It is also possible that this usb port is very special
and used by service technicians to attach a keyboard or test
equipment or that it comes to life when the system is reset and
could be used for firmware upgrades if they need to modify the
system in any way.
> Oh, and I forgot to mention that
> there's also an RJ11 telephone line input. But for reasons of
> practicality and also because I don't trust Sky not to use my box to make
> telephone calls at my expense, (as happened a few years back here in the
> UK), I refuse to entertain the Sky demands that the box be connected to a
> telephone line.
I believe something like that happened here, also. It
was in the days of dial-up modems and a bunch of customers of
one of the big ISP's of the eighties or nineties were shipped
installation software that dialed up a toll call
for them instead of the toll-free call they thought they were
making.
Talk about a howling mob out for someone's head! I don't
remember how that got straightened out, but one must always be
aware of what your system is communicating whenever possible.
Martin
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