View Single Post
  #40   Report Post  
Posted to sci.electronics.repair
Bruce Esquibel[_2_] Bruce Esquibel[_2_] is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 133
Default Another stupid question

wrote:

I really wouldn't know, I've been using DirecTV for over a decade and
the last cable box I had didn't have a USB port. I CAN make several
intelligent guesses, however.


A possible use is it allows the cable company to provide (and charge
for) a 'premium' service that allows recording shows onto an extenal
hard drive.


I doubt this one, even the non-dvr models have it.

A less likely one is that it is to allow a firmware upgrade,
diagnostic, or similar function that the cable provider does not want
to perform over the cable.


This is more likely to me though.

Actually it's probably how it was loaded with the firmware from the factory.

The original Apple TV had one (well so does the newer ATV2 but a micro one)
that was disabled. That model had an internal drive and ones logic would be
that the port was for external storage, but after it was jailbroken, there
wasn't anything in the os at all relating to the usb function.

Later on it was discovered the port was polled at boot and one could use a
common usb thumb drive to boot from.

My impression is, those things were made blank as a fart off the assembly
line and somewhere before it was put into a box, a usb cable was jacked in
and gave it life, the firmware, the os image on the hard drive, then
probably a quick self-test.

So I'm saying it was a real time saver with manufacturing the thing, after
that, was intended to become a unused port.

I think the non-dvr Motorola cable boxes are the same, the usb port was used
to load the initial firmware/configuration and that was it.

-bruce